August was the most popular month for weddings in England and Wales in 2022, with 33,676 marriages taking place in this month. Unsurprisingly, the other Summer months of June and July were also popular choices, as well as September. With just 6,367 weddings occurring in January, this was the least popular month for weddings. When is the most popular day for a wedding? In 2022, Saturday was the most popular day of the week for weddings, with Friday a distant second. In fact, during that year, the top 31 dates for weddings were all Saturdays, with 3,500 weddings taking place on Saturday July 30, the most popular date for holding a wedding in that year. Monday was the least popular day of the week for a wedding in 2022, while Christmas Day (Sunday 25, December) had just three weddings taking place, the fewest of any date in that year. Cost of weddings on the rise The average cost of a wedding has increased from around 17,300 British pounds in 2021 to approximately 23,250 by 2024. Following the COVID-19 Pandemic, the cost of a wedding fell to 9,100 pounds in 2020, before recovering slightly to around by 2021. Wedding venues were the largest expense, costing around 6,286 pounds, with catering also setting people back by around 4,419 pounds. When compared with other countries, UK weddings cost less than those in the United States, Spain, Italy and Canada, but more than France, Portugal and Mexico, among other countries.

In the United Kingdom, some of the most challenging parts of wedding planning according to newly weds and engaged couples to be married in 2021 included managing one's stress levels, making guest list decisions and cuts, as well as sticking to the previously determined budget. Approximately ** percent of engaged couples found staying within budget the most difficult aspects of planning a wedding that year. Engaged couples, who had not yet found a venue, also often struggled with cost estimation and figuring out how to start planning.

These datasets are part of "Marriage and civil partnership status in England and Wales: Census 2021", a release of results from the 2021 Census for England and Wales.

To ensure that individuals cannot be identified in the data, population counts have been rounded to the nearest five and counts under 10 have been suppressed.

Figures may differ slightly in future releases because of the impact of removing rounding and applying further statistical processes.

Quality notes can be found here

Usual resident

A usual resident is anyone who on Census Day, 21 March 2021 was in the UK and had stayed or intended to stay in the UK for a period of 12 months or more, or had a permanent UK address and was outside the UK and intended to be outside the UK for less than 12 months.

Legal partnership status

Classifies a person according to their legal marital or registered civil partnership status on Census Day, 21 March 2021. The definition of legal partnership status is the same as the 2011 Census variable “Marital status” but has been updated for Census 2021 to reflect the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019 which made provision for the extension of civil partnerships to couples who are not of the same sex.

As a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, average expenditures for weddings in the United Kingdom were much lower in 2020 compared to both 2019 and 2021. For instance, average spending on a wedding venue was some ***** pounds lower in 2020 compared to the other two years.

Annual UK and constituent country figures for births, deaths, marriages, divorces, civil partnerships and civil partnership dissolutions.

In 2020 the number of civil partnerships in the United Kingdom reached their highest levels since 2007, with 8,437 taking place. This was largely due to an influx of opposite-sex civil partnership formation taking place in that year, with civil partnerships previously being only available to same-sex couples. In 2005, the first year in this time period, the figure is comparatively low, due to the fact that the first civil partnership weren't able to take place until December 5, of that year. After that, in 2006, the numbers increased dramatically and stayed at high levels until 2014, when same-sex marriages were able to be performed in England and Wales.

Since the 1970s, the marriage rate for opposite-sex couples in England and Wales has declined considerably, with the marriage rate per thousand population falling from 84 to 20.3 for men between 1972 and 2022, and from 63.5 to 18.3 for women, during the same time period. Three spikes in the marriage rate can be seen in 1915, 1920 and 1940, all likely influenced by the impact of the First and Second World Wars. The drop in the marriage rate in 2020 can be attributed to the COVID-19 lockdowns.

STATA replication files for Siegel, S.N., Turnbull-Dugarte, S. J. & Olinger, B. (2021) "Where is the Party? Explaining Positions on Same-sex Marriage in Europe among Would-be MPs." European Journal of Politics and Gender.

In 2021, the divorce rate in England and Wales was *** divorces per thousand married couples, which was significantly higher than the rate in 2018, which was ***. The Divorce rate in England and Wales has been falling steadily since a rate of **** was recorded in 2003 and 2004. In the last available data for Scotland in 2008, the divorce rate was ****.

Since the start of her reign in 1952 until 2022, it was estimated that the late Queen Elizabeth II sent approximately 307,000 telegrams to people in the United Kingdom celebrating their 100th birthday, and 927,000 to couples celebrating their 60th (Diamond) wedding anniversary.