7-7-07 is lucky day for weddings

WASHINGTON – It’s unclear whether July 7, 2007, will be the luckiest wedding day of the century, but it will certainly be one of the busiest this year.

Hotels, wedding planners, caterers, florists and bakers are scrambling to accommodate the flood of couples rushing to the altar on 7/7/07. They’re juggling more events than usual. Some are hiring extra help. Old hands say the crush will exceed the number of millennium marriages or those celebrated on a typical Valentine’s Day.

There are no official numbers for this day. But one indicator is TheKnot.com, a popular wedding Web site. More than 38,000 couples in TheKnot.com’s registry are planning to wed next Saturday – more than triple the average number of couples that signed up to marry on Saturdays in July 2006.

The date is popular for many reasons, as seven is considered an auspicious number in a variety of cultures.

In the Orthodox Jewish tradition, the bride circles the groom seven times when she arrives at the chuppah, a canopy used in weddings. Seven candles are lit during Kwanzaa. There are seven wonders of the world. The Big Dipper is formed from seven stars. Buddha is said to have walked seven steps upon his birth. The Islamic tradition involves seven levels of heaven. There are seven deadly sins, as well as virtues, in some Christian traditions. And gamblers hit the jackpot with the slot machine combination 7-7-7.

Las Vegas, the land of economical and impromptu weddings, is particularly hectic. Travel Web site Vegas.com is booking about six times as many hotel rooms as normal for that weekend. Some hotels and casinos are touting “lucky” deals, such as a chance to win a $777 meal and a mass wedding at 7 p.m.