The show is a condensed version of a three-day ceremony, which dates back to the time when Gengis Khan was the most powerful ruler in the world.

Organizers already plan to take the wedding show to the United States next year and it will travel to Shanghai next month.

The 90-minute show starts with the classic "long-tune" melody, or changdiao and the wedding preparations are made to the sound of the rhythmic beat made by huge boots and dairy bucket drums. Buri Gude, the well-dressed groom, receives wedding gifts from his friends. The "five necessities of a Mongolian man" include the lasso pole, an engraved saddle, an embroidered saddlebag and a bow and arrow. There is also the matouqin, a Mongolian stringed instrument with a scroll carved into a horse's head.

Women are busy making appetizing milk tea and roasted mutton. Musicians either play the traditional eagle flute or chant humai, or the throat-singing in which one person produces at least two tunes at one time.

Girls perform the soft dish dance around the groom, who later joins them in a passionate chopstick dance. Then the wedding begins.

All people offer sacrifices to gods and ancestors in a sacred ritual.

The groom then leads his friends to fetch the bride.

As their number declines and many nomads resettle into towns and cities, many of the original nomadic customs are fading out. The show hopes to preserve these traditions.

Mongolian Wedding art director and gala's producer Cha Gan, spent two years researching the project in an effort to create the most authentic show he could.

Cha Gan, a Mongolian himself, said his people were scattered across the hinterlands of Asia and the wedding ceremony of various tribes are generally very similar but still, there are some details which differ. He visited families across the autonomous region and also in the bordering provinces like Qinghai and Gansu to collect first-hand materials of authentic folklores.

"A conventional Mongolian wedding usually lasts three days and we have the challenge to incorporate them into a one-and-a-half-hour plot and make all the elements blend in harmony," he said. "Some even contradict each other."

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