"It really felt like the universe chose us," said Leslie, 32.

The couple were among the lucky few to be selected from 400 who applied to hold their wedding ceremony "op de ring" (on the ring).

"Everything was moving towards this," he said, with a wink at his now husband, whom he met six years ago in a nightclub.

For Zuzanna Lisowska, a 30-year-old engineer, decked out more traditionally in white and newly wedded to Yuri Iozzelli, the idea of motorway marriage just appealed to her sense of humour.

"It's just more fun than a random municipality office, right?" she laughed.

But the young Polish woman also acknowledged that sealing their union as part of a festival to celebrate the city in which they met was "really something special."

- 'Once in a lifetime' -

Under a baking sun, the weddings on the motorway took place from 10:30am (0830 GMT) to 8:00pm on Saturday night.

They were organised with military precision. Couples and their guests had 30 minutes to hold the ceremony in one tent, then one hour for a reception in another -- before the next happy couple arrived.

The weddings were anything but a quiet and private affair.

Around a quarter of a million partygoers had brought tickets to the festival and passers-by cheered and clapped every wedding with gusto.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said Geralda Wickel, a festival-goer who had stopped by to cheer on a couple.

"If you're getting married anyway, why not on the Ring? As a real Amsterdam person, this is where you want to be," she said.

But the ring road was not quite romantic enough for Wickel, an event sales manager, to be tempted for such a wedding herself.

"I like the castle and the fairytale bit," she said.

For Dominique and Milan Lisser, who live in Weesp near Amsterdam, tying the knot in front of thousands and being questioned by several journalists was both a surreal and exhilarating experience.

"It feels like I'm a famous person," said Lisser, 32, dressed in a suit with a white shirt.

"There's so many people. It's almost all of Amsterdam," said the now Mrs Lisser, 30, in a white dress covered in sequins.

"I really love this. I'm kind of like an introvert, but extrovert as well. So I like the attention."

sh/ric/

© Agence France-Presse