Fall is the New Wedding Season for Millennials
- A survey done by Mariages.net with 2,500 newlyweds aged 24 to 37 shows that in 2016, 1 out of 3 weddings took place in the fall
- The months of September to December are now the season of love
October 25, 2017 – Mariages.net, which is part of the WeddingWire Group, is the leading wedding portal in France and in the world. Through a recent survey, the company has lifted the veil on the season of love, which turns out to be the fall.
Nearly 40 years ago, the French would tend to get married at around the age of 25. The average age of the first marriage has constantly gone up, and today, most women get married for the first time at 31, and men at 33. Today, young thirty somethings in Generation Y, also called Millennials, are the largest group to tie the knot.
One of the key pieces of data gathered by Mariages.net in its survey was the month of the wedding. Has this surprising new generation of couples changed its habits in terms of wedding date? Traditionally, wedding season started in May with a peak in the months of July and August. Even though the month with the most weddings is still July (20%), couples have turned down August in favor of September (16%), and October (12%) will soon overtake the month of May (12%). Fall weddings are on a roll, alone representing 30% of the weddings celebrated in 2016, or 1 wedding out of 3.
If the fall seems to be the preferred season for couples to celebrate the big day, when are marriage proposals made? Valentine’s Day has long been the favorite date for proposals, closely followed by dating anniversaries. This trend has now gone away, and the results of the Mariages.net survey leaves no doubt: men prefer to take advantage of family events surrounded by their loved-ones to ask their brides-to-be their hands in marriage. As you probably have guessed, the top month for marriage proposals is now December since 16% of them take place on Christmas, versus 12% on February 14th.
As for the duration of the preparations, the survey shows that even though eloping (small weddings with few guests, very secluded, and organized in a short time) is increasingly popular with couples, they still prefer to take their time to plan out a traditional wedding ceremony. Preparations take an average of 1 year (18%) to 1 year and a half (11.20%). Note that it is women who take care of organizational aspects almost exclusively.
Nina Perez, CEO of Mariages.net says, “Even though it is traditional, the weddings industry is in constant development, requiring reactivity by those in the market. At Mariages.net, we are attentive to future spouses and we try to be reactive to their needs so we can provide them with all the tools needed to organize a perfect wedding for them. Our couples are the core of our work. We are always on the alert and at the cutting edge of new trends, and our mission is to put couples in contact with the best service providers and to ensure that their wedding is the most beautiful day of their lives.”
Although marriage has certainly gone out of favor since nearly 50 years ago (417,000 in 1972*), it has remained stable since 2011, with 235,000* couples deciding to tie the knot in France in 2016. These ceremonies bear little resemblance to those our grandparents had, and according to the survey carried out by Mariages.net, new trends have taken shape, especially the season of weddings. Even though the summer is still the period of the year with the most weddings, the fall has taken great strides and may soon become the most popular wedding season for Generation Y.
*Source: Insee 2016
About Mariages.net
Mariages.net is the leading wedding portal in France and in the world and was started in order to help couples plan their perfect wedding in a fun and easy way. Thanks to its international presence, the portal, which is part of the WeddingWire Group, now has a directory of more than 400,000 industry professionals. It includes a community of more than 2,000,000 couples and has been the source of more than 5,000,000 weddings organized on the portal. Mariages.net offers a directory of qualified professionals and provides thousands of ideas and tips as well as a panel of tools for wedding organization: retro planning, guest lists, budget management, wedding websites, wedding registries, bridal catalogs, etc. In 2016, Mariages.net was chosen as the best website of the year and the most popular website in the Community category. The WeddingWire Group operates in 15 different countries under the following domain names:: WeddingWire.com, bodas.net, matrimonio.com, mariages.net, casamentos.pt, bodas.com.mx, casamentos.com.br, matrimonio.com.co, matrimonios.cl, casamientos.com.ar, matrimonio.com.pe, Weddingspot.co.uk, casamiento.com.uy, weddingwire.ca, and weddings.co.in.