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The eerie wedding photo the world can't stop looking at.

We can’t look away.

There’s an image sweeping the internet this week that looks, at first glance, like any elegant wedding portrait.

In it, a slim bride poses on an antique couch, her groom kissing her outstretched hand as he kneels to the ground. She wears a full-skirted ivory gown, her dark hair swept back by an elegant veil-and-tiara combination.

It’s the sort of photo any traditionally-minded bride would be thrilled to display in a shiny new frame in her marital home — but that’s not what will happen in this instance.

Because the bride posing in this image isn’t real. She’s a sex doll.

The image — and several similar photos of the same man and doll — originally did the rounds of Chinese social media platforms and is now making its way onto Western news sites.

The reported story behind the image is a spectacularly sad one: According to various online reports, the 28-year-old Chinese groom is terminally ill, and wanted to experience a lavish wedding shoot before he died.

The Telegraph reports the Beijing-based man is suffering terminal cancer, and chose a doll rather than a woman as his bride so as to not leave a grieving widow.

So he purchased a series of dresses for his lifelike doll, hired a professional make-up artist and photographer and posed with the doll in a series of romantic images.

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One of the wedding photos going viral online.

In one of the photos, the pair cuddle in front of a spectacular arched window as the bride wears a violet, tulle gown. In another, the bride clutches a bouquet of white flowers as her bow tie-clad groom tenderly nuzzles her hair.

In yet another of the photographs the man — who has not been named — can also be seen enjoying his first dance holding his bride’s hands.

The man wears a tailored suit and crisp white shirt, and appears to have gone to great lengths to ensure he and his so-called bride look picture perfect.

Another of the eerie photos sweeping the internet.

Some sceptics believe the images may be part of a clever advertising hoax — and given the lack of detail around the viral story, it’s certainly a possibility.

News site CCTV reports, however, the wedding photographer has defended the man’s unusual decision to marry a sex doll, saying the man’s decision should be respected as a matter of “personal freedom”.

Video via Seeker stories