Chinese netizens mesmerised by Tibetan couple's exotic wedding photos

A Tibetan couple's wedding photos have taken China's online community by storm, with many Chinese users gushing over the alluring backdrops and the pair's good looks.

Some of the pictures would not have looked out of place in a fashion spread, showing the couple - Mr Gerong Phuntsok and Ms Dawa Drolma - enjoying a cuppa in a hipster cafe or at an amusement park.

Other shots took the couple out of the city, with both dressed in their traditional Tibetan garb and roughing it out against the elements. In some of these glossy photographs, the Tibetan scenery looks almost like something out of a fantasy movie.

China's Xinhua news agency said the couple live in Chengdu, the capital of south-western Sichuan province. The city shots were taken in Chengdu.

The BBC reported that the photographs' contrast between modernity and Tibetan tradition has clearly struck a chord with millions of Chinese people, who shared them on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter.

One Weibo user, under the handle ganzilvyou, summed up what many others thought: "These photos have grown so popular not just because the couple is photogenic, but also because they perfectly combined tradition and fashion."

Xinhua said the images have been viewed by 80 per cent of WeChat's estimated 500 million monthly users - according to 2014 figures from technology news site Techinasia. Weibo has some 143.8 million monthly users in 2014, according to the same site.

The 31-year-old Phuntsok, who works in an advertising company, was quoted by Xinhua as saying he was surprised by the popularity of the photographs.

He said: "Maybe we represented thousands of young people from ethnic minorities, who left their hometowns to pursue a 'modern life' but chose to return to tradition after feeling a void in the heart."

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