Bedding

"Its tradition. Without the bedding ceremony there's no real proof the lord and lady consummated their marriage."

- King Robb Stark to Queen Talisa Stark

The Bedding is a Westerosi wedding tradition, practiced throughout the entire continent. Its intended to provide evidence that the bride and bridegroom have consummated their marriage.

The bedding is commonly held after the wedding feast is over. Male guests carry the bride while female guests carry the bridegroom to the bedchamber, removing items of clothing along the way and making ribald jokes.

Known beddings

 * Ned Stark forbade the bedding during after his wedding to Catelyn Tully, joking that it wouldn't do if he broke someone's jaw at his own wedding.


 * During the feast for the wedding of Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister, King Joffrey tries to initiate the bedding in an attempt to humiliate Sansa. A drunken Tyrion puts an end to it by threatening to geld Joffrey, though he then, laughingly, "admits" he's made a bad joke. Tywin Lannister's intervention prevents the bedding from taking place.


 * After the wedding feast of Lord Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey, Lord Walder Frey initiates the bedding. Male guests carry Roslin while the Frey women take Edmure to their bedchamber.

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, beddings take place in quite a similar manner, with addition: after the married couple is carried and bundled naked into bed, the guests stand outside the bridal chamber, shouting ribald suggestions through the door.


 * At Edmure's wedding, Catelyn recalls her own bedding: Jory Cassel tore her gown in his haste to undress her; Ser Desmond Grell, the master at arms of Riverrun, kept apologizing for every ribald joke he told, only to make another; and when Lord Willam Dustin saw her naked, he told Ned that the sight of her breasts was enough to make him wish he'd never been weaned. Ned's response is not mentioned, but it is unlikely that he broke Lord Dustin's jaw.


 * At Sansa's wedding, she muses how when she was a girl, the bedding seemed to her wonderfully wicked and exciting at the same time, but at present she is so miserable for being forced to marry a man she does not love and is so unattractive, that she does not think she could bear the ripping of her dress, and she is certain she would burst into tears at the first randy jape. She is slightly relieved that Tyrion spares her the humiliating experience, despite Joffrey's protests.


 * According to Barristan Selmy, at the wedding of Tywin and Joanna Lannister, the Mad King took too much liberties in Joanna's bedding. That caused further friction between Tywin and Aerys.