19,898 marriages were registered in Ireland in 2025, down 2.2% from 20,348 in 2024. That continues a longer decline, with marriages down 9.7% over the past decade, from 22,025 in 2015, though the year-on-year pace has been gradual rather than a sudden drop.
The marriage rate (per 1,000 population) tells the same story more clearly, since it accounts for population growth: 3.6 per 1,000 in 2025, down from 4.7 in 2015. Internationally, Ireland's 2025 rate sits mid-range among EU27 countries, higher than Italy (2.9) and lower than Latvia (5.5).
Source: CSO Marriages 2025, main results
For the first time, civil ceremonies (33.4%) outnumber Roman Catholic ceremonies (29.8%) as the most common wedding type in Ireland. This is a genuine reversal, not a gradual convergence, given that Roman Catholic ceremonies made up 56.7% of all marriages just a decade ago, in 2015.
Humanist ceremonies, legally recognised in Ireland since 2013, now account for 6.9% of marriages, more than six times the share of Church of Ireland ceremonies (1.0%). Ceremony type also varies by county: Roman Catholic ceremonies remained the largest single category in 20 local authorities, civil ceremonies led in 10 others, and Fingal, Kildare, and Meath were the only areas where "other religious" ceremonies were most common.
The average groom was 38.0 years old in 2025, and the average bride 36.1, both up from 2015 (35.3 and 33.2) and dramatically higher than 1975, when the averages were 27.0 and 24.7. Same-sex couples marry slightly later again on average: 40.6 for men, 38.1 for women.
The most common age bracket for marrying is now 30–34, covering 36.2% of grooms and 39.3% of brides, while marrying in your teens or very early twenties is now genuinely rare, at 0.4% of grooms and 0.6% of brides under 20.
August is the clear favourite month (12.9% of opposite-sex marriages), and January the least popular (3.4%), worth knowing if you're chasing off-peak venue rates. Friday and Saturday together account for 61.8% of all ceremonies.
The single most popular individual dates in 2025 were 25 July and 1 August, with 200 and 197 ceremonies respectively, a reminder that even within peak season, specific dates can be dramatically more contested than others for venue and supplier availability.
624 same-sex marriages were registered in 2025 (3.1% of all marriages), down 6.6% from 668 in 2024. Same-sex couples chose civil ceremonies at a notably higher rate than opposite-sex couples, at 54.2% compared with 39% of opposite-sex marriages choosing a non-religious ceremony.
The patterns in this data, later marriage ages, civil ceremonies now the norm rather than the exception, and a hard concentration of demand around August weekends, are exactly the kind of Irish-specific realities MarryHQ is built around, rather than assuming a generic template applies.
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