Wedding night confessions: Blood, brawls and what really goes on

FORGET candles, champagne, chocolates and passionate lovemaking. Couples have confessed what really happened on their wedding night and it’s not always as sexy as they expected.

Extreme wedding night confessions

IT’S meant to be the start of a couple’s new life together — time to seal the deal.

In the olden days when there was more importance placed on saving one’s self until marriage, The Wedding Night was a big thing.

Special rituals, a perfect location picked out for that first romantic postnuptial shag, and selecting the perfect set of lingerie have long been a source of not just pre-wedding but post-wedding jitters for many a bride.

And while it may not be as big a deal today, that doesn’t make a disastrous wedding night any less disappointing, and according to new research from leading Australian bridal magazine Bride, those disasters are all too common.

Forget the candles, champagne, chocolates and passionate lovemaking, when it comes to their first night as husband and wife, two in five couples don’t have sex at all — and of those that do, most describe it as “average”.

Of 400 new brides surveyed on what really happened on their wedding night, 70 per cent said they spent more time wrestling with bobby pins, while more than 20 per cent of couples spent the night counting their cash and opening gifts.

For an unlucky five people surveyed, their first night of marriage was spent in the emergency room, while more than a third of respondents said their night was crashed by family and friends.

Nine per cent of new brides’ big nights ended in tears while 15 per cent ordered room service after forgetting to eat at the reception.

A fifth of newlyweds admitted to taking some time out to change their name on Facebook and update social media, and drunken in-laws and picking poorly timed fights featured heavily in some of the respondents’ accounts of their wedding night.

“My husband invited his brother back to our honeymoon suite, got blind rotten drunk, spewed all over the bed and then passed out. My drunk brother-in-law left at 4am,” one new bride said.

One new bride, 23-year-old Steph told of how her and her new husband’s first attempt to have sex ended disastrously.

“My husband caught his penis on his fly and it bled. A lot. And did not stop for ages ... so that was the end of sex for that night,” she said.

“It was our first time so we had done a lot of planning about what could go wrong. We had not planned for that though.”

Many respondents reported fighting with their new husband or falling asleep alone after a partner had passed out, but only one new bride admitted to losing the man she just married.

“After some frantic searching, it turned out he’d accidentally left with the band in the back of their van,” the 25-year-old newlywed said.

Another spent most of her evening counselling brawling bridesmaids while one couple’s wedding night plans were altered slightly when they discovered their parents had been given the rooms right next door to their bridal suite.

While from these tales it seems best not to plan much at all, Bride editor Lisa O’Brien has some tips for newlyweds on how to at least try and avoid disaster.

“Manage your expectations — this is one of the biggest days of your life, so you’re going to be absolutely shattered at the end of it,” she tells news.com.au.

“Consider staying an extra night at your hotel — you’ll be more inclined to take advantage of that kingsize bed after a day of chilling out.”

And perhaps the most valuable piece of advice to take away from the study.

“Make sure you eat at the reception,” Ms O’Brien said.

“So many couples end up ordering room service or McDonald’s because they haven’t eaten all day.”