Wedding Season 2022 is upon us.

The start of May is the start of the Wedding Season in the UK. Indeed the latest stats from the ONS released on 19th May 2022 covering 2019 show this continues to be true.

These statistics cover England and Wales as Scotland produces their own. The statistics for 2019 were not affected by Covid. What’s more it will be interesting to compare these when the statistics for 2020 are published in 2023.

  • 219,850 weddings took place in 2019.
  • A decrease of 6.4% from the previous year (2018.)
  • Three percent of the weddings were to same sex couples.
  • 81.8% of all the weddings this year were Civil Weddings

The decrease continues the trend of fewer weddings from the most popular decade for marriages which remains in the ’70s.

Weddings by date

The most popular day to get marry in 2019 is, as ever, a Saturday. August continues to be the most popular month for marriages. Approximately Three-quarters of religious marriages took place on a Saturday. Furthermore about 4 in 10 of every civil marriage took place on the Saturday.

Although August was the most popular month the most popular date to marry in 2019 was 27th July with 3,628 weddings taking place.

Over the past 20 years, the most popular day to get married was 1st September. An average of 1,552 weddings taking place on this date.

Average age at marriage

With the rise in life expectancy, people seem to be waiting longer to marry. Men now have an average age at marriage that’s 8-10 years older than they did back when most were marrying around 1970! Women also saw their respective ages go up during this period—and not just a little bit either: 9.9% higher for those who were female so their average becomes 29.4 years.

When does Wedding Season End in the UK

Traditionally the wedding season is May through to September every year. It does look like this is changing.

If you check out the most popular months to wed below you’ll see October is now a more popular month to marry than May. The graph is based on all marriages since 1947 so the October increase has come from the most recent years.

most popular month to wed in the UK
Derived from Wedding Stats 1947-2019 (ONS source)

The historical tax rules which made it beneficial to marry at the end of the tax year made March an anomalous month. This meant you could hit the higher tax rates if you married earlier in the tax year. These rules have not been in force for over 30 years now so March is no longer as popular.

If you ever wonder how popular your wedding will be check out our blog post how popular was your wedding day.

Don’t forget that synonymous with the wedding season is the anniversary gifting season! We’ve some great anniversary gifts available for every year and we have just got fresh stock we’ve got a great selection. (at the time of writing!!)

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