Why Gen Z are keeping their marriages secret

Time was when an engagement was something to be loud about. Parents would host drinks parties, a notice would be submitted to the paper and the happy couple would be the toast of every gathering until the big day arrived. But of late, the age-old tradition to shout about upcoming nuptials has lessened to a whisper.

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.

Take 28-year-old Anya Taylor-Joy. The actress revealed earlier this month that she had married her long-term boyfriend Malcom McRae. A whole two years ago.

Dakota Johnson and Jennifer Lawrence are also among the young female celebs who’ve opted to keep their engagements (and latterly, in Lawrence’s case, marriage) quiet. And those in the wedding industry say that the “silent engagement” is common with the ordinary under-28s that make up Gen Z too.

A decade ago, seven in 10 of stationer Nicky Espinasse’s wedding orders began with a “save the date” letter. At first an American thing, these were quickly popularised by British couples who were “excited to let everyone know they were engaged as soon as possible”. But in the last two years, interest in them has declined dramatically, and now just three in 10 of Nicky’s clients send them out at all. The ornate cards – typically ordered in stacks of hundreds at a time – have been replaced with smaller runs of “personal and unique” formal invitations to the big day, Espinasse says.

Jewellers, too, have seen young people veer away from loud pronouncements. Plenty of couples in their 20s don’t bother with engagement rings, according to bespoke jeweller Rachel Boston, and cost is not the only factor. Those that do buy an engagement piece from Rachel will often opt for pieces with a flush set stone “as these don’t instantly read as an engagement ring”, she explains – no less expensive but much more subtle.

Millie Carr of Pink Piglet jewellery, herself 28, has also seen a trend towards subtlety. She tells of one young bride, shopping for pearl earrings for the big day, who had told only her parents and closest friends that she was getting married at all. “Silent engagements and even secret marriages are definitely floating about among customers, but I see it in my friends too,” she says. “A few years ago there was a period of flashing the ring but these days, more people are refraining from that. Privacy is definitely becoming cool again.”

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”.

But much like Anya Taylor-Joy, many couples clearly see appeal in the shock factor of a secret wedding, to which a silent engagement is essential. Roberts has hosted post-elopement parties where newlyweds surprise their guests with footage of their weddings, as has florist Nadia Nasser. In May 2022, Nasser styled flowers for what guests were told was an engagement party, only for the couple to show off a film of them signing the register two weeks prior. “So the engagement party became a wedding party,” Nadia recalls. “The couple wanted their wedding day just to be about them,” she says, but at the same time wanted a party “to enjoy and digest the fact that they were finally married”.

Sarah Tappen, also a florist, says that it’s now fashionable for couples to separate the legal bit of marriage from its celebrations – with or without bombshell revelations attached. “This year I’ve observed a significant number of people opting to legalise their union before their official wedding ceremony,” she says. Silent engagements too “seem to be happening more in the past few years, from what I’ve seen”. Tappen puts both down to small, pandemic-era weddings that gave couples the freedom to orient the day around themselves. “Weddings, as wonderful as they are, can also be incredibly stressful and unpredictable,” Tappen says, adding that she has “often advised friends to consider this approach.”

Ellie, 24, is one such Gen Zer with plans for a two-part wedding. Ellie did share her big news online when she got engaged last year, though her fiancée Rosa opted not to. As a same-sex couple, they’re less concerned about coming off as old-fashioned. “There’s less of a patriarchal feeling to marriage as an institution when it’s between two women,” Ellie says. Yet the pair still want to keep things relaxed.

The couple will have a ceremony in their back garden, led by the friend who set them up in the first place, with a legal marriage at a registry office a fortnight beforehand. It’s the sort of thing that’s harder to organise if you’re booking a big venue, says Ellie, “which isn’t very us at all”. While Rosa is unlikely to share their wedding photos on Instagram, Ellie might post a few – though “we’re not getting a professional photographer or anything”. Rather, the pair are “asking a few of our friends and my dad to take photos, and leaving disposable cameras around the place too for anyone to take some hard copies”.

All this “saves money that we’re going to use for some medical expenses instead,” Ellie says, “but we think even without the financial factors we’d have wanted something chill”. With many young couples like Ellie and Rosa already sharing homes and finances long before tying the knot, perhaps the “big news” is just no longer so big after all.