INS Land nightclub has partnered with Shanghai’s Huangpu District Civil Affairs Bureau to offer marriage registration and appointments for prospective couples starting Friday, November 14.
Husbands and wives-to-be can now hold either a wedding ceremony if they have already registered or book a registration appointment in the club. This can be done via INS Land or an online government portal.
Marriages still must be registered officially at the bureau, however, the office clarified.
A lucky couple are also in for the chance to win tickets to Tomorrowland’s indoor electronic dance music event to be held in Shanghai.
First comes marriage….
The move comes after China relaxed its wedding laws in May, aiming to alleviate declining marriage rates and its rapidly ageing population.
Until May, Chinese couples were restricted to registering in their place of residence – now local governments are betting on a wedding tourism boom.
Wedding packages in Confucius temples in Nanjing, to mountain tops in Chengu, to a subway station in Hefei are just some of the venues now on offer.
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…then comes the baby?
The central government, however, will mostly be eyeing a baby boom.
2024 saw a 20.5% decline in marriage registrations in China, down to just 6.1 million in a country of over 1 billion.
Even after years of decline, this was the steepest drop seen so far, and deepened the worry for policy planners who use marriage as a proxy for future birth rates.
China already has one of the world’s lowest birth rates due to its infamous one-child policy, and its population is rapidly ageing.
The easing of marriage rules may have had some effect, however.
Weddings across China climbed 22.5% year-on-year earlier to 1.61 million in the third quarter of 2025. Whether this will translate to an uplift in birth rates is yet to be seen.
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