We went to a wedding in Cleveland last weekend. We rented a car, drove to State College on Friday night, stayed over, and them left for Ohio the following morning. The wedding began at 6:30 PM. We were in Cleveland by 2:30.
There was quite a bit of driving involved especially considering we were only actually in Cleveland for about 20 hours (9 of which were spent sleeping) but it was absolutely worth it. I told my friend, Matt, aka the groom, “Your wedding was one that actually made me wish Tobyjoe and I hadn’t eloped.” Matt and Margie’s wedding was incredible. I cried three times.
One of the best parts about our trip was I was able to reunite with all my old graphic design school buddies. Aaron was there, Chemi, Ben, and, of course, Matt. I was able to meet their significant others and reminisce about our college years. I probably won’t laugh like that again for a long, long time. I nearly threw up from laughing so hard.
But that’s not the reason I’m writing today. And rest assured, I’ll have pictures to share in due time as well as stories about those brief couple of hours but for now I’m writing to ask the Internet a question.
At one point during the evening the joke came about consummating the marriage as well as the one about no longer having to live in sin. In this day and age most of the people I know who are married had already test driven the car prior having said “I Do.” Jokes were thrown around about the groom being too drunk or the bride too tired and out of this conversation a question arose: Did you have sex on your wedding night?
I did this once before and asked that people change their names. Please, kindly use this technique again (if anyone answers it at all).
Did you have sex on your wedding night? If you’re not married, do you have stories about other weddings? I want wedding night stories.
Flashback to 24 years ago….
The hotel was not quite what my new bride expected… I think it was the twin beds that particularly set her off. She ripped up everything in the room that she could get her hands on and then emphatically stated that we were NOT staying there on our wedding night.
Ever try getting a refund on a hotel room that wasn’t left in its original condition?
We ended up at a Holiday Inn Holidome in another city for the night. Not exactly the honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton. Yeah, we consumated the marriage but that night simply foreshadowed the inevitable divorce 13 years later.
We lived together for two years before getting married.
We slept on an air mattress the night we were married. Have you ever tried to have sex on an air mattress? Our wedding night was not consummated.
we did eventually, but it took a lot of down time beforehand just to finally relax and come down off the major excitement of the day. So, i understand how some might not.
Steve, i’m sorry to hear that. :[
We consumanted ours I suspect because we felt we ough to. It was definitely not the hottest, most passionate sex we’d ever had (ten years after our first time together though). I remember feeling silly to be changing into all the beautiful sexy bridal lingerie for what was not going to hours of slow unveiling given how tired we were. During my marriage the whole “state-sanctioned” feeling to it made me feel like there were people in lab coats who wanted us to have sex, the feeling of being supposed to have sex was freaky. We didn’t stay married forever.
I have however, consumated an apartment on an air mattress and it was so good I wrote porn inspired by it. I’ve had sex on one since occassionally, and it’s ridiculous but fun, and typically ends when one person falls off too many times, or you wake up spooning on a deflated layer of plastic. Actually, I still have a scrape on my knee from the last time on air mattress (the proper bed was wrecked) but i doubt we’d have felt so passionate and elated if it were the night of our wedding (one can only hope).
Something needs to be shifted in how forced, tired, and awkward wedding nights are. I want to get married again someday but I don’t want to have that obligatory state-sanctioned feeling.
love the google ads btw
Oh dear God these freaking stories are incredible.
And air mattress porn? I so want to know more about this. Truly fascinating.
Air mattress sex is a difficult thing to have.
Maybe they should start suggesting that a bride and groom (should you have a typical wedding) not see each other after the wedding either. Go to sleep alone until the following day when everything kinda blows over.
We decided to splurge and go to a B&B on the night of our wedding. It was $150 for the night. Not the most expensive, but the most we’ve ever spent. It was beautiful too. We had our own building (separate from the rest of the B&B, kind of like a little cabin).
We were so tired that night and we just passed out. It was kind of surreal though because the whole night seemed to pass in a daze. We weren’t quite awake, but not sleeping either. My husband kept looking at me and saying “your my wife!!” in a very sweet and excited way.
Given that at that time we had been together for just shy of ten years, having sex seemed like something we should do, but wasn’t the biggest deal. We’ve had our ups and downs and more recently I haven’t felt like having sex. Once every few months is good for me. I know it’s horrible… and my husband obviously wishes we had sex more often. I’m happy to say that during our mini-honeymoon the following week, we had sex THREE times in two days. Now that’s news. It felt great too because it was the first time in a while that I actually felt like having sex… and it was good sex too. ;)
I kind of feel like we missed the boat in the ‘sex on the wedding night’ department… but I know it would have been tired and obligatory sex. Hardly worth remembering. My husbands excitement over our marriage is far more memorable.
