Unstoppable: China couple forge ahead with wedding despite floods, use boat, fire engine

The deluge began just as the wedding participants were about to get the celebrations started. Photo: Douyin

• Fire engine takes 20 minutes to drive 20km to get bride to her groom as boats deployed for ceremony

A couple in China were so determined their wedding would go ahead despite severe flooding, that they used a boat and a fire engine as transport.

They planned to hold their ceremony in their hometown of Guilin in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on the morning of June 19.

Then came the heaviest rainfall since 1998, and as the bride was on her way to the wedding, the area began to flood.

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Video footage taken by locals show the bride's father and the groom pushing a home-made boat as the bride sits inside holding an umbrella.

"It is the first time I saw a bride going to her wedding on a boat," an observer told the mainland news outlet Jingshizhibo.

The bride, whose name was not revealed, said the water level reached people's chests, but they had to carry on with the wedding because "everything had been planned".

In China, especially rural areas where traditional values remain strong, people believe weddings must be held on auspicious dates. They believe changing those dates might bring bad luck.

Also, newlyweds do not like to inconvenience their guests, some of whom might have travelled a long distance to attend their wedding.

The bride had been to a nearby county for her makeup, and was on her way back home in a friend's car, which got caught in the sudden flooding.

They met a group of firefighters and asked for their help to get back to their town. It took the fire engine 20 minutes to drive the 20-kilometre distance.

The groom then borrowed a home-made boat from his friend and used it to transport his new wife. His father-in-law helped him push the boat for two kilometres through the waterlogged roads.

The bride said it was an "unforgettable" experience.

"I am impressed by how strong their will is to get married," an online observer wrote on Douyin.

"Her wedding vehicles look much cooler than luxury cars," another said.

"They have literally 'crossed the water in the same boat'," a third said, referring to a Chinese idiom that means "pulling together in times of trouble".

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

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