Selby Abbey visitors up after Jay Chou wedding
A North Yorkshire church, which was the setting for the wedding of a Taiwanese pop star, says visitor numbers may have doubled since.
Jay Chou, 36, married Australian model Hannah Quinlivan, 21, in Selby Abbey in January. Staff at the abbey said, although they do not record exact numbers, there are hundreds more visitors each week. They believe the interest has been fuelled by online clips of the wedding, which have received millions of hits. Canon John Wheetman said: "We would guess it is probably in the region of a few hundred people a week extra. "In terms of our visitors from further afield it has probably doubled our visitor numbers." He said a lot of people had seen the abbey on film "looking spectacular". "There have been seven or eight million hits of Jay and Hannah's wedding clips on You Tube and we understand from the Taiwanese ambassador, who was here a few months ago, that on the Chinese equivalent of You Tube it runs into over a hundreds million hits." Jay Chou has sold more than 30 million albums. He is also an actor who has appeared in several films.