Weddings are so important in China that couples are willing to fork out about 20 times their monthly income on getting hitched¹ and everything that comes with it.

China's newly-weds in urban areas spend 126,600 yuan (16,600 U.S. dollars) on average in 2006 when getting hitched, Thursday's Chongqing Youth Daily reported, citing a recent survey by the Ministry² of Commerce.

An analysis of 60,000 couples living in cities showed that about 64 percent of the spending went on apartment decoration, furniture and household appliances and the rest was spent on the wedding, such as the ceremony, photography, wedding dresses and feast.

The survey said the wedding expenditure³ was only a small share of the overall marriage cost as most Chinese young couples in the cities tended to buy an apartment and a car before tying the knot.

The survey said that about 81.6 percent of the newly-weds admitted that they had got financial support from parents as their monthly income on average was only about 6,240 yuan.

The survey also showed that about 88.4 percent of the newly-weds chose having wedding photography as a priority and 78.74 chose hosting a wedding banquet.

In contrast, young couples in rural areas spent about 40,000 yuan on average on marriage-related issues, less than one third of their city peers, according to the report.

About 8.49 million couples got married in China in 2006.

结婚在中国是件大事，因此，中国的新人们不惜花费约相当于月收入20倍的“重金”来置办婚礼。

据《重庆青年报》上周四消息，商务部近日的一项调查显示，2006年，中国城镇地区新人的结婚开支平均为12.66万元。

通过对城镇地区6万对新人的调查发现，约64%的结婚费用花在装修新房、购置家具和家用电器上，其余的则花在举办婚礼上，如婚礼策划、婚纱照、婚纱礼服及喜宴等。

调查显示，婚礼支出只是结婚总花销的一小部分，因为城市地区的大多数新人在结婚前还要买房买车。

约81.6%的新人坦称得到了父母的财力支持。据调查，这些新人的平均月收入仅为6240元。

此外，约88.4％的新人认为拍婚纱照最重要，78.74％的新人则首选办喜宴。

而农村地区新人的平均结婚费用约为四万元，不到城市地区的三分之一。

2006年我国登记结婚人数约为849万对。