Saturday 26 June 2010

First Kiss on Wedding Day

Depending on how my Searching Singles are feeling, you will either LOVE this story or you will fall into a GLOOM.

Being married, and because I know the bride- and groom-to-be, I thought, "Awwwwwww!"

If you fall into a gloom, you should now that my first kiss was in a bus station, delivered by an Afghan refugee, and when I told thim that was my first kiss, he didn't believe me. This is how life is for most girls in the West, if not even more prosaic, so Sheila here is having a rather unique time.

And if you are wondering about a man who wants to wait until his wedding day for his first kiss, I should let you know that he did at least one tour of duty in Afghanistan. And he's in Opus Dei. And I interviewed him once, and I thought he was the cat's pyjamas. If I weren't married to B.A., I would be frothing at the mouth with envy.

But don't you do that. If you are in the mood for a super-sweet NCG love story, read the link and say, "Awwwwww!"

10 comments:

Claire Christina said...

See, I've never really liked the concept of the first kiss on the wedding day. I have friends who've done it, and good for them, but it always seemed rather abrupt a transition, from not even kissing one day to fully offering one's body to another the next (especially for those for whom this is the first relationship)! It actually strikes me as generally unhealthy, and something that can be done well only with a special grace from God.

Seraphic said...

Okay, I'm going to say this as many times as I have to: nobody has to go all the way on their wedding night. Marriage manuals from various non-European cultures suggest building up to it over a few weeks. I very much recommend that, especially for those who are inexperienced.

Claire Christina said...

Interesting! I've never heard that before, though it makes perfect sense! Well, I suppose I have plenty of time before I have to start worrying about the particulars there. :)

Shiraz said...

Actually, good luck to this couple and I hope they're very happy, but personally the idea of saving up the first kiss for the wedding day gives me the heebie-jeebies. I've come across couples whose first kiss was in front of the whole congregation at their wedding, and frankly, I wouldn't have wanted mine to have been so public. (And what's more, so publicly awkward.)

Of course, such a project wouldn't be possible for me anyway - my first kiss already happened, and was with an old boyfriend of mine on a grassy bank in a park which happened to have the tombstone of one of my ancestors at the edge of it. (A fact which I discovered on our way out of the park... but thought was pretty neat in hindsight.) He knew I was inexperienced, and so waited until I decided to kiss him, rather than ever making any move on me at all. It was lovely, at any rate, and I certainly don't regret it. (Young love, etc., etc.) I just can't imagine putting so much pressure on myself as to say It Will Happen On This Specific Day, especially not the already very significant and public wedding day.

I think your advice re: you don't have to go all the way on your wedding night is dead on, though. The idea of going from 0-100 all at once has disaster written all over it.

theobromophile said...

Agree with Claire and Shiraz. First, the idea of a wedding kiss has always seemed a bit gross to me anyway; I'm not really into being privy to intimate moments between husband and wife. (Should Hell freeze over and I find a husband-to-be, I hope that he would be okay with forgoing the traditional wedding kiss, since the idea of having a crowd of people watching our first marital expression of sexual love is... revolting. Ditto the idea of acting like a performing seal, not an adult at a solemn occasion.)

The idea of going from 0-100 all at once has disaster written all over it.

In which Shiraz hits upon one of the multitude of reasons why modern sexual mores (or lack thereof) are just not healthy, no matter what Cosmo might tell us.

Seraphic said...

THERE IS NO TRADITIONAL WEDDING KISS.

If you look at the Catholic wedding liturgy, there is no directive for the priest to order the groom to kiss the bride. It might be an Anglican thing. It is not a Catholic thing.

I don't think B.A. kissed me at our wedding. Our priest certainly didn't tell him too. We would have knee-capped the priest if he had. We wanted a 99% on book wedding liturgy--the 1% off stuff was ye olde business with the Scottish groom putting the sash off his clan on his bride--which is probably malarky, but I wanted to do it.

You NEVER have to kiss someone because a priest, or a banged glass or anything else, says you have to.

The misery that all these stupid made-up "rules" cause. You don't have to go "all the way" on your wedding night. You don't have to kiss during your wedding. You don't have to kiss because someone banged their glass. You don't have to kiss someone in public anytime, ever. It's up to YOU. It's always up to YOU. If your husband wants to snog in public, and you don't, you have the right to say, "Oh, Alfred! Not HERE."

I will say it a million times: you don't have to do sexual stuff you don't want to. If you don't want to do ANY sexual stuff, and you're MARRIED to the guy/girl, that's tough on them, and you may need to see a doctor/priest/counsellor. But in general, you DO NOT HAVE TO KISS IN PUBLIC, not even on your wedding day.

Of course, lots of couples who get their ideas about weddings from the movies would be disappointed if Father O'Brien/Fernandez didn't say "You may now kiss the bride" so poor old Father O/F says it all the time. It is up to YOU to tell Father O/T that you want a real Catholic wedding, without any Anglicanism or Hollywood crap.

Aussie girl etc said...

It isn't Anglican either. It is a Hollywood thing that became an American thing which then got exported around the world. I agree, it is crass and I don't like it.

some guy on the street said...

I'm reminded of the "prelude" to the Sword of Honour trilogy (Mr. Evelyn Waugh), where G. Crouchback (pater) marries... Mrs. Crouchback, I suppose... which upholds the already-expressed non-necessity of a fast-work first-night. And furthermore, the Catholicism of all involved is rather foundational to the whole trilogy.

Sheila said...

Our (traditional Catholic) wedding didn't include a "You may kiss the bride" either. We kissed a lot at the reception, though! However, we decided to kiss before the wedding because we didn't want our first kiss to be with everyone watching. That has "awkward" written all over it, in my opinion.

Samuel J. Howard said...

It is a Hollywood thing that became an American thing which then got exported around the world.

Ah, we must be very careful in discussing the liturgy for its history is long and complex. I hope to write more about this soon, but it appears that there may in fact have been a rubric in the pre-reformation Salisbury and York missals that indeed, the groom was to receive the kiss of peace from the priest and then convey it to the bride and that our common ceremony is, in a way, a relic of this.

Post-reformation in England and Scotland, at least, it seems to have been the custom for some years (as late as the 1890's in places, though it was passing out of fashion) for the clergyman to kiss the bride first at the conclusion of the ceremony. So I wonder if the practice of saying,"You may kiss the bride," is actually a reference to the practice of the clergyman waiving his (customary) right to kiss the bride first and instead saying to the groom, "*You* can kiss the bride now, because I'm not going to."