Christmas Day used to be a popular day to get married.
Nowadays, December is the most common month for engagements worldwide, but not for weddings — that would be October, when roughly 17% of betrothed couples tie the knot. The final month of the year is one of the least popular times to get married — December ceremonies account for only about 5% of weddings total — but that wasn’t always the case. In Victorian Britain, Christmas Day was a particularly popular occasion for weddings.
People didn’t get hitched during the holidays for the most romantic of reasons. Rather, it was often because Christmas and Boxing Day (December 26) were the only two consecutive days of the year that young, working-class couples were certain to be off work in the 18th and 19th centuries. Most people worked six days a week and couldn’t afford the kind of grand nuptials that have since become common, so group weddings were regularly performed. Christmas ceremonies saw a resurgence during World War II, when soldiers on leave for the holidays took the opportunity to tie the knot before returning to active duty.
