As the curtain fell, the melody of Elgar's Salut d'amour filled the air and Zhu Jiang and Yang Nan appeared on the stage.

With candlelight shimmering and rose petals falling, the couple hugged and kissed. With hands clasped and tears filling their eyes, they vowed to love each other forever.

In front of the stage, media from around the country captured every detail of the wedding with photo flashes sparkling around the room. It was a perfect wedding, beyond what Zhu and Yang had ever imagined. They were chosen to perform in shows at the International Wedding Expo held last weekend in Beijing. Then they got the bright idea to hold their own wedding as part of their show, with 100 media witnesses.

They are just one of many new couples who dream of romantic weddings. With spring approaching, a flood of weddings again sweeps across China. This year it turns much wilder - couples have to queue for hours to register and almost all churches and big hotels have been overbooked on red letter days.

Since 2005 was said to be a "widow year" and not fit for marriage according to a Chinese traditional saying, many couples chose to wait until 2006 to marry. Just in Beijing, it is estimated that there will be about 120,000 couples getting married this year. The wedding costs will total more than 3 billion yuan (US$370 million).

Instead of a traditional, stereotyped wedding, more new couples are planning different, original ceremonies to celebrate their most important moment. Besides the church wedding and meadow wedding popular during the past two years, adventuresome weddings like underwater weddings, sky weddings and boat weddings are the new trend. New couples either dive into the water, fly the mini glider or row on lakes to exchange their vows. With the popular broadcasting of Korean and Japan teleplays in China, many even try the Korean style or Japanese style weddings. And as marriages between different nationalities keep rising, weddings have strong local features, like Manchu weddings, Mongolian weddings or Islamic weddings.

"Only two years before, new couples didn't pay much attention to the food and cars in the ceremony, " said Shi Kangning, general secretary of the committee of the Wedding Service Industry, "but now they focus on the building of a romantic atmosphere for their wedding. This is especially the situation among couples with high income and high educational backgrounds. They are the main consumers of those innovative weddings.

And many new couples don't care about the high cost. Chen Yong and Li Fei recently booked a special butterfly wedding. The couple will set free hundreds of butterflies during their ceremony. The guests will witness and enjoy the moment. They paid 15,000 yuan (US$1,807) for this, but the couple said "since a wedding is only once in one's life, it is worthwhile to make it unforgettable. "

"The cost is an average price," said Cai Ming, an experienced wedding designer. She said she had been asked to design a unique wedding and the couples paid 50,000 yuan (US$6,024) for it. "Even couples with average incomes would like to pay a few thousand yuan to have a special wedding," she added.

The strong desire stimulates new professions like wedding designers and wedding supervisors.

Zhao Mingzhao was one of the first to be qualified with a wedding supervision certificate in 2004. "As weddings cannot be repeated nor rehearsed, many couples are so nervous that they need the help from professionals."

Like a film director, he takes care of the light, music and the co-operation of different people in the ceremony. "As weddings are more and more complicated and innovative, there are always accidents. My important role is to prevent and deal with such accidents," he smiled. For instance, many new couples are too nervous and forget their oaths or rings, naughty kids may destroy the gifts and sound boxes may suddenly break down. A wedding supervisor will effectively solve such problems.

(China Daily 03/10/2006 page6)