A newly married couple outside the marriage registration office in Beijing's Chaoyang district on February 14, 2023. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Multiple cities in China have seen a marriage registration peak on the Valentine's Day following China relaxing COVID-19 restrictions last December.

To welcome nearly 200 couples who have made registration reservations, the local marriage registration office in Beijing's Dongcheng district opened ahead of time in the morning and added extra registration windows.

According to the civil affair department in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, there were 4,330 couples finalizing marriage registration across the province on Tuesday with 1,012 couples registering in the city of Chengdu alone. 

Chengdu and Beijing were also among the top five cities with the largest flower sales volume on the Valentine's Day. Data from Chinese food delivery giant Meituan showed as of Monday, the flower sales volume in 2023 was already 313 percent higher than in 2022.

In the city of Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province, more than 1,200 couples had made online registrations in local marriage registration offices in the districts of Xiaoshan, Xihu, Shangcheng, Linping and Qian, reaching the highest daily number since 2020.

According to annual marriage data for 2022 from civil affairs authorities in East China's Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, the number of marriage registrations hit a new high in Hangzhou, while the average age of marriage has risen to 30 in many cities.