Story by Lauren Shirreff
Marriage rates in people under 30 have never been lower, but a recent survey found that 93 per cent of Generation Z still hope to get hitched at some point – but when they do it, it’s a rather more secretive affair. Recent evidence suggests that for younger generations, publicly pronouncing marriage plans is no longer considered fashionable. In fact, it appears that it’s rather more chic not to talk about it at all.
Cambridge graduate Zoe, 25, is a good example. She was proposed to in 2023 but hasn’t shared the news of her engagement on social media, as doing so “spoils the nice bit that you get from seeing people in person and telling them”. There is also the worry with announcing the news on Instagram that “people who aren’t a part of my life, like people I used to go to school with, would gossip about me”. At work, too, she has kept things on the down-low, waiting more than a year to tell colleagues about her engagement, and has only just begun to wear her diamond-free ring in public.
Zoe is alert to how her peers might take the news that she has decided to settle down in her mid-20s. “I wouldn’t want to give an impression of being boring,” she says. “I feel like the vibe of being married isn’t what I’d want acquaintances to think my life is. I wouldn’t want to call myself someone’s wife because of how many negative things seem to follow when I hear that word out and about.”
With fashion dictating that couples keep their betrothals quiet, then, it’s no wonder then that small weddings are becoming the norm. Elley Roberts, an events manager at the Brickhouse Vineyard wedding venue near Exeter, says that “microweddings” – with fewer than 40 guests – have never been so popular. Elopements, too, are in fashion, and bookings for them come in year-round. “Some couples have been engaged for ages when they come to us and others do it on a whim,” Roberts says. Others still “plan a big wedding that doesn’t work out and think, forget it, let’s make it just us”.