A mass wedding in Hong Kong. Photo: PETER PARKS/AFP
Kylie Springford, owner of Cheers Party Hire in Whangarei, has noticed weddings have become smaller, and less frequent in recent years.
"I bought Cheers five weeks before Covid hit. Although the business is doing way better than its previous numbers, definitely the number of weddings we do has decreased and got smaller as well."
She said the closure of the Brynderwyn hills, the main route between Northland and Auckland, had been a factor, as had Covid lockdowns and the tougher economic environment.
Bookings for the next season were looking better, she said, but weddings did not seem to be getting any bigger.
Data from Stats NZ shows that the number of marriages happening has not fully recovered from the Covid hit. The 2022 and 2023 annual numbers were the lowest, excluding the Covid years, of data going back to 1980.
In 2023, there were 18,744 marriages.
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub said the number was usually relatively consistent. "There was a crunch during Covid but it's never really recovered."
He said, although there had been a slow downward trend over the decades, predictions of a sharp drop-off had not proved true - potentially until now. "Did it take the pandemic to knock things off, is it the recession, that people can't afford it?"
Mike Jones, chief economist at the BNZ, said discretionary spending had been "hammered" over the past 18 months due to the recession.
"This might be one factor holding people back, given the significant cost involved. But it's also clear that there is a 50-year downtrend in marriage rates, and the latest numbers are a continuation of that trend."
Susannah Reid, director at The Wedding Planner, said things were noticeably picking up after a "bit of a gap" last year.
Since the start of this year, she had seen more people planning their weddings for 2025 and 2026.
"It seems that people are feeling more confident and ready to move forward with their wedding plans, post-Covid."
Massey University associate professor and acting head of the school of psychology Kirsty Ross said it had been a tough time for people.
"That means when it comes to thinking about where you spend your money, some people are prioritising marriages and ceremonies that are very - when I say simple I don't mean that in a disparaging way - but not hugely expensive, and are carrying on.
"But other people might have an idea of what a wedding might look like and now can't afford it."
She said many young people had to weigh up whether they wanted to pay for a wedding or have the money for a house deposit.
Gareth Kiernan, chief forecaster at Infometrics, said there were probably economic effects at play.
"A lot of historic research isn't particularly useful because it looks at the Great Depression and talks about resulting lower marriage rates, more particularly for men - makes sense that they aren't able to support a family, but possibly even increased marriage rates for women if female labour markets were disproportionately worse.
"Those kinds of social dynamics obviously don't apply any more."
But he said it made sense that tougher economic times would lead to reduced marriage rates.
"Higher living costs make it harder to save or pay for the expense of a wedding. More specifically, higher housing costs are likely to have a significant effect on people's spending priorities - and the unaffordability of housing in recent years could well have forced people to choose between buying a house or having a wedding. I'd guess that many people would choose the practicality of the house over the perhaps non-essential spending of the wedding.
"More recently, the deteriorating labour market and uncertainty that creates in terms of job and income security are also likely to lead to more caution about significant expenditure, leading to people delaying any wedding plans."
But he said it could be argued that marriages were being delayed rather than stopped completely.
"There can be a rebound in weddings when economic conditions improve. Having looked at the NZ data, though, it's pretty hard to see much of an effect like that after the GFC. If the catch-up theory is true more broadly, the extent of the drop in marriage numbers during the pandemic should be reflected in a pick-up in marriages afterwards. However, any extra rebound hasn't occurred yet, and it could be that it's being limited or further delayed by the difficult economic conditions."