The story of a wedding banquet in China which was organised for a woman without her knowledge by her boyfriend’s family has gone viral on mainland social media.

The unnamed woman, from Guangdong province in southern China, shared a post on social media that her boyfriend’s father had prepared a wedding banquet for the couple on Oct 1, China’s National Day.

Her boyfriend’s father paid a deposit of more than 100,000 yuan and said he would hold the party even if the couple did not show up, Feidian Video reported.

“You must come back home for the wedding party. Don’t tell me that you are not prepared,” the father said in a voice message to his son.

The man’s son and girlfriend live and work far away from their hometown and do not see the family regularly.

The father added that the family had set the wedding date, prepared invitations and paid deposits for the venue, a master of ceremonies, wedding cars and drinks.

“If you don’t come back home to get married, I will use a photo of you both instead,” the father said.

When her boyfriend heard his father’s WeChat voice message, he replied with a “tears of laughter” emoji.

The report did not mention the couple’s feelings about the surprise wedding other than the woman asking: “Shall we get married?” in a post on social media.

At the time of writing, a news story on Weibo about the nuptials had received more than 1.14 million views and many comments.

One person said: “Isn’t this scary? I would quickly run away from this family if I were the woman.”

“Oh my God, the father is so suffocating,” said another online observer.

Parents pressuring their children into marriage remains commonplace in China as traditionally, it has been considered vitally important for young people to wed and produce offspring as soon as possible.

In May, a father in China urged his 25-year-old daughter to think about marriage prospects before studying for a master’s degree, igniting a widespread online discussion.

Also, at the beginning of this year, a mother in central China took her 38-year-old son to a local psychiatric hospital for a check-up because he was single.

According to the China Statistics Yearbook 2022, the number of people getting married for the first time dropped to 11.6 million last year, almost 700,000 fewer than in the previous year.

 - scmp