wedding night
46
1.6
- noun
:
noche de bodas
- After the ceremony, they looked forward to spending their wedding night together as husband and wife.
And then I got married and on my wedding night, like that didn't happen.
- And then I got married and on my wedding night, like that didn't happen.
- What was your biggest fear after that wedding night?
- And I think, you know, I remember there were these like the conversations we had before our wedding night.
- But on your wedding night, please do not show your workings out.
Examples
-
Not yet, anyway. "We're saving ourselves for our wedding night," Colin said, and they laughed.
Fiction book (1997) -
The proper time for this is our wedding night.
-
Then it's on with our wedding night, huh, baby?
-
In fact, on my wedding night.
-
What about your wedding night?
-
The purpose of a wedding night?
-
Frank and I spent our wedding night at his apartment.
Fiction book (1996) -
And you waited until our wedding night to tell me?
-
NARRATOR 1: On our wedding night, we went to an island off the coast of Spain.
Fiction book (2002) -
The thought of these two virgins on their wedding night made me smile behind my veil.
Fiction book (1997)
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the night after a wedding' is directly and compositionally derived from 'wedding' (the marriage event) + 'night' (the nightly interval). This simple noun+noun combination follows a common, cross-linguistic pattern and would be immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Wedding night comes from the simple image of the first wedding ending and the newly married couple spending their first night alone together. One popular idea is that this was the time to 'be together as husband and wife', so today 'wedding night' means the night after the wedding when the newly married couple spend their first private time together.