During this May Day holiday "golden week," many couples in Beijing strode into the marriage temple.

DIY weddings were particularly popular among the newly-weds. They were unwilling to have a wedding service company arrange a plain, commonplace and stereotyped wedding ceremony for them but consider only a "do it yourself" wedding could satisfy their appetite.

Li Jinglei and Shi Lin were one of the couples who held such a view. After eight years of dating, they decided to get married. One week earlier, their friends received western-style white invitation cards to their wedding designed by the groom Shi Lin, while guests of their parents received Chinese-style red invitation cards. The sugar pockets for the wedding were needlework of the bride on three evenings.

On their wedding, friends and relatives greeted the couple with cold "fireworks" in hands along the corridor outside the wedding banquet hall. On the corridor were scattered white shells collected by the couple by the sea. The "waterfall-style" bouquet held by the bride and the decorative flowers on the archway and the altar were finished by her friends with roses and lilies purchased from a flower market.

At the wedding banquet, this new couple played an eight-minute flash clip directed and produced by themselves and share their sweet memories with their guests. After they made a unique commitment, their pet dog carried the rings in its mouth to the altar and helped finish the ceremony.

Owing to the vogue of DIY weddings, some wedding service companies in Beijing initiated similar special services and some private studios providing individualized wedding services also opened one after another.

At the same time, companies offering traditional wedding services also witnessed booming businesses. Before the May Day holiday, wedding banquets, high-caliber wedding sedans and wedding ceremony hosts in Beijing's major hotels and restaurants have been fully reserved. Statistics showed that since many couples chose to hold their wedding ceremonies during this "golden week", the price level of wedding services increased consequently, and the cost of a wedding ceremony rose about 20% in Beijing this year.
 
Editor: Yan