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Hong Kong – The number of Hong Kong couples planning to marry on 12/12/12 — seen as a fairly fortunate date by feng shui masters — has shrunk compared to the more auspicious 11/11/11 last year, reports said Monday.

Dates like 10/10/10 or 11/11/11 have traditionally seen couples flock to tie the knot. But some Chinese feng shui masters said December 12 this year, which is seen as signifying “love”, was not ideal for nuptials.

Hong Kong’s marriage registry has received only 696 notifications from couples planning to get married on Wednesday, a spokesman from the immigration department — which oversees the registry — told AFP.

This was a sharp fall from 1,002 weddings on November 11 last year, which signified “eternal love”, and 859 weddings on October 10, 2010 which represented “perfection”.

Feng shui is an ancient Chinese belief that seeks to channel good and bad psychic energy through the arrangement of furniture and ornaments. It also determines auspicious dates.

Feng shui master Sammy Au was quoted in The Standard newspaper as saying that the triple 12 date is not perfect for marriage and rated it as just a “comparatively lucky day”.

Au picked December 18 and 31 as better dates.

A few couples who nevertheless plumped for 12/12 said their main reason is to tie the knot before December 21, which some doomsayers believe could be the date the world ends.

“I want to be with her before the end of the world,” a groom-to-be who was only identified as Leung told the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper.

Other Internet doomsayers have picked 12/12/12 as the date for the world’s end — further complicating marriage plans for the superstitious.