Nearly 200 couples annually choose to wed while ringing in the new year as December 31st proves the most popular date to get married, according to data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
On Tuesday, the CSO released data on weddings that took place between 2011 and 2024.
New Year’s Eve was the most popular date to get married across the 14-year period examined, with an average of 189 weddings occurring on the date.
December and August were found to have the most popular dates, with four dates in December taking the top four spots.
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December 30th, in second place, had 151 marriages on average, December 28th had 147 and December 29th had 136.
Dates around the August bank holiday also proved popular. August 3rd came in fifth position with an average of 115 weddings, followed by 110 marriages on average on August 4th and 109 on August 5th.
Ninth and tenth position were jointly held by two dates.
August 10th and 2nd came in ninth with 103 marriages on average.
Tenth position was held by August 26th and July 27th, with 102 marriages on average taking place.
The only other dates where an average of 100 or more weddings took place were June 1st, August 24th, September 7th and August 17th.
Although the twelfth month had the top four most popular dates, it also had the least popular days to get married as noted during this 14-year period.
The least popular dates included Christmas Eve with an average of four marriages taking place, St Stephen’s Day with an average of three and Christmas Day, when no marriages were recorded from 2011 to 2024.
December was also recorded as the sixth most popular month to tie the knot, with 1,811 marriages taking place during the month.
The summer months were recorded as three of the top four months to get married in, with August coming out on top with 2,733 marriages taking place.
July came in second with 2,446 marriages, followed by September with 2,333 marriages, June with 2,073 and 1,855 recorded in October.
Friday was the most popular day to get married and Tuesday was the least popular.
January was the least popular month on average for couples to get married, with 612 marriages taking place.
February recorded 803 marriages, in second last position. However, St Valentine’s Day was the romantic choice for some couples with an average of 55 marriages taking place, making it the 167th most popular day to wed.
Despite New Year’s Eve coming out on top, New Year’s Day ranked as the 277th most popular day to get married.
March 16th was the 37th most popular day to get married with 90 couples tying the knot on the day before St Patrick’s Day.
The CSO also recorded that 20,348 marriages were registered in 2024, of which 668 were same-sex.
The average age of brides stood at 35.9 years and 37.7 years for grooms.
