It’s been a top summer for weddings in Scotland. Trends for this year have included mismatched bridesmaids and aerial photography. But, brides, did any of you wear shorts to your own wedding? They’re all the rage in China.

Beijing brides have been registering their marriages, clad in garments ranging from slouchy Bermudas to culottes. But the head of the wedding registry office has warned of the romance-sapping power of such attire. Knees and nuptials, apparently, "will lead to divorce".

Weddings in recent history have fascinated the Chinese. For women, it’s the frocks; usually they seize any excuse to dress like a bride. There was even a trend for Chinese women to wear wedding dresses at graduation. A misunderstanding? The Dean said: "Today you will receive your bachelors", and they dressed accordingly?

And just how far would some women go to wear a wedding frock? Self-marriage? Yup. Writer Jiang Ying Yao had a wedding for one, tying the knot with herself – a feat which surely required some nimbleness. Funnily enough, she writes books about gender differences, like a Chinese version of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Of course, no one suggested her highly-publicised solo ceremony followed a downturn in her sales.

For Chinese men, novelty weddings are the thing. When the Beijing to Shanghai high-speed railway opened, some Chinese train enthusiasts convinced their brides to be married on the platform. The women didn’t look happy. "Darling, when you said I could be married with a long train, I thought you meant a head dress."

Or, in Anhui province, there was a male fantasy wedding which went viral. The groom asked his bride to wait on the roof of a tall building. He swept her off her feet onto a crane. Little boys get diggers for their birthdays. He was operating a digger for his wedding; uniquely amongst men, he might have been even happier if he’d had a gold digger as part of his nuptials.

Then there are the mass weddings. Some 200 couples were married at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Imagine the speeches.

In Taiwan, there was a mass revolution-themed wedding a few years ago. "With this ring I thee red?”

Against a background of such wedding excess, the emergence of shorts as bridal apparel is a surprise. And an unwelcome one, to the authorities.

The problem, as the Beijing registrar sees it, is that shorts indicate a casual attitude to marriage. And therefore a higher chance of divorce. China’s divorce rate has doubled over the past decade. The latest figures available, for 2014, show 3.6 million couples split.

So, new regulations against casual wear are coming into effect at Beijing’s registry office. If brides, or grooms, do turn up in shorts, they will be given advice on more appropriate attire: couples’ counselling, atypically on fashion not fidelity.

It’s probably too cold in Scotland for brides to trade a wedding gown for shorts (though if you’ve forgotten your something blue, then your legs in shorts could be a last-minute tick in that box.) But note this, Scotsmen: China is down on both knees, and it’s not making a proposal. If you head East and fall for a Chinese girl, careful. Call ahead to the registry office to check kilts are ok.