In the series This week in… we look back on special events. This time Valentine’s Day 2014, which was popular with bridal couples for several reasons. Wedding officiant Sjoege Wiersma was busy with it.
Sometimes Sjoege Wiersma (69) from Assen does not have to take action for months, it is so quiet on the marriage front. But sometimes it’s a completely different story and she rushes from one future bridal couple to another. Like ten years ago on Valentine’s Day.
On a normal Valentine’s Day, February 14, more people get married than on an average day in February. If Valentine’s Day falls on a Friday, it becomes extra attractive. And if the date is also special in terms of number series, it is very popular.
And that was the case on Valentine’s Day 2014: it fell on a Friday and had a mirrored date, namely 14-02-2014. Nationally, 678 couples got married, almost five times as many as on an average day in February that year.
‘We once did five weddings in one day’
In Assen, seven couples were married, slightly more than normal. For several of these couples, the choice of wedding officiant fell on Sjoege. She married three couples that day, as far as she can remember from her memory.
“Three in one day is special. Anyway. But I’ve also done five. That’s really the maximum: two in the morning and three in the afternoon. The ceremony itself takes about 45 minutes and I am always present half an hour in advance. You have to remember that you also have to go from one place to another in between, because getting married no longer only takes place at the town hall.”
‘If I say the wrong name, I’m joking about it’
She writes out her speech, but often she doesn’t need her notes at all. Then she knows exactly what a couple has confided to her in the preliminary conversation, even if she sees several in one day. She is not afraid that she will mix up the bridal couples-to-be.
“The story always comes back when I see them. I’ve probably mentioned the wrong name before, but that doesn’t mean the whole speech goes wrong. “Oh, that’s your name now suddenly?” I joke. Or something. I’m not such a stiff civil servant.”
Willem-Alexander and Maxima
Sjoege comes from the catering world. With her then husband she had several restaurants in Assen: De Hertenkamp and Ponderosa. She has been marrying couples and entering into registered partnerships since 2004.
During that period she saw special dates becoming increasingly popular. “That started with Willem-Alexander and Máxima. They got married on February 2, 2002. Then three became three loved and so on. That stopped after 2012, because the months ran out. But now there are other dates, such as 14-02-2014.”
It’s not just mirrored data like this that is in demand. Consecutive numbers (01-02-’03) and palindrome dates, which read the same from front to back as from back to front, also do well.
‘Couples often have their own special date’
“And what I also see a lot is that couples have their own special date. For example, the day they met or the day their parents got married.”
Sjoege first encountered Valentine’s Day when she lived in England at the age of twenty. “It didn’t exist at all in the Netherlands. It came from America and started in Europe in Ireland and England. There is a lot to say about its origins, but ultimately it was introduced here to increase the turnover of retailers. They saw their trade collapse after the busy December month and could use a boost.”
For that reason she has little interest in it. “I would never choose this date. It is a commercial and over-romanticized thing.”
Getting married on Valentine’s Day is asking for trouble
In 2016, Australian research showed that Dutch lovebirds who tied the knot on a special date are more likely to divorce. The researchers studied all 1.1 million marriages concluded between 1999 and 2013. “Getting married on Valentine’s Day is asking for misery,” the headline read. A.D .
The researchers are not sure why the chances of divorce are higher at such a wedding date. They suspect that many couples are so eager to get married on a special date that this clouds their decision as to whether it is wise at all.
Sjoege knows that her couples have not filed for divorce since Valentine’s Day 2014. She checked that. She has no further contact with them. “With almost no one, except that some are Facebook friends.” Sometimes she receives a Christmas or birth announcement in the first year after the wedding, but this usually fades away quickly. One of the exceptions is the Brabant couple who married them later in 2014 during the Truckstar festival. With them she made it to the national media.
Saying yes in intensive care
Was the trucker wedding her most special wedding? “No. That was a wedding ceremony in intensive care. The man was very ill and would die that night. They wanted to get married quickly. In the end, he didn’t die at all that night, but recovered.”