Having sex three times a week and snuggling on the couch four times a day are among the keys to a perfect marriage, according to a U.K. survey released Wednesday.

Confetti.co.uk, a wedding planning website, asked 3,000 adults who were married for 10 years or longer what they believed to be the important components of a long-lived romantic relationship.

The respondents said, to pull off a long marriage, couples have to work to keep the romance in their relationships alive.

According to the survey, "work" in this world constituted of:

• Having sex three times a week;
• Kissing four times a day;
• Cuddling thrice on a daily basis;
• Sharing two hobbies, and;
• Holding two romantic dinners a month.

"After the wedding hype is over, the study shows how important it is to keep the magic alive with kisses, cuddles and romantic nights out," said Carol Richardson, a spokesperson for Confetti, which held the poll to mark its 10th year in business.

The poll also figured that a couple should meet through friends and needs to date for three years and six months before tying the marital knot.

Check his birth date: 31 is the ideal marriage age for men. (Peter Kramer/Associated Press)

The ideal marrying age for males is 31 years and for women slightly less than 29 years of age.

Then, you have to wait about two and a-quarter years to start a family.

No sex please, we're married

The poll comes at a time, however, when more people appear to be in need of such advice.

"My wife and I have not had sex since before Christmas," lamented one person who posted a comment on the website of the Experience Project, an online organization that talks about personal experiences.

On this site on Wednesday there were 4,849 users registered in the site's "sexless marriage" chat room.

Yet, for all of society's concern that marriage is a dying institution, couples still stay together for long periods.

In the United States, for example, 70 per cent of men and women married between 1990 and 1994 celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary.

The 2004 study, however, indicated that 86 per cent of couples married between 1955 and 1959 were still together for their pewter anniversary.

In 2007, approximately 1.68 million Canadians had been divorced out of a total population of 32.7 million people, slightly more than the 1.58 million who were labelled as "widowed."