Ireland’s favourite wedding days revealed

The top four wedding dates all fall in December, with New Year’s Eve by some distance the most popular day to tie the knot with 189 marriages per year on average. File picture

We might all dream of a sun-filled, high-summer wedding —  but in reality Irish people prefer to get hitched in the winter, according to the CSO.

It has compiled details of all wedding dates in Ireland over the past 15 years, and found that December steals the show, with August not far behind.

The two months account for the 10 most popular wedding dates over the past decade-and-a-half.

The top four wedding dates all fall in December, with New Year’s Eve by some distance the most popular day to tie the knot with 189 marriages per year on average.

That is followed by December 30, 28, and 29 respectively, which saw an average of 151, 147 and 136 marriages per day since 2011.

August claims the next six favourite wedding dates, dominated by the early part of the month — August 3, 4, 5, and 2 — perhaps due to the August bank holiday.

As for the rest of the year, only July sneaks into the top 10 — July 27 ties with August 26 for 10th place, each averaging 102 weddings per day.

The CSO speculates that the popularity of Christmas and bank holiday dates suggest that lovestruck couples also tend to have “an eye on the practical” when picking their date.

It noted that the summer months still typically have more weddings on average than the remainder of the year.

The most popular months to get hitched were August, July, September, June, and October, with December further adrift in sixth.

Some of the least popular days to walk down the aisle were also in December. Christmas Eve and St Stephen’s Day see only four and three weddings on average respectively, while Christmas Day, unsurprisingly, records a grand total of zero weddings.

St Valentine’s Day still clearly strikes a chord with loved‑up couples, with an average of 55 weddings taking place on February 14 — even though February remains the second‑least popular month to tie the knot.

And for those of a patriotic bent, St Patrick’s Day is not particularly popular, sporting just 28 weddings on average. However, March 16 is another story entirely with an average of 90 couples choosing that day to take the plunge.