Since we’ve been married, things have been looking up in the sex department. Was it the marriage? I don’t know. Perhaps I’m just not dwelling on it anymore.
What a beautiful post.
My husbands excitement over our marriage is far more memorable.
Thank you for sharing that.
I love these ‘sharing’ posts Mihow. I really do.
Never been married…..BUT I have had…….let’s see…1…..2…..3….4…..5…..SIX Girlfriends who magically immediately married the NEXT GUY they dated [w/ voraciously sporadic success ratios in regard to those particular unions]……..Ya’ll can deconstruct that micro-cosmic anomaly to your heart’s content!!
Isn’t marriage merely a financial arrangement for the purpose of having children? LOL….
After our wedding, we had sex and then went back to join the party (which was still going strong well past midnight) :)
Well, no. It was an evening wedding, the reception ran until 11, then we all went out until 4am. And we had a wee brunch thing the next morning. But we’d been living in sin for a few years, so it’s not like we were dying for it.
In my experience, more consummation is done by the unmarried guests at weddings…
In my experience, more consummation is done by the unmarried guests at weddings…
Oh, that is so true. Or between married guests and NOT their spouse.
My first wedding was a two-night deal, with a small wedding for family and a cocktails/hors d’oeuvres reception after on the first night, and then a sit-down dinner with dancing and the whole bit the second night. We had lived together about a year and a half (and had dated for 8 years) before getting married, so obviously it wasn’t the first time, but we did have sex on our wedding night because he insisted. The second night ended with me getting drunk in our suite at the post-reception party, yelling at my mom, then passing out on the bed fully clothed.
My second wedding was a much better time all around – the two of us and six close friends who had conspired to rent us a limo for the day and a room at the Millennium Hilton for two nights. We got hitched at the Municipal Building, then tooled around the city all day taking pictures, drinking expensive booze, and eating a wonderful dinner at our favorite restaurant. We went back to the hotel and had a nightcap at the hotel bar with our friends (all of us in pajamas) while we ate pieces of chocolate caramel tart we brought back from dinner.
I’m going to be completely honest here and say that I don’t remember if we had sex that night or the next morning, and I don’t think it matters one way or the other – it was a long day, we were both exhausted, but our day was perfect in every way. The thing I remember most about that night is falling asleep with my husband in that big cushy hotel bed, both of us happy and giddy and snuggly, waking up the next morning the same way, and knowing that we both felt we were exactly where we were supposed to be.
I had said to my husband before we did all of this that having a marriage was so much more important to me than having a wedding – and I guess to some extent that includes all of the traditional stuff that goes along with the whole traditional wedding. That’s exactly what we’ve got this time, and I wouldn’t change a thing.
I remember that our feet were killing us from all the dancing in the fancy shoes, so we soaked them together in the bath tub at the hotel as soon as we got in.
I also remember counting all the money we received. We did that on the bed.
Then we consummated the marriage, but only after putting the money away. Hey, we had been living together for four years and we had never seen that much money in one place.
You put the money away first? Did you learn nothing from the movies?
s’ok, Michele. I don’t think you’re supposed to have the best sex of your life on your wedding night… otherwise, what would you have to look forward to?
One of my all time top 5 experiences was with a gf on the 18th green of the local golf course. It was one of those nights with air so thick you could wring the water out of it and with heat lightening every few moments.
Our signature phrase from then on was, “wanna get hit by lightening”?
Oh, wow, a whole slew of really lame sexual innuendos just came to mind regarding the whole sex on the golfcourse thing. Great story.
Oh, and I was sorry regarding the divorce. Bad sex happens. :]
We didn’t wait until our wedding night, but we did consumate the marriage.
My husband moved to America a week and a half before the wedding. The event was fantastic and ran late…it was in a hotel and part of the package was that we had the bridal suite for the night…a gorgeous, huge suite on the top floor. I started coming down with flu-like symptoms the morning of the wedding and took a 12-hour sudafed which made me speedy. Towards the end of the reception I was starting to feel fluish again, but was soooo happy. I took another 12-hr sudafed (that was a mistake) when we got up to the room.
We soaked together in the giant bathtub for maybe an hour, just laughing and talking about the night.
