A record number of marriages is expected this year as couples forced to postpone their nuptials scramble to wed. Increased demand on State marriage registration services means some may be unable to marry this year, or to do so in their county of choice.
“There has been a substantial increase in demand and in delays for civil marriage ceremonies,” says a HSE Mid West region spokesperson. The delays, attributable to Covid-related restrictions over two years, are not unique to the Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary region, however, and are hitting “all registry offices”.
The delays are impacting not just those marrying in a registry office, but also the HSE appointments required to give notice to marry in any ceremony type. All couples intending to marry must give three months’ notice to a registrar at a HSE Civil Registration Service. But notification appointments at some of these services are booked up for months, meaning some couples may have difficulty giving the notice required to marry this year.
The number of marriages more than halved during the pandemic, figures show
In Limerick city, for example, no notification appointments are available until September. Couples are being facilitated where possible with earlier notification appointments in Newcastle West, Clare and North Tipperary. But couples hoping for a civil ceremony in the Treaty City will have to wait until the end of the year as the city’s registry office is now fully booked until November. Civil ceremonies in Limerick city’s registry office are held on Fridays only, where typically four to six couples are married a week. The registry office in Nenagh holds ceremonies on Thursdays only and has no availability until September.
In the HSE West region, couples wanting to give the required notice to marry are waiting up to eight weeks to do so, a community health spokesperson for the area has said. The current waiting time for a notification appointment in Galway is eight weeks. In Mayo, the waiting time is six weeks. As a wedding can take place no sooner than three months after the notification appointment, this is likely to put pressure on registry office ceremonies and other ceremony types in the last three months of the year. Waiting times for registry office ceremonies in the HSE West region are currently running at five to six months.
The Cork and Kerry civil registration service is experiencing “a high level of demand for marriage registrations”, according to a HSE spokesperson for the area. Marriage notification appointments at HSE offices in Adelaide Street, Cork and Killarney are available by appointment only, however the online booking system shows there are no time slots available this year. Couples are urged to contact these offices by phone; the HSE says “every effort will be made to accommodate them”.
In Dublin, one couple who in February sought to book a marriage notification appointment received a booking for some 14 weeks later in May at the Joyce House HSE office. One of the earliest dates offered for a registry office wedding at Grand Canal Street was the end of September.
The number of marriages more than halved during the pandemic, figures show. In 2020, there were just 9,523 weddings compared with 20,683 the previous year, according to the CSO. Provisional data for 2021 shows there were just 4,823 weddings in the first six months of that year, compared with an average of 10,340 in the first six months of 2019.
Wedding planners estimate there is potential demand for 35,000 weddings this year, based on the number of ceremonies postponed over the past two years.
The type of marriage ceremonies that took place during the pandemic bucked decades old trends, too. During 2020, the first year of pandemic restrictions, civil marriages accounted for 42.1 per cent of all ceremonies, up by more than 10 percent on the previous year, according to CSO figures. The number of Catholic ceremonies in 2020 accounted for 34.6 per cent of all weddings, down 10 per cent on the previous year. The drop in Catholic weddings as a percentage of all weddings in 2020 is likely due to pandemic restrictions on large gatherings. A breakdown of weddings by ceremony type for 2021 is not yet available.
Bookings for marriage courses were up 30 per cent in January and February this year, reports Accord, the Catholic marriage preparation course provider. “It has been challenging to meet demand and our facilitators have doubled their delivery of programmes,” says Anne Coleman, a specialist in marriage education.
Accord adapted to pandemic restrictions by delivering its courses using Zoom. This had a welcome outcome of attracting overseas couples from Texas, Sydney and Dubai, says Coleman.
The Humanist Association, which conducts secular ceremonies, says its marriage celebrants are experiencing strong demand. "At the moment we have 1,600 bookings for weddings so far this year. Some 300 of these bookings have been made since January," says Kilda Taylor, administrator and company secretary. "We will certainly exceed the number of ceremonies we did in 2019."
The Association is increasing its number of celebrants. “We have 10 newly trained celebrants only gone on our books quite recently and they have a lot of capacity, so at the moment we are coping well with demand,” says Taylor. A further 10 celebrants will complete their training by the autumn. “There is a growing demand for less traditional weddings. We think we are in a reasonably good position to meet demand.” The Association conducted almost 8 per cent of all weddings in 2020.
Turning another norm on its head, December was the most popular month for weddings in 2020, according to records. In the previous decade, August and July respectively have been the most popular months for couples to tie the knot. The shift to December in that year reflects the postponement of ceremonies from earlier in the year and an easing of restrictions in that month.
