Overseas option has growing appeal for Chinese

Now, Europe, the United States, Australia and New Zealand are becoming more popular, he says.

"Because we specialize in customized overseas travel, more and more wedding-planning companies with overseas weddings to arrange are looking to work with us. However, outside China we don't work with foreign wedding companies. We have our own local resources, such as close connections to local florists, and to the owners of castles, chateaux and the like."

Unlike with wedding planning companies, Lei says, his customers wanting overseas weddings tend to be couples who plan to do the ceremony unaccompanied with relatives or friends, or at the most just their parents and a handful of friends.

An overseas wedding ceremony can be just one element of a couple's longer travel plans, such as a pre-honeymoon holiday, having exotic wedding photos taken and videos filmed for the wedding proper at home, Lei says.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs says that about 13 million couples married last year; 9.8 million married in the first half of this year, equating to an average of a little more than 54,000 marriages every day.

Experts say the Chinese wedding celebrations market is booming, and almost any taste or demand that couples have relating to a ceremony can be satisfied.

Those overseas who work with Lei are very supportive, he says.

"They are casting their eyes over the growing demand of the Chinese wedding business. Some local tourism bureaus have invited us Chinese wedding industry insiders to do research tours to promote what they have."

Domestically, it is not only wedding planning companies that are cashing in on this demand for a taste of the exotic. Travel agencies are beginning to market package holidays with a wedding theme that cater to between two and six people.