Luckiest day to get married

David Batson had considered a long engagement to his Chinese fiancee, but the lure of being married on the luckiest day of the year ultimately proved too much to resist.Mr Batson and Wang Peihua will tie the knot at Wollongong's NSW Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages this morning in front of a congregation of 10 - with paparazzi waiting outside.The pair has attracted media attention for being one of a record 92 couples in NSW who will marry today to take advantage of the 08-08-08 configuration, considered to be one of the most auspicious dates on the calendar by the Chinese.It has made today one of the busiest days for marriages in the history of the NSW Registry, which dates back to 1856.Mr Batson, 27, who grew up at Unanderra, met 28-year-old Ms Wang during a holiday in her home city of Beijing last October."Friends of mine over here set me up with friends of theirs over there, one of whom was Peihua, and it all happened from there," he said.The couple has enjoyed a long-distance relationship ever since, travelling back and forth while studying each other's language."We've had Peihua over here for a holiday for the last couple of months," Mr Batson said."The idea was if she liked the place and wanted to stay we would arrange for some sort of fiancee visa," he explained."But then the date 08-08-08 came up and we decided to get married instead."We're being a bit non-traditional (for the wedding), having the Asian culture blended with the Aussie culture. Peihua will wear a skirt suit in the morning and will get all geared up in the white wedding dress for an Asian-style wedding reception tomorrow night."The couple will honeymoon in Thailand, Hong Kong and southern China."We'll be avoiding Beijing, since it's a bit busy at the moment," Mr Batson said.The couple will settle in Sydney, where Mr Batson works for a software company in the health care industry.