Remember your wedding day? You must be a woman

IT IS supposed to be the day you’ll remember for ever, but it seems that many details of your wedding will fade – especially if you’re a man.

Husbands recall far less about the details of the big day than their wives, say psychologists.

In a study that will do nothing to shatter the stereotype of insensitive husbands forgetting wedding anniversaries, women were found to recall 23 per cent more of the finer points of the day than their grooms on average.

Such facts as who was there, what clothes they wore and what the weather was like were all far more likely to be remembered by wives, even after more than half a century of marriage. Experts believe the difference is explained by a concept known as ‘kin keeping’ – the unpaid job of caring for family matters, including cherished emotional memories – which tends to be the domain of women more than men.

In the study, psychologists asked 39 couples for details of their wedding day, separating spouses from their partners before quizzing them alone. The couples, who had been married for between 13 and 65 years, were asked to talk for three minutes about what they remembered of the day, as well as their reactions and emotions.

Women recalled almost a quarter more information than men in the single sessions, including often seemingly trivial but still distinctive details. One wife remembered that a guest’s elastic underwear had snapped. Another revealed that her husband looked shorter as they walked down the aisle. A third recalled leftover fish from the meal spilling in the car after the wedding, leaving a smell that lasted through the honeymoon.

The study also found that couples remembered more when they were together, possibly due to cues and hints from the wives. The study by Dickinson College in the US and Macquarie University in Australia was published in the journal Memory.

Professor Azriel Grysman, who led the study, said ‘A system has developed in couples in which both spouses recognise that the wife usually takes primary responsibility when reminiscing about shared family events. Women simply remember more details relating to the event as it was unfolding – the who, what, where and when.

‘Young girls and later women are encouraged by parents and their peers to talk about their memories in a way that puts greater emphasis on thoughts, feelings and relationships. This leads to a greater focus by women on more details in their memories.’