After her groom unexpectedly found himself in lockdown, a bride broke with Chinese tradition to go forward with the wedding — and ended up in lockdown, too

• A bride rushed to meet her fiance, who's in lockdown, so that they could get married on their wedding day.
• It's customary in China for the groom to pick up his bride to get married, but it was impossible in this case.

A bride rushed to meet her fiance so that they could still tie the knot, after he found himself stuck in a strict COVID lockdown on their wedding day.

In a viral video whose hashtag — "The bride wakes up and the groom's district is sealed off" — was viewed 3.8 million times on China's Twitter-like platform Weibo, bride Amanda Liu can be seen putting on her shoes in a hurry and carrying large bags to go to her groom Jia Shihan's home in the Chinese city of Tangshan on March 19.

"My partner's housing compound has been sealed off, and he can't go out, so I'm grabbing my things, my gown and shoes and all that, and heading over," Liu said in the video in Chinese. "Wish me a happy marriage!"

In traditional Chinese weddings, it is customary for the groom to pick up his bride to get married. But that was not possible for the couple after his residential complex was suddenly locked down.

"He was supposed to pick me up at 6 a.m., but his compound was closed off, and he was stopped by the security guards at the compound gates," she said, adding that she decided to head over immediately even though she hadn't finished her wedding makeup look.

When she arrived, the guards unlocked the gates and allowed her to go in as long as she promised not to leave the area.

But the couple weren't allowed to get married quite yet. First, they had to queue and undergo a COVID PCR test as part of the residents' daily testing scheme in the housing compound.

They finally changed into their wedding attire and held a "simple" ceremony in his home, in front of a small group of his relatives and neighbors.

"It's an unforgettable day," Liu said, per The Cover news site. "The officiating speech was found online, and the host was just one of his neighbors. But I really liked it this way."

Tangshan, which is in the northern province of Hebei, is China's biggest steel production hub. On Sunday, the city halted traffic and paused production so residents could undergo mass COVID tests after finding several local cases, per South China Morning Post.

China has seen a nationwide surge of COVID cases in recent months, with tens of millions of people in strict lockdowns as officials continue to pursue a "dynamic zero COVID policy." That means rapid lockdowns, mass testing, and travel restrictions whenever clusters emerge.