A family in Australia have broken the world record for the number of Christmas lights put up on a home - for the second time. The Richards family, of Canberra, have installed 502,165 lights around their house and garden.

David Richards, a barrister, started work on stringing the 48km of wires around his property in early October. He had previously held the world record with 330,000 lights in 2011, but lost it last year to a family in New York.

The mammoth display, which is expected to be seen by tens of thousands of visitors, has been erected to raise money for a children's charity.

But Mr. Richards told the Canberra Times part of his motivation for spending almost every weekend working on the project was to reclaim the record.

The gate that greets visitors 

The family from New York had only managed 15,000 more than the Richards' previous record last year, so he felt it was an easy target to achieve.

Mr. Richards, a father-of-three, told the newspaper ''It was sort of a reason to do it again, and they didn't break it by very much. I thought 500,000 was a nice, round number so I decided to go all out because I may never do it again".

A representative from Guinness World Records visited the house on Sunday and confirmed the feat the next day. The display has proved so popular, one couple even got married under it.

Patrick Cormac became hitched to Mr. Richards' cousin Luana Marriott at the house on Saturday under a blanket of white lights. He said "It was amazing".

Mr. Richards said most of his neighbours supported the display, but some had not spoken to him since the last record was set.

He said he bought all the lights himself but was unwilling to reveal the cost.

The additional cost to his electricity bill however - an extra €1,675 a month - is being picked up by a green energy company.