Let’s play a quick game. What date do you think was the most popular day in recent history to get married? Think about it for a moment before reading on. Did you think of the millennium? It was popular but not number one. Did you think of Christmas? It is always a popular day but not even close to the top. What if I told you the year, would that make it easier? In 2007 one particular day has held the most weddings ever recorded. Have you figured it out yet? What if I told you that it was during the month of July? Still no? The SEVENTH of July! You have surely figured it out by now. The 7/7/07 was the luckiest day in the world and so many people felt it was the perfect day to get married.
7 is a lucky number in most cultures. This tends to come from religious beliefs. In the bible, seven is seen again and again as an auspicious number. It took God seven days (although he rested on the last one) to create the world, there were seven psalms in the book of David, the book of Revelation mentions seven churches as well as seven seals, seven angels, seven plagues, seven thunders and much much more. Seven appears to matter. This means that seven is important to those of both Christian and Jewish faith. At a Jewish wedding, it is custom for the bride to circle the groom seven times and for the happy couple to eat celebratory meals for seven days.
This religious belief has found its way into other aspects of culture. Seven is simply considered a lucky number by most people today and 777 is considered the luckiest of all. There are casinos named 777, there are slot machines that are entirely based on trying to get three 7s to show up to win big. Blackjack is about reaching the number 21 which 7 + 7 + 7. The list goes on. In every survey, the world has done on lucky numbers seven always comes up top. In some Chinese cultures, seven is considered unlucky because in Mandarin it is considered the ghost month. However, in other Chinese cultures, it is considered even and good for couples.
Clearly, people love seven so when the perfect date showed up on the calendar everyone wanted to make it their special day. The biggest celebrities in the world at the time were all quick to jump on the buzz. Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives married the San Antonio Spurs player Tony Parker. Wolfgang Puck the celebrity chef also chose it as his special day. As well them there were thousands of people around the world choosing to get married on that day. There is a website called The Knot where people can notify others of their wedding. On any typical Saturday, there are 12,000 weddings there but on this Saturday there was just under 40,000.
Many people wanted to get married on this day because of their religious beliefs. Many more people wanted to get married on this day because they believed in luck and wanted to give their marriage every extra chance of being a success. Las Vegas was the location that saw the greatest increase as so many people want to incorporate a wedding and a casino into the luckiest day of their lives. Records of weddings completed in a day were broken in most venues and numerous hotels organized massive competitions and giveaways.
While 8/08/2008 was a big date in the Chinese calendar it didn’t eclipse 7/07/2007 as the greatest day for weddings of all time. We will now have to wait a long time for another auspicious day to roll around.
