When Joyce Lam took Koji Kobayashi to meet her parents in Hong Kong in January 2008, they reminded her that, as the Year of the Golden Pig, 2007 was the most auspicious year to tie the knot in 60 years.

Hearing this, Lam and Kobayashi decided to speed things up. Although Kobayashi had proposed to her already in December 2007 and Lam had accepted, they had yet to file the necessary papers.

Upon returning to Tokyo, the couple quickly determined the luckiest wedding date from the few remaining before the end of the Chinese calendar year. They dropped by the local ward office and signed their papers on Feb. 6, 2008 — New Year's Eve.