In July, August and September 2007 2,943 marriages were recorded in the A.C. of the Basque Country, meaning a 11.9% decrease with regard to the same quarter of the previous year, according to Eustat data. Of these, 370 couples settled in Álava, 932 in Gipuzkoa and 1,553 in Bizkaia. In the case of those who made their residence outside of the A.C. of the Basque Country, the number of weddings came to 88.

September is the favourite month to get married

September was the month with the most weddings (1,285), followed by July with 1,265. In turn, August continued to be the summer month when the lowest number of weddings were held (393).

Despite being the quarter when the greatest number of church weddings are held during the year, the fall in the number of weddings compared to the same quarter of the previous year did not affect civil weddings, which remained at practically the same total, but rather religious ceremonies which experienced a decrease of almost 19% over this period. In Gipuzkoa, church weddings accounted for 56.1% of the total, in Bizkaia 56.2% and in Álava the figure came to 57.6%.

In 2,943 weddings held in the third quarter of 2007, 2,858 men and 2,908 women resident in the A.C. of the Basque Country got married. For 2,680 grooms (93.8%) this was their first marriage, while 12 widowers and 166 divorcés remarried. The percentage of first marriages for women was similar to that of men: there were 2,707 first-time brides (93.1%), 11 widows and 190 divorcées.

As regards the distribution of marriages according to the age of the couples, 55% of brides were aged over 30, whereas as for grooms this percentage rose to 73.1%.

Graph 1: Monthly movement in marriages