Overseas option has growing appeal for Chinese

Malaysian singer Fish Leong, center, at her wedding ceremony in Boracay, Philippines. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The company organized more than 200 such weddings last year, 10 percent of them outside China, Pan says.

"There has been a big increase in the number of people inquiring about these overseas weddings, and those going ahead with them. Some couples come to us saying they want a memorable wedding overseas but have no idea of where they want to go."

Pan says that if elderly parents are to attend the wedding and there are to be many guests it is best to keep the flying time under six hours, and without transfers.

Lei Tao, co-founder of UniqueWay, a company in Beijing that specializes in planning overseas trips for people with very particular needs, says he, too, has noticed that the demand for overseas wedding trips is increasing.

"These account for only a very small portion of our business, but the number of inquiries has increased this year."

In the first half of this year, Lei, says, UniqueWay designed seven overseas weddings for Chinese couples: two in Odense, Denmark; two in Queenstown, New Zealand; two in Melbourne, Australia; and one in Okinawa, Japan.

The most popular overseas destinations for weddings among Chinese couples have been islands such as Bali and Mauritius and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, and Santorini in Greece, Lei says.