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LUCKNOW: Thanks to hype and hoopla around the ’last sequential date of the century’, 11.12.13, there has been a mad rush among couples in the city to tie the knot on this ’fancy’ date. If rough estimates of wedding planners are to be believed, around 3,000 weddings will be solemnised in Lucknow on December 11, 2013.

Devesh Garg, a businessman, got married on 10.11.12, so he decided to continue with the tradition of making the best use of unique dates and this year, his brother Garvit will take the vows on 11.12.13. "If someone gets married on a fancy date, it makes the day more special and memorable," said Garg. He added that they had decided the wedding date much in advance and had done the booking accordingly.

Manu Bhatia, a private executive, zeroed in on this date as it sounded exciting. "Co-incidentally, the name of my fiancee is also Manu and our marriage will be ’Manu weds Manu.’ The unique wedding date will be another attraction of our marriage," said Bhatia. "Anticipating heavy rush on this date, many wedding decorators, lighting and band groups have increased their prices by nearly 40%, but we are happily paying the premium," he added.

With a large number of couples queued up at the office of wedding decorators to hire them for arrangements on this sequential date, most hotels, resorts and marriage halls/grounds of Lucknow are booked well in advance. Those who realised lately this date’s significance, faced a tough time while finalising the marriage venue. Madhuri Tewari whose daughter would also wed on this day, said, "We were trying to book the lawn for marriage since Diwali 2012, but all the major venues are already booked for the special date. Finally, we were left with no choice but to select a lawn we least preferred."

As the city got hooked to the date, owners of marriage venues were swarmed with requests of booking. Assistant manger, sales and marketing department of a hotel in Parivartan Chowk, PL Gupta, said, "Our hotel has a capacity of four marriages at a time and all are booked for 11.12.13." Caterer and wedding planner Kamal Sachdeva said, "We had to decline more than 20 clients as we are over-booked. I have heard unable to find another venue some people have booked private bungalows for marriage."

Some wedding decorators had to outsource labourers from neighbouring states to meet the sudden rise in demand. Ram Kumar Azad, proprietor of a popular musical band in the city, said he had to call up three additional band groups from other states to increase the strength of his team. "Our band now comprises both local and outsourced members. Because of the spurt in demand, we had to invite musicians from outside, therefore, increased our rates for this particular date," Azad said.

Though tying nuptial knots on special date sequences has always been a favourite trend in the city for past many years, this time the frenzy has catapulted to a new height with enormous number of weddings on December 11 this year.

"This year, even the muharat (auspicious time) for weddings is 11.12.13. Last year, the date 12.12.12 was not such a big draw as there was no muharat. Besides, such a special date will not be available 2014 onwards, so people do not want to miss the bus," said Pandit Mangloo Padha. The next sequence will now occur on 01.01.2101 and that is another century away.