Shenzhen remained the most expensive city on the Chinese mainland in which to hold a wedding and also to live as a married couple, according to Guangdong Satellite Television. With the cost of weddings alone often exceeding RMB2 million, it pushed Beijing into second and kept Guangzhou down in fourth.

The statistics take into account the cost of an apartment. An 80 square meter apartment in Shenzhen currently costs an average of 1.78 million yuan, according to Guangdong Satellite Television. It costs another 150,000 yuan to furnish and maintain the apartment.

Before the wedding, dating is estimated to cost over 1,500 yuan a month, including travelling, buying presents and other activities, meaning that being in a two year relationship would cost over RMB2 million.

As for the wedding itself, food and booze cost an average of around RMB50,000. The honeymoon, even to a relatively cheap location, costs around RMB12,000. A car costs at least RMB100,000.

Outfits and make-up, the cost of the room for the wedding reception, and transportation to and from the location of the reception, are also taken into account.

A wedding photographer told Guangdong Satellite Television that business has been getting better in recent years thanks to the increasing amounts of money that families are spending on weddings.

He put this down to couples deciding that a once-in-a-lifetime experience was worth forking out for, even though current urban divorce rates poke a hole in those couples’ theory.

Getting married is now estimated to be 700 times more expensive than it was in the 1970s. One couple who got married during that turbulent decade said their wedding cost around RMB700. Their clothes for the big day cost a few dozen RMB and the booze cost another few dozen.

But before you start screaming about modern excess and the youth of today, there is hope. Shenzhen Daily reported last week that a couple in Shenzhen had donated 80,000 yuan to students in impoverished areas of Guizhou Province to make their wedding day more meaningful.