Utah has largest weddings, youngest brides, survey says

Utah has largest weddings, youngest brides, survey says


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SALT LAKE CITY — If there's one thing that Utah knows how to do right, it's weddings. The Beehive State has one of the highest rates of marriage and the youngest brides. And, according to a recent report by The Knot, Utah has the largest weddings on average.

The wedding planning website released their 2013 Real Wedding Survey, which gave questionnaires to tens of thousands of brides nationwide in order to gather data on the latest trends. Among the things they found was that Utah has the largest average wedding size, with 209 guests.

The state with the smallest wedding parties? Just next door in Nevada, with only 64.

Nevada seems to be opposites in many ways when it comes to marriage, with Nevada having by far the largest wedding rate at 37 per 1,000 people, according to 2011 data from the Centers for Disease Control.

Utah came in with 8.6, among the highest, but still beat out by Arkansas, Washington D.C. and Tennessee, and tied with Idaho. That high marriage rate comes with a slightly higher-than-average divorce rate of 3.7, compared to the national average of 3.4, according to Census data. Still, Nevada again tops this list with a rate of 5.6.

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Nevertheless, Utah led the country in terms of youthful marriages, with the average bride getting married at 25, compared to 33 in Hawaii, the state with the oldest brides.

Utah also used to lead the nation for cheapest weddings on average, with spending just over $13,000 in 2010. That low cost comes with a more casual feel as well, with only 11 percent of Utahn's planning a formal affair in 2012.

However, Alaska under-spent Utah in 2012, with an average of $15,500, making it the cheapest state. The most expensive? New York, specifically Manhattan, with an average of almost $77,000.

Another area where Utah leads? Honeymoons. Eighty-five percent of married couples take a honeymoon. Only Georgia had a higher rate of post-marital vacationing at 87 percent.

Slate's Will Oremus points out that the results from The Knot's survey should be viewed with at least a little skepticism. The survey is sent out to registered users of The Knot's website, meaning the sample leaves out those who have no Internet access, those with much lower incomes and those who simply use other resources to plan their weddings.

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David Self Newlin

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