Overseas option has growing appeal for Chinese

However, Pan of Mocha Wedding says these holidays "are not so much a wedding as family travel".

For her company, an overseas wedding usually involves 30 to 80 guests, she says.

Usually the guests will be away for about three days, arriving a day before the ceremony, attending the ceremony and reception the next day, and then taking in a bit of travel the next day before heading home.

The marrying couple arrives several days earlier to make arrangements and may stay two more days for wedding photos and some travel as well, she says.

The cost of a wedding abroad is not necessarily that much more than a wedding in China. It costs between 6,900 ($1,085) and 8,000 yuan for a table of 10 at a wedding banquet in an up-market hotel in Beijing, whereas something comparable overseas can cost less than half that, Pan says.

Pan Zhenyu has built a reputation for herself as an expert in the wedding planning market and has created China's first talk-show program in wedding planning called Yu Yan. She also trains those in the industry.

In Beijing it would cost between 20,000 yuan and 30,000 yuan to rent a lawn for an outdoor wedding attended by 120 people, she says, an expense that would be saved if a wedding was held on many islands overseas.