In July, August and September 2006 there were a total of 3,286 weddings in the A.C. of the Basque Country, meaning a 3.4% decrease in relation to the same quarter of the previous year, according to Eustat data. Residents of Bizkaia celebrated 1,675 weddings, a 5.2% decrease; those from Álava, with 421 weddings, registered 4.1% fewer and only residents of Gipuzkoa, with 1,085, registered an increase of 2.7% with regard to the same period of the previous year. In the case of residents from outside the A.C. of the Basque Country, the number of weddings came to 105.

July was the favourite month to get married

July was the month with the most weddings (1,494), compared to the 1,399 held in September. As for August, it remained the summer month when fewest weddings were held (393).

65.8% of the ceremonies were religious, although this fell by 3.3% with regard to the same period of the previous year. In any case, this quarter saw the celebration of a greater number of religious weddings than in the winter months, when more than 75% of weddings were civil ones. In Gipuzkoa, church weddings accounted for 57.1% of the total, in Bizkaia they came to 60.3% and in Álava the figure stood at 64.1%.

The 3,286 weddings in the third quarter of 2006 involved 3,193 men and 3,245 women resident in the A.C. of the Basque Country. For 3,001 grooms (94%) this was their first marriage, while 10 widowers and 182 divorcés remarried. The percentage of first marriages for women was similar to that of men: there were 3,045 previously unmarried women (93.8%), 12 widows and 188 divorcées.

As regards the distribution of marriages according to the age of the spouses, 52% of brides were aged over 30, while for grooms this percentage rose to 68.4%.

Graph 1: Monthly movement in marriages