There were 16,915 registered marriages in Ilocos Region in 2021. This demonstrated a 15.6 percent increase from the 14,636 registered marriages in the previous year.

All the provinces of Ilocos Region exhibited an increase in the number of registered marriages in 2021 from the 2020 figures. The biggest increase was noted in La Union from 2,105 to 2,669 registered marriages (26.8 percent) this was followed by Ilocos Norte with an increase from 1,493 to 1,772 marriages (18.7 percent), Ilocos Sur with an increase from 1,933 to 2,281 marriages (18.0 percent), and finally Pangasinan with an increase from 9,105 to 10,193 marriages (11.9 percent).

The province of Pangasinan has the most number of registered marriages in 2021 with 10,193 (60.3 percent); followed by La Union with 2,669 (15.8 percent) and Ilocos Sur with 2,281 (13.5 percent). A year ago, La Union also ranked second with 2,105 registered marriages (14.4 percent) while Ilocos Sur ranked third with 1,933 (13.2 percent).

On the other end, the province of Ilocos Norte recorded the lowest number of registered marriages in 2020 and 2021 with 1,493 (10.2 percent) and 1,772 (10.5 percent), respectively.

The month of December was the most preferred month to tie the knot in 2021 with 2,963 marriages. The month of May ranked second with 1,853 marriages, followed by the months of April and January with 1,787 and 1,727 marriage occurrences, respectively. The least number of marriage occurrences in 2021 was the month of August with 597 marriages. The months of September and October followed with 677 and 824 marriage occurences.

A year ago, the favorite month for couples to tie the knot was the month of January with 4,487 marriage occurrences. The months of February and December ranked second and third with 2,792 and 1,812 marriages, respectively. The least favored months were the months of May and April with 209 and 74 marriage occurrences, respectively.

Marriages performed in civil rites topped the list among all the types of marriage ceremony in 2021. It comprised 7,690 marriages (45.5 percent) of the total reported marriages. Marriages officiated in the Roman Catholic Church ranked second with 5,674 marriages (33.5 percent) followed by other religious rites with 3,411 marriages (20.2 percent).

A year ago, marriages performed in civil rites registered the highest number of marriages with 7,082 marriages (48.4 percent). This was closely followed by marriages officiated in the Roman Catholic Church and other religious rites with 4,733 marriages (32.3 percent) and 2,747 marriages (18.8 percent), respectively.

On the other hand, marriages carried out under tribal rites registered the lowest number of marriages in both 2020 and 2021 with one and nine marriages, respectively.

As shown in Table 3, the largest number of brides and grooms married in 2021 belong to the age group of 25 to 29 years with 6,713 (39.7 percent) and 6,720 (39.7 percent), respectively. Moreover, the number of teenage brides recorded at 764 (4.5 percent) which was almost four times more than the number of teenage grooms with 212 (1.3 percent).

On the contrary, in the 55 to 59 years age group, the number of grooms (130 or 0.8 percent) was almost twice as the number of brides
(73 or 0.4 percent). It can be noted that men tend to marry even on or after their golden years. Grooms aged 75 years and over (33 or 0.2 percent) were four times the number of brides (8 or 0.0 percent).

NOTE: Data on marriages presented in this release were obtained from the Certificates of Marriage (Municipal Form 97) that were registered at the Office of the City/Municipal Civil Registrars and forwarded to the Philippine Statistics Authority - Provincial Statistical Offices in Ilocos Region. Information included marriages registered in 2020 and 2021.