In England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics recorded 246,897 marriages in 2022, up about 12% on 2019 as couples caught up on postponed weddings. Numbers fell back in 2023, when marriages and civil partnerships together came to about 232,000, down 8.6% on the year before.
Scotland recorded 27,191 marriages in 2025 (National Records of Scotland), and Northern Ireland 7,251 in 2024 (NISRA).
Marriage rates tell the same story: ONS figures show 18.1 marriages per 1,000 unmarried men and 16.4 per 1,000 unmarried women in England and Wales in 2023, down from 20.8 and 19.1 in 2022.
The average age at marriage keeps rising. In England and Wales in 2022, the median age at first opposite-sex marriage was 32.7 for men and 31.2 for women (ONS). In Scotland in 2025, the average ages were 40.2 for men and 38.1 for women, though these include second and later marriages.
Nine in ten couples who married in 2021 or 2022 had lived together first, the highest share since records began.
August is the most popular month: ONS puts it at about 14% of marriages in 2023, and Bridebook's own survey of couples gives 17%, with May and September next. Saturday remains the most common day, at about 42% of marriages in 2023 (ONS).
Dates do cluster. The busiest single day in 2022 was Saturday 30 July, with 3,608 marriages, and in 2023 Saturday 2 September had 3,227.
Bridebook's 2026 report found the average guest list below 100 for the first time since before the pandemic, at around 80, while per-head spending has gone up. Friday weddings were about 17% of the total, and the midweek share is growing, driven in part by cost.
YouGov found Britons three times as likely to want a small wedding as a large one, and Bridebook reports searches for elopements more than doubled since 2022.
Civil ceremonies still dominate in England and Wales, about 83% in 2022. In Scotland, belief and humanist ceremonies now outnumber civil ones, and in Northern Ireland humanist weddings rose from under 1% of weddings in 2018 to about 15% in 2024. Law reform in England and Wales is under consideration.
Barns and rustic venues are increasingly popular: Bridebook reports barns at about one in five weddings in 2025, and over 70% of couples now hold the ceremony and reception at the same venue.
Only a small share of UK couples, around 3 to 4%, actually marry abroad, though nearly a third consider it. Among those who look overseas, Italy, Greece and Spain lead the list of European destinations. Meanwhile 83% of couples say they made some sustainable choice, and about a quarter used second-hand or vintage details.
If you are planning your own wedding, the pattern is clear: smaller, more personal and more flexible on dates. MarryHQ is built for that way of planning.
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