Friday crowned Ireland’s favourite wedding day as marriage trends continue to shift
Publishing ‘Marriages 2025’, the CSO compiled data from all marriage registration forms that took place in Ireland last year
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has revealed that Friday was the most popular day to get married in 2025, with Sundays now being the least appealing to brides and grooms across the country.
Publishing ‘Marriages 2025’, the CSO compiled data from all marriage registration forms that took place in Ireland last year.
It showed that in 2025 there were 19,898 registered marriages in the country, 624 of which were same-sex. The number of those registered fell by 2.2% in 2024 and were also down 9.7% since 2015, when the number of marriages was 22,025.
Along with this, it was revealed that the average age for brides and grooms in opposite sex marriages was 36.1 years for women and 38.0 years for men. This is up from 2015, when it was 33.2 years for brides and 35.3 years for grooms.
The average age of males in same-sex marriages was 40.6 years, while the average age of females in same-sex marriages was 38.1 years.
Interestingly, Civil ceremonies and Roman Catholic marriage ceremonies were the most popular choices for opposite-sex couples, accounting for 6,304 and 5,927 of the 19,274 marriages last year.
Looking back 10 years, the proportion of Roman Catholic ceremonies for opposite-sex weddings has fallen from 12,486 ceremonies to just 5,927 ceremonies.
In 2025, the most popular form of ceremony varied across different parts of Ireland for opposite-sex couples. For instance, in 20 local authorities, a Roman Catholic ceremony was the most popular choice: Limerick County, Leitrim, Mayo, Longford, Roscommon, Offaly, Donegal, Monaghan, Laois, South Dublin, Cork County, Galway City, Clare, Waterford County, Kerry, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Westmeath and Cavan.
In 10 local authorities- Galway County, Carlow, Sligo, Louth, Limerick City, Cork City, Wicklow, Waterford City, Wexford, and Dublin City- a civil ceremony was the most popular form of marriage, while for the remaining three areas, Fingal, Kildare, and Meath, most opposite-sex couples preferred other types of religious ceremonies.
For same-sex couples, 338 of the 624 ceremonies which occurred in 2025 were a civil ceremony (54.2%), followed by other religious type ceremonies (28.5%).
August was the most popular month for both opposite-sex and same-sex marriages in 2025. January was the least favoured month to tie the knot for both opposite-sex marriages and same-sex marriages.
Friday and Saturday continue to be the most popular days for wedding ceremonies for opposite-sex couples, while Friday, followed by Thursday, were the most favoured days to wed for same-sex couples. For all couples, Sundays and Wednesdays were the least popular days of the week to marry.
Commenting on the release, Seán O’Connor, Statistician in the Life Events and Demography Division, said: “There were 19,898 marriages in Ireland in 2025 including 624 same-sex marriages. This equates to a crude (unadjusted) marriage rate of 3.6 per 1,000 population. The equivalent rate in 2024 was 3.8 while the rate for 2015 was 4.7 per 1,000 population. Overall, the total number of marriages celebrated in 2025 decreased by 2.2% from 2024 where 20,348 marriages were registered. Since 2015, marriages fell 9.7% from 22,025 marriages. Opposite-sex marriages fell by 2.1% from 19,680 marriages in 2024 to 19,274 in 2025, while same-sex marriages fell by 6.6% or by 44 marriages to 624 from 668 in 2024.”