HOHHOT, July 12 (Xinhua) — Bright lights, a red carpet and a large crowd of journalists. It was not a wedding for a Hollywood super star, but for the world’s tallest man Bao Xishun and his wife Xia Shujuan, who only reaches up to Bao’s elbow.

    ;Bao, who stands 2.36 meters and has been a bachelor for 56 years, and the 28-year-old bride Xia, who is 1.68 meters tall, held the wedding in Erdos, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

    About one hundred Chinese and foreign journalists and more than500 guests attended the wedding.

    After offering a sacrifice to the gods at 8 a.m., Bao, wearing a blue silk robe and a bow and arrows slung across his back, led aparade of 99 young men and 49 horses to the bride’s yurt.

    He did not kowtow to his parents and parents-in-law at the ceremony because of his extraordinary height and an arthritic condition in his knees.

    He seemed a bit tired at the wedding after days of preparation for the ceremony and non-stop media interviews.

    A 2.8 by 2.2 meters wedding bed was ready for the couple, but their three-meter tall new residence is still under construction.

    The couple legally registered in Chifeng in March, just a month after they met each other. They are said to have felt comfortable with each other right from the first meeting.

    Bao began to look for a wife last year, receiving replies from more than 20 women in various provinces. He met some of them but none of the meetings was satisfactory.

    Bao was confirmed as the world’s tallest human being by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2005.

    Born in 1951, Bao has been living in a rural area near Chifeng City since he was a child. He reached his remarkable height naturally, not as a result of a medical condition.

    His growth was relatively normal until the age of 16, when a sudden growth spurt took him to his record height in just seven years.

    Late last year, Bao hit the news when he saved two dolphins in an ocean aquarium in northeast China by reaching in to their throats with his huge 1.06-meter arm and taking out pieces of plastic that the dolphins had swallowed and which were lodged in their stomachs.

    Before Bao intervened, vets had tried to surgically remove the plastic from the dolphins’ stomachs in vain.