My sister is getting remarried (her second marriage) and apparently she’s freaking out about it. Even though it’s going to be a very small affair, she wants my mom to fly out a week before the wedding, and Mom says, “Oh she’s going to be a nervous wreck.”
My one wedding was fairly low-key and even though I wasn’t really looking forward to it (I wanted to elope), I wasn’t particularly nervous.
I started wondering if extreme nervousness were a sign that all is not well, so I thought I turn to dopers to find out if you were nervous for your wedding and whether it correlates at all to how your marriage went or how your relationship was before the wedding.
I think being nervous before a wedding says a lot about the person getting married and little about the marriage itself. Is your sister the nervous sort?
I suddenly got very nervous while waiting for the wedding to start, while I was waiting in the wings. So much so that I was hyperventilating and getting lightheaded.
I don’t remember feeling particularly nervous, just excited. I think I had some, “I hope I don’t trip and fall flat on my face going up the aisle” type nerves, but then I tend to have those anytime I’m walking in public. LOL!
I know Suburban Plankton was pretty nervous. He told me he was sick the night before from nerves.
We’ve been married just over 17 years and it’s still going strong.
Groom, first marriage, still married 8 years later.
On a scale of 1-10 for being nervous I’d rank a 0. Not really sure what there was to be nervous about. Is it people not used to being the center of attention at a ceremony? It wasn’t like I was there to give a presentation or anything. There were no lines to forget.
I was more nervous taking my driver’s test.
We took a year to plan our wedding. By the time the day finally rolled around, I was just happy to get it over with! Especially during the last couple of months preceding, everything was wedding this and wedding that and my wife was irritable and stressed out. By the time the day rolled around, I was too busy to get a chance to get nervous. I was more worried about being where I was supposed to be and doing what I had to do all day.
Apparently there is blocking to forget, sometimes. My husband and I somehow skipped a “kneeling at the altar” portion. I dunno where it went wrong; we’d had rehearsal the night before with the priest, we didn’t see him waving us frantically a particular direction or anything like that, but I was up there and realized ‘whoa, we didn’t do the kneeling part.’
My husband was genuinely nervous that I’d decide I couldn’t deal with his crazy family and ditch. He was visibly relieved when I showed up at the end of the aisle.
I wasn’t bad at all - for some reason I was much more nervous being a bridesmaid for a friend a number of years later. I could feel my mouth twitching and everything. Considering I did public speaking in high school, was in plays, etc., I have no idea what that was about.
(Stress about the wedding is another matter; let’s just say I’m entirely behind the idea of eloping.)
I was nervous only in that I was afraid I’d flub my lines or cry my guts out and look weird. I wasn’t the slightest bit nervous about becoming a married person (we’d lived together for 3 years anyway), nor about the wedding being perfect - which I think made it much more enjoyable. I don’t understand brides who freak out and think their wedding must go perfectly. I think that shows a pretty sad level of priorities and perspective.
That was 1997, and all is well. I can hardly imagine clicking with another person the way I do with Dark2Phoenix.
I was nervous because there were so many damn people there. I was also impatient. We’re still married six years later, though, and hopefully still will be 50 years from now.
No nerves here. What’s to be nervous about? We’d already been living together for 8 years so the wedding was pretty much a formality. It was also very casual. Still married 12 years and 3 kids later.
I don’t understand why people get so uptight or place so much importance on wedding ceremonies. It’s the least important day of a marriage.
My dad had a minor meltdown at the bridal shop the day before (dress was not ready when they said it would be), which was just completely unlike him, and both mothers were freaking out the day of the wedding itself, which was annoying.
This was my experience. I was fine until I was standing in the church narthex and the music started (this was an Episcopal service, so as the groom I was to lead the procession into the church). For 3-5 minutes I got really antsy and started shaking both my hands – like when you might if you hand falls asleep. I was a little freaked out walking down the aisle, but all I remember after that is how much my feet hurt from the rented shoes.
Not very; like Rhiannon, just excited. We greeted our 21 guests as they arrived at the courthouse, had a 5-minute ceremony (so not a lot of pomp and circumstance), and then we all went to dinner. I remember that when the family court commissioner (!) who was to marry us entered the courtroom, the four of us in the wedding party rushed the bench so quickly that he jumped back and went, “Whoa there!” We were ready to go.
We’re getting ready for a party this Saturday to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary, so I’d say things turned out well.
I got pretty nervous, but I think it was just walking up the aisle with everyone watching me - I’ve never been comfortable as the centre of attention. After the ceremony was over (does anyone really remember theirs? Ours was a blur), it was just fun time then.
Our eighth anniversary is next month, and it just keeps getting better.
We are getting married in 25 days and neither of us are nervous at all. Every so often one of us will run up and hug the other and say, “I can’t believe I get to be married to you!” We shall see if the lack of nerves continues or if my bridesmaids have to catch me when I faint.
Nope, not nervous. The night before I was annoyed: I was the bride and I had to sleep on the floor due to relatives. I didn’t even get a bed! And everyone was snoring! Oy. But absolutely no doubts about myself, my soon-to-be-spouse, or our feelings for each other.
I had a weird dream a couple of weeks before the wedding - for some reason, I had to marry this other guy. And my rational mind starting yelling, “But I don’t want to marry him! I don’t love him! I want to marry Dave - I love Dave! He’s the one I want!” Any cold feet I might have had were immediately doused by that one dream.
We were together for 6+ years before the wedding; our 10th anniversary is in August.
