The number of marriages decreased by almost 10 per cent in the decade to the end of last year, according to latest statistics.
On Tuesday, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) published Marriages 2025, with data compiled from the marriage registration forms of all marriages registered in Ireland last year.
During the 12-month period, 19,898 marriages were registered in Ireland, including 624 same-sex marriages made up of 314 male same-sex marriages and 310 female same-sex marriages.
Same-sex marriages accounted for 3.14 per cent of all registered marriages in 2025.
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The number of marriages overall fell by 2.2 per cent from the 20,348 marriages in 2024, and by 9.7 per cent since 2015, when the number of marriages was 22,025.
The average age for brides and grooms in opposite-sex marriages increased from 2015, with brides aged at 36.1 years last year compared with 33.2 years a decade ago and grooms aged 38 years on average in 2025 compared with 35.3 years in 2015.
Last year, the average age of men in same-sex marriages was 40.6, while the average age of women in same-sex marriages was 38.1.
Almost a third of all registered marriages were civil ceremonies in 2025 for opposite-sex couples, making it the most popular choice.
Catholic marriage ceremonies were the second most common choice for opposite-sex couples.
For same-sex couples, more than half of ceremonies in 2025 were civil ceremonies, followed by religious ceremonies.
August was the most popular month for both same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples to wed in 2025, and January was the least favourite month to tie the knot.
Friday and Saturday were the most popular days of the week to get married in 2025, with 61.8 per cent of opposite-sex marriages taking place on these days.
Friday was the most favoured day to wed for same-sex couples, with Thursday the second most popular.
For all couples, Sundays and Wednesdays were the least popular days of the week to marry.
Friday July 25th and Friday August 1st were the most popular dates for opposite-sex marriages in 2025, with 200 and 197 ceremonies taking place onthese dates respectively.
For same-sex couples, Friday September 12th and Friday March 21st were the most popular dates in 2025, with 12 and 10 ceremonies taking place on each of these dates.
In 2025, religious ceremonies accounted for 61 per cent of all marriages. There were 5,927 Catholic marriage ceremonies and 204 Church of Ireland ceremonies, while the Spiritualist Union of Ireland performed 1,263 ceremonies and 4,480 couples opted for other religious ceremonies.
The majority of non-religious ceremonies were civil marriages, which accounted for 6,642 of all marriages. The remaining 1,382 couples had humanist ceremonies.
