What Does It Mean to Dream of a Wedding?

What Does It Mean to Dream of a Wedding?

Weddings can be emotionally intense events. Though romantic love is often at the center, weddings, and the marriages they begin, also involve many other aspects of life.

Your wedding dream can provide symbolic commentary on many things, whether or not you currently have anyone in mind to marry in your waking life.

Wedding Dream Summary

Wedding Dream Symbolism

A wedding is a ceremony that marks the beginning of a marriage. In marriage, two people commit to share their lives and become a family.

The details of what is shared between a married couple can vary by culture, but they often include things like legal responsibilities, sexual intimacy, family connections, and a last name. Your dream of a wedding can symbolize changes in your life involving any of those things.

If you currently have a boyfriend or girlfriend you are considering marrying, a wedding dream could certainly reflect that thought process and give you insight on your feelings as you work toward your decision. However, wedding dreams can also have a lot to say about your family of origin, as they play a significant role in many weddings.

Common Wedding Dreams

  1. Dream about getting married to your boyfriend or girlfriend
  2. Dream your boyfriend or girlfriend married someone else
  3. Dream about getting married to your ex
  4. Dream of getting married to an unknown person
  5. Dream of someone else getting married
  6. Dream of planning a wedding

Wedding Dream Symbolism

Wedding Dream Symbolism

Union

When you get married, you join forces with someone else. A dream of getting married can symbolize that you are taking someone or something into the most intimate parts of your life, and you may wind up changed by the encounter.

Especially if the identity of the person you are marrying in your dream is vague, your dream of a wedding could symbolize that you are connecting with some part of yourself that has been neglected.

Change in Identity

When you get married, your identity often changes to reflect that. You are treated differently by society as a married person rather than as a single person. Many people also change their last names when they get married, though the details vary by culture.

Dreaming of getting married can symbolize that you are pursuing a major change in your identity. This may or may not involve making a commitment to another person.

As the author SARK said, “Marry yourself first – promise never to leave you!”

Relationship With Your Parents

Brides news describes the wedding tradition of the bride being walked down the aisle of the church, or wherever the wedding takes place, by her father and given away to the groom. This dates to a time when a woman was essentially property transferred from her father to her husband.

More recently, Brides notes that many couples have adopted the Jewish tradition of both spouses being walked down the aisle by both of their parents.

Dreaming about a wedding can symbolize a situation where you want your parents to approve of you. What you want their blessing for may or may not be related to a current romantic relationship.

Dreaming of your parents giving you away in marriage could also symbolize that you would like your parents to give you more freedom to live your own life as you see fit. Whatever way you currently feel they will not let go of you may or may not be specifically related to a current romantic relationship, though having parents who are overly involved with your adult life on any topic can certainly be an impediment to developing a romantic relationship.

Family

Weddings are often a big event for the extended families of both people getting married, as each spouse becomes a member of the other’s family at the wedding.

Dreaming of a wedding can symbolize a situation where you want to bring your family into some aspect of your life that they have not previously been involved with. It can also symbolize that you want to bring someone into your family, whether or not the context is a romantic relationship.

Commitment

A wedding is a public display of commitment to a relationship. Dreaming of a wedding can therefore symbolize that you are making a significant commitment of some sort in your life, though this does not have to be a commitment to a romantic relationship.

A wedding dream could also symbolize a commitment to a job or to a religious belief. For example, the Roman Catholic religion refers to nuns and other religious sisters as brides of Christ.

Legal Recognition

Though a couple may be just as committed in their hearts when they get engaged as when they get married, what changes when they get married is that they take on the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage, as noted in engagement dream symbolism.

A dream of getting married can therefore refer to a situation where you are filling out a lot of legal paperwork with someone else. This could be for business reasons, but whatever it is clearly spells out your legal duties toward one another.

Fear of Abandonment

Marriage is typically intended to last until one member of the couple dies. Dreaming about getting married can sometimes symbolize that you long for the security of marriage because you think it will relieve your fears of being abandoned.

Sex

In some cultures and religions, people are supposed to wait until they get married before they have sex. It can be important in this context to consummate the marriage with sexual intercourse shortly after the wedding. Dreaming of a wedding could therefore symbolize interest in having sex or other concerns about sexual intimacy.

Also, many people’s wedding vows emphasize sexual fidelity to their spouse during their marriage. If you are accustomed to dating and mating more widely, dreaming of a wedding could depict your fears of becoming trapped with just one other person.

