THE number of people who got married at the Saipan Mayor’s Office declined significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report from the office’s marriage section.
According to the report, 619 couples got married at the mayor’s office in 2019. The number plummeted 60% to 372 in 2020. Wedding couples declined over 70% year-over-year in 2021. In 2022, the number of couples that exchanged I do’s dwindled to 32, or less than an eighth of the prior year total of 264.
The marriage section attributed the decline in the number of marriages to the Covid-19 restrictions imposed to curb the outbreak as well as the island’s economic downturn due to the virtual collapse of the tourism industry.
But now that tourists are starting to visit the island again, the mayor’s office is expecting the number of marriages to increase.
Data also showed that in 2020, 265 marriages occurred between two U.S. residents and 105 marriages were between a non-U.S. resident and a U.S. resident.
All marriages performed in 2021 and 2022 were between U.S. resident couples.
In 2020, there were 20 marriages between males and 77 marriages between females.
In 2021, two female couples wed, but no male couples did.
There were no same-sex marriages in 2022.
In an interview, Saipan Mayor Ramon B. Camacho said marriages are only for two people in love.
He said he is looking into ways to ensure that the couples who will get married at his office know each other and are really a couple before he officiates their wedding.
“I am against fraudulent marriages,” he added.
