Sleep or Sex or Something Else Entirely?

It’s that time of year again, by which I mean that very special time of year in which I, Never teh Bride, clears out my e-mail inbox. As you can probably imagine, it can get pretty clogged, what with letters from readers (which I can never, ever get enough of), pitches from PR people, and owners of blogs writing to request link exchanges. Sometimes good stuff can get lost in the fray — if I don’t respond to a letter or get to a pitch right away, it doesn’t mean I don’t love ya — which is why once or twice a year I gather my inspiration at Never.teh.Bride@gmail.com.

One interesting PR pitch I received a long while back comes from AreYouRomantic.com. Caesars Pocono Resorts commissioned the site’s creators to conduct a survey all about, you guessed it, honeymoons. Specifically how brides and grooms approach the honeymoon. Basically, AreYouRomantic.com found that more couples are paying for the honeymoon themselves, yet they still want to incorporate tradition into their weddings. Boooooring!

bride-sleeping1

What got my attention, though, was the part of the survey dealing with the wedding night. The poll found that almost 20 percent of newly married couples don’t actually consummate their marriage on their wedding night. Frankly, I’m not surprised. Indeed I am more surprised that 80 percent actually do! I’ll just come right out with the TMI and say that The Beard and I were way too tired to do anything other than fall asleep since my mom hosted an after-the-wedding dinner at a nearby restaurant and we made the mistake of attending. Then I think we went swimming in the hotel pool with a bunch of our friends. When we got upstairs, consummation was just about the last thing on our minds.

And we’re not alone. Of the 20 percent who didn’t do the deed on the wedding night, 32 percent said that they (or their partner) were too tired. Another 14 percent said that they (or their partner) had too much to drink. Apparently women chose this answer more than men, but I’m not sure if they meant they drank too much or their partner drank too much. Roughly 11 percent said that family and friends were still around. More men chose that option. Finally, 10 percent said that it wasn’t important to them.

In the interest of finding out if the AreYouRomantic.com people got it right, I thought I’d conduct my own poll right here on Manolo for the Brides. Brides-to-be and former brides (as well as their grooms) are welcome to answer. If you’re married and open to sharing, tell us what you did or didn’t do. And if you’re going to be married soon, tell us what you plan to do or think you’ll do. Feel free to elaborate — though, please, not too much! — in the comments.

17 Responses to “Sleep or Sex or Something Else Entirely?”

  1. mkb says:

    This was asked on Ask Metafilter!

    (We slept because we just about made it up to the hotel room without crashing, and we didn’t even drink that much.)

  2. Twistie says:

    Our wedding was in the early afternoon and the reception was over before nightfall. We had dinner, and then…well, we both had plenty of energy left and a romantic room in a B&B a few blocks from my former abode. ‘Nuff said.

  3. Twistie, is this where I say “Woo woo!”? 😉

  4. Sarah C. says:

    We slept. We slept the sleep of the people who just had a big, busy day and who weren’t going on our honeymoon until spring (married Feb 29, honeymoon in Paris in April, because who wants to go to Paris in early March?). We basically came home from the reception, ordered Indian delivery (which we didn’t get because the driver got into an accident on the way to our place), crawled upstairs and passed out facedown.
    And got the Indian food the next night instead.

  5. Twistie says:

    Yes, NtB, yes you may.

    Hey, Sarah C! Mr. Twistie and I had Indian food for dinner that night. It was yummy, too.

  6. MLE says:

    We had the wedding, the reception, and the after party on a Saturday, after the bachelor/ette parties on the Thursday and the last minute getting ready/setup/rehearsal dinner on the Friday. By Saturday night we were completely and utterly exhausted. We made it up to our room in the B&B, removed our clothing, and crashed.

  7. Linda says:

    I passed out in our tent (we had a camping wedding) while hubby partied with friends. We didn’t consummate anything til the following night in our own bed.

  8. We had houseguests the week before the wedding (my husband’s parents, who slept in our room). My mom arrived the day before the wedding and my husband and I moved to the basement and gave her the guest room, where we had been sleeping while his parents slept in our room. Two stepdaughters, three siblings, and my mom’s beau all stayed at a hotel. Everyone ate at our house, except for the wedding supper.

    I was wiped out. We slept, but not before my husband turned to me in bed and said about his very difficult to deal with parents, “They will NEVER live with us. Never.”

    That was almost as good as you know what.

  9. 7nina says:

    I expect to be spending that night at my FMIL’s-so no.

  10. Twistie says:

    class factotum, that may be the most romantic phrase I’ve ever heard.

    (dabs delicately at misty eyes with lace-trimmed hanky)

  11. Blush Photo says:

    Ha, Ha. I always wondered, after all the hoopla, whether there’s anything going on during the big night!? cute post. =P

    Best,
    Karen
    Blush Photo

  12. Pencils says:

    Like Twistie, we had an afternoon to early evening wedding & reception. After we left the reception, we stopped at the Borders where we met (a coffee date) and took a few pictures. Yes, in full wedding regalia, people thought it was very funny. Then we went home, my sweet new husband carried me over the threshold, and we consummated our marriage. Then we went to sleep for a couple of hours, as the limo was picking us up for our honeymoon flight at 3am. We were in St Lucia by noon the next day, which felt very odd, but we were short on sleep. So we checked into our room and proceeded to consummate some more, in case we missed something the night before. 😉 It was nice to have the evening of our wedding to ourselves, and I was able to show my husband my very nice (and very expensive) wedding lingerie.

  13. La Petite Acadienne says:

    We consummated our marriage that night. Mind you, after the ridiculous quantity of booze we ingested that night, the details are rather hazy in my mind.

    There’s nothing quite like lying on a cold tile floor in one’s wedding-night lingerie, in a valiant effort to keep down one’s (very expensive) wedding supper from Babbo. 🙂

  14. Margaret says:

    Our ceremony was at 1PM. Our reception started at 5 after photos and all that folderol, and we finished up at 4.15AM after quite a party. Needless to say, no consummation till two days later when we arrived at our honeymoon destination in France.

  15. La BellaDonna says:

    I slept, which wasn’t my intention or my preference. My idiot husband stayed up chatting … and chatting … and chatting … with my siblings. Last I saw of them, they were in the doorway, on the way out, having been bidden a loving Good Night! by me.

    Apparently, it just wasn’t that important for him to come to bed, where I was waiting.

    Yes, it WAS an omen. One I was too stupid to recognize.

  16. Toni says:

    After the reception ended at midnight, I went to an after party with all my high-school friends that were in town for the event, and hubby begged off and crashed at the hotel. Romantic, no? I really have no idea when we actually consummated anything, for that matter.

  17. Skittles says:

    I really, really, hope we aren’t too tired to do anything since we’re waiting for marriage and frankly, I’m getting a bit impatient. That being said, we probably will just crash due to utter exhaustion. His family just doesn’t party half-way.