Brides and grooms across the UK are staging a romantic rush to tie the knot on the most memorable date of the year.....10-10-10.

All around the world, the attraction of saying 'I do' on an unforgettable date has sparked a massive rush by couples to organise their big day for the 10th day of the 10th month of the 10th year of the century.

More than 31,000 romantic couples are to get hitched this Sunday as the unique date proves to be the hottest day for a wedding this year.

Registry offices and churches have been booked up for months. Manchester's 163-year-old register office is opening on a Sunday for only the third time in its history so that six couples can get hitched.

And at Gretna Green, Scotland's famous wedding capital, a total of 38 weddings are due to take place compared to the average 10 for a typical Sunday in October.

In Nottinghamshire, seven couples will be saying their vows in a series of Las Vegas-style ceremonies at their local pub.

According to Brides magazine, at least 31,050 couples will be getting married this Sunday - almost twice the number of weddings on any other day during the month, and 10 times as many on a 'normal' Sunday.

The dash to mark the special day with a wedding is not confined to the UK.

Thousands of couples from Las Vegas to Singapore are also joining in the celebration of the auspicious date. In Singapore, a record 774 couples are planning to marry, compared to 70 on a normal Sunday.

Benefitting from the phenomenon that occurs only 12 times every 1,000 years, are hotels, whose ballroom schedules and honeymoon suite reservations are booked up, as well as airlines, whose passenger seats will be full of newly-married couples heading off to their honeymoon destinations.

The next most favouredwedding dates are 11-11-11 and 12-12-12, and after those dates any triple digit dates will not happen again until the year 3001.

(Read by Lee Hannon. Lee Hannon is a journalist at the China Daily Web site.)

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(Agencies)