According to the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, 4,883 couples were registered for marriage on Wednesday, a record for the year.

"The number we had was more than the amount we usually get in a month," said Liu Mingxia, director of marriage management for the city's Huangpu district.

A picture taken on Wednesday in Paris shows a watch on a person's wrist reading the time "12:12" and the date "12-12-12" in front of a digital clock reading "Dec 12, 2012". [Photo/Agencies]

Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, saw 2,410 lovebirds tie the knot by 4 pm, including 21 with a foreign bride or groom, authorities said. The number was 1,800 more than on Valentine's Day this year.

About 2,000 couples obtained marriage registration certificates on Wednesday in Changchun, capital of Jilin province, Xinhua News Agency reported.

In Beijing, more than 4,200 couples made online reservations to register on Wednesday, four times the number for an ordinary day.

Similar scenes occurred in Hong Kong (696 couples married) and Singapore (540). Hong Kong's five marriage registries were packed with hundreds of people taking photos of brides and grooms in full wedding regalia.

"There won't be a 13/13/13," 34-year-old groom Raymond Ip told AFP, adding that he had booked the day six months in advance.

However, the surge created a bottleneck for civil servants working behind the counters.

Chen Ru, director of Haidian's marriage registration office, said her colleagues started work at 7 am, two hours earlier than usual.

"Ordinarily, we open 10 service windows. Today we opened 15," Chen said.

Younger Chinese are more picky about marriage registration dates than previous generations.

Valentine's Day, Oct 10, 2010 - 10/10/10 - and Nov 11, 2011 - 11/11/11 - have also been among the popular dates in recent years.

But there may be another date coming soon for romantics. Couples are expected to flock to marriage registration offices on Jan 4, 2013, which sounds similar to "love you forever" in Chinese.

"We really hope people don't jump on the bandwagon," added Chen in Haidian. "If you're really in love, every day is a good day to make it official."

Contact the writers at hedan@chinadaily.com.cn

Zhang Yi in Shanghai and Zheng Jinran in Beijing contributed to this story.