Number of Marriages at Gretna Continue to Rise

1 August 2001

More couples chose to get married at Gretna last year than at any time since civil registration was introduced in 1855, a report published today by the Registrar General for Scotland has found.

The Occasional Paper titled: Marriages at Gretna, 1975-2000 reveals that there were 5,278 marriages in the year 2000. The most popular month for marriages at Gretna was August, whereas September was the favourite for Scotland as a whole.

The paper also shows:

That over the last twenty five years the number of marriages at Gretna has increased from 100 a year in the mid-1970's to over 5,000 in 2000.
That the majority of couples marrying at Gretna are from England, but an increasing number of couples are from outside the United Kingdom.
The striking rise in religious marriages during the 1990s, from under 30 in 1992 to nearly 3,000 in 2000.

Notes For News Editors

Additional detail on marriages and divorces in Scotland in 2000 were published in Sections 7 and 8 of The Registrar General's Annual Report for 2000 on 30 July 2000. A copy of the report can be obtained from the GROS website at: www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/library/annrep/00annrep/index.html or from GROS Statistics Customer Services using our Contact Form.