Marriage rebounds as young Koreans embrace financial 'wedding leverage'

At one wedding venue in Seoul, every time slot from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. was booked on Aug. 1, despite August traditionally being considered the industry’s offseason due to the heat and summer holidays. Though the venue’s parking lot extended seven floors underground, guests still struggled to find available spaces, and parking attendants had to direct them to a nearby vacant lot. But that quickly filled as well. One guest who arrived just in time for the first ceremony lamented that they had come too late to take photos with the bride in the waiting room.

Thirteen couples got married at that venue that day, and another nearby hosted 16 weddings between 10:30 a.m. and 5:40 p.m.

Until a few years ago, an 11 a.m. ceremony was generally considered the earliest available slot. Popular wedding venues in the greater Seoul area are now allowing ceremonies to start at 10 a.m. on Friday afternoons and even weekday substitute holidays due to the high demand.

The number of marriages in Korea has rebounded sharply as young people increasingly view marriage not as a financial burden but as a way to increase their savings, double their household income and build assets faster.

The emerging trend, dubbed “wedding leverage,” reflects the belief that two people can combine their initial capital and borrowing power to buy a home or make investments that would be difficult to pursue alone.

The number of marriages fell to an all-time low of 191,690 in 2022, shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic, but rose for three consecutive years to 240,326 last year — an increase of 25.4 percent from 2022 — according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics. The recovery followed 11 consecutive annual declines beginning in 2011. The upward trend continued this year, with 103,299 marriages registered from January through May, up 3.9 percent from the same period last year.

One factor behind the rebound is the changing perception of marriage’s economic value.

In the past, young people often considered marriage financially disadvantageous or simply couldn’t afford such a partnership. Now, however, more couples are starting to believe that they need to combine their savings and incomes to build enough initial capital to purchase a home and invest.

“Looking at people who achieved FIRE [financial independence, retire early] through real estate purchases or successful investments, I began to think that securing more initial capital and actively using leverage such as loans are essential for moving up the socioeconomic ladder,” said a 36-year-old office worker who married last year. “After getting married, we wanted to combine the money each of us had saved, maximize our income as a dual-income couple and take advantage of programs such as special newborn loans to build our initial capital as quickly as possible.”

The recovery has made wedding venues difficult to secure, especially since many closed during the pandemic.

“Even venues that are not highly sought after […] are hard to book for a consultation,” a wedding planner said. “For some venues, we, the bride and the groom have to make 400 calls on the morning that reservations open before we finally get through.”

Long lines also form early in the morning outside department stores. At 10:20 a.m. on July 28, around 50 people waited in the scorching sun outside the Lotte Department Store’s main branch in Sogong-dong, Jung District, central Seoul, for luxury boutiques to open.

“I once put my name on the waiting list at the Shinsegae Centum City Department Store in Busan at 11:30 a.m. but didn’t get in until after 5 p.m.,” said a person in their 30s surnamed Song, who plans to marry next December. “I’ve also seen many couples spend the entire day touring stores.”

The rise in marriages partly reflects accumulated demand from young people who postponed weddings during the pandemic, according to analysts. 

But they also pointed to the increasingly positive perception of marriage.

A March survey of 2,800 people aged 25 to 49 by the Presidential Committee on Ageing Society and Population Policy found that 76.4 percent viewed marriage positively, up 5.5 percentage points from 70.9 percent in 2024. The increase was larger among unmarried respondents, rising 9.8 percentage points from 55.9 percent to 65.7 percent.

The wedding leverage is considered a major factor behind that shift. When trends such as YOLO, short for “you only live once,” and the “gold miss,” an unmarried woman with a successful career and high income, were at their peak, some people viewed marrying just as their earnings and careers were taking off as a disadvantage. They believed that they could live just as well alone as married people could.

“I dated someone for about six years in my 20s, but I did not want to get married then,” said a 36-year-old woman who married two years ago. “It’s true that I was influenced by the social atmosphere.”

More recently, the belief that marriage is necessary to avoid falling behind in the race to accumulate assets has spread among people aged 30 to 34 with stable jobs and incomes. Rapid increases in home prices and stock values are among the forces behind the shift.

A 31-year-old man preparing to hold a wedding ceremony next January purchased an apartment before arranging a formal meeting between the two families or setting a wedding date. He had not told his family early this year that he planned to marry, but he registered the marriage in May and signed a contract for an apartment in the greater Seoul area.

“I’d been thinking about marriage but was not in a hurry until housing prices began showing signs of surging last year, so we rushed to buy a home first,” he said. “We also registered the marriage in advance so that we could take out a mortgage.”

He said that waiting longer could carry a financial penalty.

“If we waited any longer, we might have been pushed out of the greater Seoul area and forced to pay a ‘late fee,’ and I saw no reason to do that,” he said. “Government benefits like marriage congratulatory payments and marriage tax credits are also factors that cannot be ignored.”

A JoongAng Ilbo survey of 93 unmarried people aged 20 to 44, conducted over one week beginning on July 28, reflected the same trend.

Seventy-five percent said that marriage was financially beneficial. Among them, 47.8 percent attributed their opinion to higher income from having two earners, 33.3 percent to asset growth, 17.4 percent to lower living expenses and 1.4 percent to homeownership.

A 33-year-old woman who bought an apartment in Seodaemun District, western Seoul, this year after marrying last August said that homeownership would have been beyond her reach had she remained single.

“I would not have dared to buy a home if I were still unmarried,” she said. “I would probably still be anxious about rising jeonse [lump-sum deposit] and monthly rent prices. Financial stability is part of emotional stability.”

BY HEO JEONG-WON, LEE GYU-RIM [kim.hayoon1@joongang.co.kr]