COUPLES across the country tempted fate yesterday by getting married on the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the century, believing it would bring them good luck.

Register offices and churches had been booked up for months by superstitious couples hoping to give their nuptials a boost.

Laura Curphey, 23, was marrying her fiancé Chris Daulby, 25, a keen football fan, at Anfield, Liverpool football club’s ground.

“We were looking at dates in 2007 and seven is a lucky number for me and and then we noticed that the seventh of July was on a Saturday, so we just thought ‘bingo!’ ” said Curphey.

She believes the special date has already boosted the couple’s chances of a happy marriage. “Obviously he won’t forget our wedding anniversary because it’s such a memorable date,” she said.

From the Japan’s Seven Deities of Good Fortune to the seven days of creation in the Bible, the number has been bestowed over the centuries with talismanic powers.

It is used for the winning line on jackpots and is a treasured number in football, with the Manchester United stars David Beckham, George Best and Eric Cantona all associated with the lucky shirt.

So why is seven considered so lucky? Some suggest it might derive from the ancient belief that there were only seven planets. Jack Fertig, a Californian astrologer, said: “It’s the pre-Copernicus model of seven planets and seven heavens and this sense of everything being completed in seven days.”

While in Britain the anniversary of July 7 will always be remembered for the 52 people murdered in the London bombings of 2005, couples getting married yesterday said they considered the number had given their special day an extra cachet.

Heather Savory, a 44-year-old civil servant from Wimbledon, south London, married Dean Cox, a 45-year-old policeman. “We just thought it was an auspicious date,” she said.

Thirty couples tied the knot in Westminster, a 40% increase on a typical July Saturday. Alison Cath-cart, superintendent registrar for the London borough, said: “We could have booked the register office four times over . . . we’ve had to turn a lot of people away.”

Rob Grey, superintendent registrar of Newcastle upon Tyne, said his office was fully booked for July 7 by the end of last year. “We’ve probably turned away 30 couples,” he said.

Sassi Holford, a wedding dress designer whose bespoke outfits cost several thousand pounds, said that getting dresses ready had been a “white knuckle ride”. She said: “It’s nearly killed me – it’s a real bottleneck. I’ve been in the business 26 years and it’s one of the biggest bottleneck days I’ve had to work to.”

Rob Van Helden, an upmarket florist who has provided blooms for royal weddings and for Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara Ball, was unable to take advantage of the unusual demand for flowers because he himself was tying the knot on the seventh.

Van Helden, 44, yesterday married his 37-year-old partner Sebastien Barbereau - the bar manager at Nobu restaurant in London’s Park Lane - in a civil ceremony at Claridge’s hotel in Mayfair. “It’s a very, very popular date,” he said. “Seven is my lucky number and we’ve been together seven years.”

Even the celebrities have got lucky seven fever. Eva Longoria, star of the television series Desperate Housewives, yesterday married her fiancé Tony Parker, a professional basketball player, at a church in central Paris.

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