Common Wedding Dreams

Dream about getting married to your boyfriend or girlfriend

Dream about getting married to your boyfriend or girlfriend

If you dreamed of getting married to your boyfriend or girlfriend, is this something you are consciously planning to do with your boyfriend or girlfriend? As noted in engagement dream symbolism, your dreams of this sort can definitely reflect things you are considering in your waking life.

If marrying your boyfriend or girlfriend in your dream feels good, this could show that you feel comfortable with them. It may be a positive omen for your relationship, especially if you are already considering marrying them.

If you feel trapped or otherwise unhappy in your dream of marrying your boyfriend or girlfriend, this gives you more to sort out. It could symbolize a situation where you feel like your boyfriend or girlfriend is pushing you into a marriage that you don’t feel ready for.

If no one is talking about marriage in your relationship in waking life, however, a dream of marrying your boyfriend or girlfriend could push you to ask at least yourself about your long-term plans. If you and your partner kept on with your current arrangement indefinitely, would you feel any less trapped than you did in your dream of marrying them?

Dream your boyfriend or girlfriend married someone else

Dream your boyfriend or girlfriend married someone else

Dreaming that your boyfriend or girlfriend married someone else could show that you feel anxious about their commitment to you, though your anxiety could be more about you than it is about them.

If you dream that your partner married an ex of theirs, this could symbolize that you feel like their ex is affecting your relationship with them somehow. Even if they are not currently in contact with their ex, maybe an emotional wound they suffered in their relationship with their ex is affecting how they interact with you now, and you are angry at their ex for hurting them in that way.

If the person your partner married in your dream is someone you currently see as a rival for their affection, your dream could reflect your anxiety about that particular situation. If your boyfriend or girlfriend married a stranger in your dream, this could suggest that you have more free-floating anxiety where you imagine they could be cheating on you with anyone and everyone.

Dream about getting married to your ex

Dream about getting married to your ex

Dreaming of getting married to your ex can symbolize that you are not entirely over your ex. If the dream was positive, this could show that you are nostalgic for at least some parts of the relationship, whether or not getting back together is a realistic possibility or anything you want to do.

If the dream was negative, the dream could symbolize that you are still upset with your ex and don’t know how to let go of your difficult feelings toward them.

Alternately, if you were married to your ex in the past, this dream can be more about your feelings on marriage in general. Such a dream may ask you to consider whether you are interested in marrying again.

As discussed in ex dream symbolism, dreaming of your ex, in general, can sometimes reflect that you are starting a promising new relationship. Making progress in your current relationship can bring up your memories of how things went wrong in past relationships and how you want to avoid those mistakes this time around.

Dream of getting married to an unknown person

Dream of getting married to an unknown person

Dreaming of getting married to an unknown person can have a different meaning depending on your current relationship status.

If you are currently single, dreaming of marrying a stranger can symbolize that you are opening up to the possibility of partnership. As can also be the case for dreams of making love with a stranger, your dreams may know before your waking mind does that you are getting ready to let another person into your life.

Alternately, your dream of marrying a stranger could symbolize that you are so desperate and trying so hard to find a partner that you might be tempted to settle for the first person you can find, even if they are not really a good fit for you.

If you are currently married, dreaming of getting married to an unknown person could symbolize that your partner has been through a lot of personal growth lately, to the point that you feel like you have to get to know them again.

For anyone, dreaming of marrying an unknown person can symbolize connecting with a neglected part of yourself.

Dream of someone else getting married

Dream of someone else getting married

Dreaming of someone getting married, when you are not one of the people getting married, could reflect that you are at an age when all of your friends, siblings, and cousins seem to be getting married at the same time. You could feel left out if you have not gotten married yourself.

A dream of watching someone get married could also refer to your role in your community and how you see yourself supporting others in their major life transitions.

Dream of planning a wedding

Dream of planning a wedding

Weddings can be elaborate events requiring a lot of planning and spending on food, entertainment, and more. If you are actually in the thick of your own wedding planning, it would probably be surprising if you didn’t dream about it, as dreams often process whatever you are doing in your waking life.

If you are not planning a wedding in your waking life, a dream of planning a wedding could symbolize that something that you are involved with has become more elaborate than it warrants.

Conclusion

A wedding, and the marriage it begins, is a major event that can touch nearly all aspects of your life. Though some focus on the sexual component of marriage, its challenges such as building a household together, balancing family commitments, and combining finances take in far more than just sexual intimacy.

A wedding dream can speak to a variety of serious commitments you might make. While marriage often changes many parts of your life all at once, a big change to any part of your life could be disruptive enough to inspire a dream of a wedding.