3.536 weddings were held in July, August and September 2002
in A.C. of the Basque Country, which represents a 1.8% reduction with regard
to the same quarter the previous year, according to EUSTAT data. By Provinces,
1,783 weddings were held in Bizkaia, followed by Gipuzkoa with 1,097 and Alava
with 470. In the case of residents living outside the A.C. of the Basque Country,
the number of weddings came to 186.
July was again the most popular month to get married
Although in 2001, and contrary to tradition, September was
the month with most weddings, in 2002 July was once again the leader with 1,428
compared with 1,412 in September. In addition, August continued to be the summer
month when fewest weddings were held (696).
In the third quarter there was an important increase in the
number of church weddings. Compared with the winter months, when over half the
weddings were civil, in this period 72.4 of ceremonies were religious. In Alava
church weddings represented 69.6% of the total, in Gipuzkoa it was 69.7% and
in Bizkaia the figure was 73.6%.
In the 3,536 weddings in the third quarter of 2002, 3,407 men
and 3,487 women resident in the A.C. of the Basque Country married. For 3,248
grooms (95.3%) this was their first marriage, while 19 widowers and 140 divorcés
remarried. The percentage of first marriages for women was higher than among
men: the number of single brides came to 3.352 (96.1%), 11 widows and 124 divorcées.
With regard to the distribution of marriages according to the
age of spouses, 61.3% of grooms was aged over 30, while among brides this percentage
fell to 31.4%.