Weddings & Celebrations in The New York Times has a simple (though primitive) search feature. I decided to enter a few terms and see what I can up with. Here are the results:
Rabbi/4694
Roman Catholic/2474
Episcopal/2069
Presbyterian/1013
Methodist/458
Unitarian/344
Baptist/246
Lutheran/216
Hindu/129
Quaker/51
Buddhist/31
Muslim/14
Mormon/4
First, I did some fudging, I used “rabbi” in place of “Jewish,” since if there was a Jewish service I’m assuming a rabbi was present. Now, I’m pretty sure there are 9333 weddings listed since 1996 (bride and bridegroom queries come up that number). Many of the Jewish weddings seemed to also have a Christian service, while many of the Hindu ones were done in concert with Christian or Jewish services, so there is a great deal of overlap in these groups. But, playing with the numbers….
Ratio of eddings to percentage of American population….
Rabbi 38.69
Roman Catholic 1.08
Episcopal 13.04
Presbyterian 4.02
Methodist 0.72
Unitarian 12.29
Baptist 0.16
Lutheran 0.50
Hindu 3.46
Quaker 5.46
Buddhist 0.66
Muslim 0.30
Mormon 0.03
The overrepresentation of Jews is no surprise. Also, the old status ranking of Episcopalian -> Presbyterian -> Methodist holds. I suspect Quaker and Unitarian ceremonies are overrepresented partly because so many of the marriages cross denominational boundaries and both these groups tend to be perceived as “neutral” or liberal about such matters. The Hindu presence is partly a function of the relatively high SES of many Hindu Americans and their geographic concentration in the New York City area. A reverse geographic effect surely afflicts Mormons.
Posted by razib at 12:50 PM