Then I changed into a little number I hadn’t shown him before and even though exhausted, we managed to get really into it. Heh.
I hardly slept at all. We had to pack up and go down for a brunch the next day and I was delerious.
It was all wonderful, though. :D
How about proposal stories? I proposed to Kerry at a place called “Chet’s Doghouse” between gulping down foot-longs. I just looked up at her and at the spur of the moment said “Let’s get married.” I had been considering it for a while but hadn’t planned the proposal. She got this weird look on her face and said “Why would we do that?”
I suddenly lost my appetite. I said something like “because I love you” and nevertheless started to eat while she sat there in silence, but I really wanted to run away. Fortunately, by the time I finished that foot-long, she had agreed.
I sometimes regret not doing an elaborate scene in a fancy restaurant or at a big family gathering, but given Kerry’s response, that probably would have surprised and embarrassed her.
Tobyjoe hacked my Web site and proposed to me on Valentine’s day. That was a funny day. Back then I updated pretty much every day and on that day I just didn’t want to so I hadn’t gone to my site at all that morning. My father had called. My friends called and given my reaction, everyone right away knew that I hadn’t seen the page yet. Tobyjoe called and said “Are you going to write today?” he was acting all weird. So I went there. That’s when I saw it. he had a form up there like one of those old letters you gave someone in elementary school.
Will you marry me?
check yes check no.
When I got home that day I told him he could get out of it if he wanted to. heh
We waited till we were married to have sex. And we didn’t actually consumate the marriage on our wedding night, though we still messed around some. I really didn’t expect much for the wedding night. I just wanted to enjoy my husband with whatever level of energy we happened to have when the whole wedding thing was over.
Wedding night? She was way Way WAY too drunk.
on our wedding night, we had the biggest fight of our relationship. ever. it was awful and i almost left the hotel to go home to my parents… an i’m really not that close to my parents. i was sure that we had just made a huge mistake and that even though the wedding was a small family affair, i’d be embarrassed for the rest of my life that i had ever believed in “the institution” of marriage or lifelong love. totally tragic. and it was all sparked by the cake. that devilly delicious cake that i prematurely cut into upon prompting from my mother to give my cousin (who wasn’t really invited and then had to leave early and make a spectacle of herslf) a piece of cake before she left. in my drunken stupor i eagerly hopped up and put a knife through this absolutely amazing cake (in the backside, i’ll note) that my dear friend had made for us… and my new husband’s heart sank, unbeknownst to me. we made up eventually but it was (still is 3 yrs later) a sore subject although we can laugh about it (cautiously, sometimes) now.
you can learn a lot about a person on your wedding night…
wow, that’s an amazing story. i am really sorry to hear that. I have a lot of trouble keeping my hands off cake, that’s for sure.
Sorry to hear that, yoohoo. I am happy things are better now even if it’s still a sore spot in the relationship.
Tobyjoe and I eloped to Niagara Falls. We got there. It was raining. The only thing I had planned was the hotel room. We had our wedding eve meal at bennigan’s and our wedding day meal at Hard Rock Cafe. Honesty to God, I’m not sure how we didn’t get into a fight because of our meals alone. :] Plus, we put a bunch of money down on roulette (to honor our ages and the date we were married) and lost it all (because I’m an old hag. heh). I think the only reason we were able to actually laugh about the whole thing was because NO ONE was there with us. We were totally alone and in another country. We only had each other. Had this been a wedding with a bunch of others, however, I bet I would have been a big ol’ bitch. But who knows.
Wedding days are really something. I’ll tell that story (everything down to the toothless Irish couple who were our witnesses) for the rest of my life. What a weird place, Niagara Falls. I had no idea it was going to be so trashy. ;]
The only thing more depressing than how trashy Niagara Falls is on the Canadian side, is how ugly it is on the US side. Remember, Niagara Falls, NY is the site of Love Canal and is basically an industrial wasteland.
Our photographer said, “You know, I don’t who looked at this amazing waterfall and said, ‘let’s build a bunch of casinos and fast food joints.’” The only comforting part about it was the fact that I realized that it’s not just America with a knack for destroying something beautiful.
hey mihow & toby, maybe for the 5 yr we can all get together in a prettier place and have a big wedding party. i figure we owe it to you 2 since upon your return fro N.F. we made you sleep on an air mattress in a room full of cardboard boxes.
dude, gina, i seriously wouldn’t change it for the world. being at your place was the best part of that day.