Marriages and divorces drop sharply in Kentucky during the COVID-19 pandemic

Dozens of invitations had been sent out. Copious amounts of food and drink had been ordered. Beautiful attire was ready to be worn for the weddings.

Love was in the air, but so was a deadly new virus called COVID-19.

“The weddings came to a screeching halt,” said Lexington wedding planner Sarah Burton, owner of Simply Love Studio. “COVID-19 came so quickly. It was devastating for couples ready to get married.”

Especially hard hit were last year’s brides who had everything planned for spring weddings, said Burton, who has been in the wedding business for 11 years. “It was all so chaotic, so sad.”

Marriages in Kentucky hit an annual low last year for this century, according to state records obtained by the Lexington Herald-Leader. At the same time, the number of Kentuckians getting divorced also plummeted last year.

In 2020, Kentucky recorded 21,973 marriages, according to data obtained from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services through the newspaper’s Open Records request. That is about a 21 percent drop from the 27,697 in 2019, the year before the pandemic started.

The yearly number for the most ever marriages in Kentucky this century was 40,620 in 2000. The lowest before 2019 and 2020 was 29,813 in 2011, coming out of the Great Recession.

The number of divorces in Kentucky last year was 12,896 — an 18 percent decline from the 15,658 in 2019 and the lowest for any year this century. The most was 22,118 in 2000.

Kentucky’s declines in marriages and divorces in the first year of COVID-19 align with a study released in January by Bowling Green State University’s Center for Family and Demographic Research. Researchers studied marriage and divorce statistics from five states that released monthly numbers for much of last year: Florida, Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, and Oregon.

“It’s good to hear that Kentucky figures matched what we found,” said Wendy Manning, a sociology professor at Bowling Green State and director of its family research center.

Manning said there are several reasons for the decline in marriages and divorces during the pandemic.

“In regards to marriage, some people thought more people would get married in the pandemic because of reasons like more people probably were cohabiting or needed to get married to improve their financial situations,” Manning said. “But the data show us that was not the case.”

“In the early months of COVID, March through May 2020, some offices where one could get marriage licenses were closed and people were told to stay home,” she said. “And a number of people just decided to put off their wedding because they couldn’t have the wedding they wanted with large crowds and dance floors.”

Manning said the center’s study could find no relationship with states’ COVID-19 restrictions and a drop in marriage rates.

“Most people realized it would be best to wait,” she said.

The Bowling Green study and Kentucky’s data contradict some early predictions that COVID-19 and the economic and social pressures of the virus would cause divorce rates to surge.

Breck Norment, a divorce attorney in Lexington, said he was surprised to hear that the divorce rate dropped in Kentucky last year.

“Our caseload has been insurmountable,” said Norment, who graduated from law school in 2013.

“It takes time to get a divorce and it can be expensive. Maybe it just hasn’t been practical,” said Manning. She noted that some people considering divorce may have stayed together for financial reasons and to put off child custody decisions, which became more problematic with the closing of schools and day care centers.

Marriage and divorce rates have been trending downward in the United States as many Americans change their thoughts on marriage, deciding to wait or choosing to live together without a wedding, said Manning.

“There already was a decline but COVID brought us more than the traditional decline,” she said.

The professor noted that the age to get married is going up every year in this country. It’s now about 28 for women and about 30 for men, she said.

Costs also have been rising for weddings. A marriage license in Kentucky costs $35.50 but the average cost for a wedding in the state is $19,878, not counting the honeymoon and rings. The average cost of a wedding in the United States is $26,770.

The big question now, said professor Manning, is whether marriage and divorce rates will climb this year.

“There seems to be a pent-up demand for weddings,” she said, noting she has a niece who is to marry in August after postponing last October’s wedding.

Burton, with Lexington’s Simply Love Studio, is predicting that marriages “will rebound this year.”

“Some who had postponed their weddings last fall are rescheduling this year. People know more and feel better about the health guidelines to deal with the virus. We are definitely having weddings now indoors and outdoors. We want everybody to feel good and stay safe.”