FRIDAYS ARE STILL the most popular day to get married, while August remains the most popular month.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released its data for the 19,898 marriages in 2025.

The data shows not much has changed since 2024, but the ages of brides and grooms continue to inch upwards. The average age for men who got married last year was 38, up from 37.7 in 2024. For women, it was 36.1, up from 35.9.

Compared to ten years prior, 2015, this is a jump of almost three years in age for men and women (from 35.3 for men and 33.2 for women). 

The number of marriages continues to fall, and civil ceremonies have overtaken Catholic weddings in popularity, as data released last week showed. Last week’s data showed that in 2024, there were over 300 more civil ceremonies than Catholic weddings and this trend continued into 2025.

For opposite-sex couples, there were 5,927 Catholic weddings compared to 6,304 civil ceremonies last year.

This varied based on location. In 20 local authorities, Catholic ceremonies were the favoured choice, while for 10 others civil ceremonies were opted for. The areas most likely to opt for a civil ceremony included Galway county, Limerick city, Cork city, Wicklow, Waterford city, and Dublin city, as well as Sligo, Louth, Wexford and Carlow.

Opposite-sex couples in Fingal, Kildare, and Meath preferred other types of religious ceremonies.

The number of same-sex marriages remained similar with 314 male and 310 female couples getting married, a slight drop on 2024 but consistent with the overall drop in marriages.