To think that a couple’s wedding night should be sacred and most importantly, private?

[RoomKeyNotReels]

I’ve always felt that the wedding night - after the vows, after the party, after all the speeches and photos, should be a moment of privacy for the couple. Not necessarily for sex (though for some, yes) but for reflection, intimacy, quiet connection. The start of something new. But I’ve noticed more and more weddings where the couple is so busy entertaining everyone until 2am or 3am or crashing out drunk with friends or doing “wedding night after parties” and it makes me wonder… what are you actually prioritising?

AIBU to think the first night of your marriage should be yours - sacred, calm, private, not diluted by noise, content or a dozen mates in your suite?

(Not pearl-clutching. Just think intimacy gets lost in all the spectacle.)

OP, I get it.

Years ago, we went out to dinner with close friends who were planning to get married in a few months, and mutual friends. During this dinner one of our single friends, insisted that on their upcoming 'wedding night', we would all stay up playing parlour games, just like we did at Uni.

Call me old fashioned but I was a bit shocked at the overstep. It wouldn't have occured to me in a million years to expect that a newly married friend would make time for me the evening of their wedding, as I would hope they would be spending time with their spouse, or if anybody else, close family. (In the end it didn't happen anyway, of course).

It's one thing if brides and grooms want to stay for the party, but I do think there is an issue with guests expecting the presence of the newly married couple until the bitter end. Will people be put out if they say no?

Maybe there is a blurring of boundaries with the shift from the brides' parents hosting to the couple now hosting their own weddings, but yeah, it is all performatively extrovert imo.

AKA YOMWE.

Is there a manual? Does it come with pamphlets?

Straight from Gutenberg's own Presse.

I’m coming up to my 35th wedding anniversary to a wonderful husband, my wedding night was spent crying about the enormity of it all (I was not a virgin). Enjoy it with your friends if that’s what you want, I think I’d have enjoyed that more.

I'm Irish, our wedding tradition to is to keep going with the party all night, so much so that many venues provide a breakfast buffet as part of the package the day after, before everyone staggers off to bed. It's the biggest party most of us are ever going to throw for ourselves, why the hell wouldn't you stay up and enjoy every moment?! The 'going away' tradition seems to be quite a big thing in the US (sorry if I got that wrong!), I have never understood why you would leave your own, very expensive party, so early?

It may be expressed in an old fashioned way but I get what the OP means. I think. That for many 'the party' is the event, rather than the marriage itself. That the priorities of the occasion have got lost. And I tend to agree. The marriage part of a wedding can get a bit lost in everything else for many people. Or so it seems.

Normal people?

😂

Weddings certainly were more charming when the couple couldn’t wait to be away together.

Years ago I went to a wedding and the bride and groom went off after the wedding ' do'. . Some of us ended up going to a nightclub when the reception was over. The groom did some part time modelling and some of the girls at the reception were models. My partner and I got invited that night to a really swanky well known nightclub by one of the models. There were about 8 of us from the wedding who went. A few weeks later the bride found out and she was seriously pissed off. She said that she and her now husband had had a really boring night and that she would much rather have come to the nightclub with us. I thought at the time it was quite funny..So the moral of that tale is that brides and grooms should have fun ..

Looks like it’s around 90% in the UK. The goofier assertion is that “100% are not virgins” - come on, not a single virgin bride or groom in the whole United Kingdom?

As most couples these days have been living together for years and many already have kids, things have changed, it’s definitely about the party

How massively judgemental of you. Time for you to reflect on yourself.

Sweet lord it was bloody 3am before me and my husband got to bed the night of our wedding. we were so bloody exhausted and me a little tipsy 🤣 the dress and everything was thrown in the floor and collapsed into bed. far from bloody sacred. I was like I have been talking all day I don't want to talk any more so goodnight. I even think he was snoring before I even got into bed 🤣🤣

A bit of serious contemplation before the wedding would be more to the point. It’s a bit late to start the deep thinking once you’ve said I do.

I’ve always felt that the wedding night - after the vows, after the party, after all the speeches and photos, should be a moment of privacy for the couple. Not necessarily for sex (though for some, yes) but for reflection, intimacy, quiet connection.

Gross that makes me want to spew. Forced poignant. If people want to party then crack on. MYOB.

Hello Irish person. Can I ask, is that tradition of staying at the party a more recent tradition or has that been going on for say the last 50 years??

Each to his/her own.

It`s just sex op.
Most have already done it before the wedding, it will be the same thing on the wedding night.
Same sex with the same man.

I get what you’re saying, OP. Even if people have been together for years and it isn’t the start of their life together, it’s at least a new chapter in their life together, and it seems kind of odd to prioritize spending time with friends on your first night as a married couple. I mean, people can do what they want, but I wouldn’t want hanging out with friends on your wedding night to be the socially expected norm.

Sacred? Is this 1845?

Blimey. You're a bundle of laughs, arent you.

A quick sneaky sacred wanking off in the car en route from the church to reception venue will suffice.

😂

But each couple decides on their ‘priorities of the occasion’. It’s likely that the party is the occasion for many for the perfectly understandable reason that their relationship isn’t going to be changed by getting married, but it’s the only occasions they’ll have everyone they love together in the same place. So theur priority is to spend as much time as possible enjoying that, rather than engaging in ‘sacred’ private time.

I’ve always felt that the wedding night - after the vows, after the party, after all the speeches and photos, should be a moment of privacy for the couple. Not necessarily for sex (though for some, yes) but for reflection, intimacy, quiet connection.

AIBU to think the first night of your marriage should be yours - sacred, calm, private, not diluted by noise, content or a dozen mates in your suite?

Are you extremely religious, @RoomKeyNotReels ? You speak of the first night of one's marriage being 'sacred'. This ignores the fact that many couples have been living together for donkeys before the wedding and may have children together.

So they've been living as de facto husband and wife for years a-plenty and will hopefully therefore already have had plenty of time for 'reflection, intimacy, quiet connection'. The marriage for them may simply be a legal contract cementing the existing status quo and the wedding an opportunity for a good old knees up.

Perfectly understandable if you want something a bit more Zen. But I don't think anyone should be prescribing what is 'right' or 'wrong' (far less sacred) for other couples.

YABU for assuming your values and preferences are relevant to how other people celebrate their weddings. DH and I, who had been together for 6 years and living together for a while before we got married, spent our wedding night dancing until 2am then passed out with me still in my dress.

It was 12 years ago. 2 kids, 3 house moves and countless quiet evenings together since and I've zero regrets about our wedding night.