The Central Statistics Office has released data on marriages in 2023, and my brain is filled with dopamine hits from my all time favourite obsessions – DATA!

There is a lot of information to process. So let’s start small.

What kind of ceremonies did couples choose in 2023?

In 2023, about 36% of couples chose Roman Catholic ceremonies, this was followed by Civil Marriages (32%) in second place, Other Religious Denominations (16%) in third place, and Humanist Association of Ireland (8%) at fourth place.

Nature of CeremoniesWeddings%Roman Catholic725635.37%Civil marriages647431.56%Other religious denominations328115.99%The Humanist Association16147.87%The Spiritualist Union of Ireland16047.82%Church of Ireland2421.18%Presbyterian420.20%TABLE 1: Wedding Trends in 2023

In Which direction did the tide flow after all?

While this shows the preference of couple in 2023 (which is a phenomenal piece of information in itself), it does not really show the “trend”. It does not show the “shift in tide”. So let’s look at what couples chose in the last ten years. For ease, to begin with, we will look at the trends for top four contenders this year.

In the last ten years, Roman Catholic marriages have dropped by 44%. We can see that Civil Marriages have been a fairly consistent with 6% increase in last ten years. Humanist Association weddings have increased by 44%, while Other Religious Denominations have increased by a whooping 65%.

YearRoman CatholicCivil marriagesOther religious denominationsThe Humanist Association201312921609611382014130726167566895201512486615683112642016121405588999143720171121958901011161620181002758611009176620198863601211311813202032953779686701202167215659139213942022937657672816205320237256647432811614Grand Total107376634491486014553TABLE 2: Wedding Trends in last ten years

Roman Catholic weddings are still a majority. But there is a fast pacing shift in preference. People are looking for alternate options. I guess that is where organisations like Entheos Ireland steps in. We do have a fabulous team of celebrants to chose from (yours truly included, of course). This is exactly what makes the job or vocation so exciting – to be a part of social change.

I will pause at this junction and will refrain from bombarding you with more information. I will go back and look at all tables published today.

There is a lot of exciting information in those tables. Do check them out. I do wish there was a way to decipher the meta data of “Other Religious Denominations” to see what that comprises of, and what percentage of that was contributed by my fellow colleagues at Entheos Ireland. That would be a fun data to analyse, don’t you think?

End Notes:

For the purposes of transparency, the data for all weddings in last ten years is as follows:

YearChurch of IrelandCivil marriagesOther religious denominationsPresbyterianRoman CatholicThe Humanist AssociationThe Spiritualist Union of Ireland2013453609611387212921201444561675668113072895819201539361568317312486126482220163725588999691214014379652017379589010116411219161610832018323586110096210027176613412019289601211315388631813151220201143779686203295701614202119256591392386721139413212022284576728165993762053220020232426474328142725616141604Grand Total348663449148606331073761455312281TABLE 3: Wedding Trends in last 10 years (full table)

https://priyangee.com/2024/04/26/wedding-trends-in-2023/

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