Not going to the chapel to get married..
40% choose non-religious ceremonies
NON-RELIGIOUS weddings again outranked Catholic ones last year, new CSO stats show.
There were 7,256 Catholic marriage ceremonies in 2023, 35.4% of the total.
However, 40.3% of people chose a non-religious celebration in last year, up on 35.5% in 2022 and considerably higher than the equivalent figure in 1990 of just 4%.
There were 242 Church of Ireland weddings – just 1.1% of all marriages – while 16% of couples opted for other religious ceremonies.
Friday remained the most popular day of the week, with 7,419 formalities taking place, compared to less than a tenth of that (714) on Sundays.
In 2022, July was the most popular month and last year it was August.
But the least favoured month has remained January, with just 665 post-christmas weddings at the start of 2023.
The average age of people getting married is broadly unchanged.
For opposite-sex marriages, the average groom in 2023 was 37.7 years old and the average bride was 35.8 years old, changed slightly from 37.8 and 35.7 years old respectively in 2022.
SAME-SEX
For same-sex marriages, the average age of men rose to 40.8 years from 40 in 2022, while for women it fell to 38 from 40 in 2022.
The figures have prompted secular organisations to call for religion to be removed from core subjects in schools.
Education Equality, which wants such classes to be held outside normal school hours, said the CSO statistics prove Ireland is a vastly-changed society from what it used to be.
Its spokesman David Graham said: “Non-religious marriages have outnumbered Catholic marriages three times in the past four years.
“These figures provide firm evidence of a changing population with respect to religious belief and practice.
“What will it take before the Government finally responds to the calls for change from parents across the country? Religion is a choice, not an obligation.
“Our taxpayer-funded education system is forcing religion on families against their will, in breach of their human and constitutional rights.
“We need to respect children’s and teachers’ rights to freedom of religion and belief.
“Our current education system – where over 95% of our taxpayerfunded schools operate a religious-integrated curriculum with no effective opt-out for children or teachers – is clearly not fit for purpose.”
However, secular ceremonies are not the only evidence of changing practices for tying the knot here.
Last August, a leading wedding dress designer urged brides not to wear runners on their big day.
Andriana Mitchell said there was a growing trend among new wives to wear trainers under the dress or change into them later in the day to feel more comfortable than staying in killer heels for hours.
However, the designers said leisure footwear can make the bride look slumped and less elegant. Andriana added: “I find that runners make the bride feel more casual so they often slouch or walk faster than the graceful movement of their dress.”
TRENDS
Other trends to emerge include the hiring of online content creators rather than videographers to produce reels of snippets for platforms like Instagram and Tiktok.
Wedding experts say ‘Tiktok weddings’ are on the rise, with couples pre-planning social media-friendly moments to capture during their special day.
Some are also setting up websites ahead of their weddings and audio guestbooks, where those invited can record their well wishes on a vintage-style phone.
Five star venues said richer duos are also forking out up to a quarter of a million for exclusive venues away from prying eyes.
Dromoland Castle in Co Clare revealed last year it had exclusivity deals with four couples staging their wedding there.