A month may seem like an unusually long pause between wedding photos and wedding party.
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But when you are scheduling your nuptials around two of the most auspicious dates in the Chinese calendar - including the good fortune of being married on the eighth day of the eighth month - it pays to have a bit of patience.
Indonesian-Chinese couple Hermawan, 25, and Juliana Wuisan, 28, scheduled their wedding photo shoot for Saturday's day of August 8 - ahead of their ceremony on the ninth day of the ninth month - to mark two dates they have chosen to symbolise the longevity of their impending marriage.
"In the Chinese tradition, eight is a special number because it's an infinity shape, meaning good fortune," Hermawan said.
But the month long delay is being caused by another date:
"The number nine sounds like another word in Chinese meaning 'long time'. [We're hoping] the two dates mean we'll be living together for a long time.
"Since we're getting married, our parents are also considering the proper Chinese tradition [to choose the right date]," he said.
"Since we're living in Sydney, we're going to have a mix of traditional Chinese culture and Western culture at the wedding ceremony.
"People are looking forward to doing big things on the 8th or 9th, like moving houses or getting engaged or married."
The young couple were not alone in expecting good luck from a fortunate date. There are more than 800 auctions on this Saturday, which is the luckiest Saturday auction day in six years - the last time the date of August 8 fell on a Saturday.
The agent for 8/8 Freeman Place in Carlingford, Century 21 agent David Kim, expected the alignment of numbers to result in some good fortune for his vendors.
"In this area, most of the buyers are Chinese, and there's no doubt this is a lucky day for Chinese people," he said.
"When I have opened this property for inspection, I say 'If you do buy this property on that day, it should be good luck for you'."
Kim is Korean – so the four eights in his mobile number are just "because it's easy to remember" – but he's well aware that the number eight (ba in Mandarin) sounds similar to the word for wealth (fa). So home hunters consider the date – and the address – significant.
