A very long time ago I made a decision to save my first kiss for my future husband, as a gift on our wedding day. I’ve gotten a variety of responses upon hearing about this decision ranging from total agreeance (and regret for not doing the same) to total shock and disgust.
While I can’t give you chapter and verse for my decision I’d like to take some time to explain why I’ve decided to wait. Even if at the end of this post you feel kissing before marriage is ok I hope at least a few of the points will stretch your thinking and encourage you in purity.
“Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart” - 2 Timothy 2:22 {NASB}
4 Reasons I’m Saving My First Kiss
1.) Physical Purity
Kissing doesn’t have to lead to sex but rarely is there sex without a lead up of kissing. In an effort to protect my physical purity I have made the choice to save my first kiss for my husband. My flesh is weak (much weaker than I even realize) and I want to do everything in my power to shield myself from even the temptation of sexual impurity by not allowing myself to do things that could lead me to stumble.
2.) Emotional Purity
God designed physical contact to bring on emotions. It makes you feel close to a person and begins to create a feeling of oneness. These emotions are good and right in the context of marriage and should culminate in the ultimate physical unity that a husband and wife should share; but before marriage I want to shy away from these types of emotions. I only want to have these emotions toward my husband. I don’t ever want to risk sharing these feelings with another man who I am not yet married to and I don’t want to unlock desires that cannot rightly be acted upon before I say “I do”.
3.) Sacredness
To me a kiss is something special and valuable, not something cheap to be thrown around and given to many. Delayed gratification is often much sweeter. I want to save as much of myself as possible for my husband, not just the bare minimum. My future husband is worth the gift of my first kiss and even if I’m sure a guy is “the one” I can’t see the future. Something could change that is beyond my control and I don’t want to chance giving a kiss away to someone who I don’t end up marrying. I also don’t want to chance giving my kiss to a man who ends up being someone else’s husband.
4.) Health
Kissing is not only intimate on a physical and emotional level it is also intimate on a heath and wellness level. If you (or the one whom you are kissing) makes a habit of sharing this affection with others there is more chance of coming in contact with a variety of illnesses and diseases. The chance of this happening is drastically reduced if a couple is committed to keeping their kisses confined to their marriage partner.
Myths About Waiting For Your First Kiss
- Awkwardness
I’ve heard people shoot down the idea of saving their first kiss for the alter because they are afraid that it will appear awkward and embarrassing. I don’t think this is something to be too worried about. God created this expression of love to be a natural thing and honestly I don’t see how it could be too hard. It’s not rocket science 
…. especially considering the type of kiss that would be appropriate in a marriage ceremony. I’ve known several couples who have waited and none of them seemed to have any trouble. :-)
- Compatibility
I have heard it said that if you don’t kiss someone before you are married you will not be able to tell if you are compatible with them. Let me just say that if a person is basing their decision of marriage on a kiss they need to go back and evaluate their motives for marriage and make sure they line up with God’s purpose for marriage. God already created men and women to be physically compatible. We should be more concerned about things like spiritual compatibility and God’s will in our decision making than kissability.
I hope this post has given you some food for thought. Even if there are parts that you disagree with I do hope it has given you a few things to consider, maybe helped you formulate in your own mind what you believe about kissing and encouraged you to put value on kissing and all physical gestures.
Above all strive to glorify God with your purity, mirroring the ultimate purity of God’s character!
I’m linked up to: 
I saved my first kiss for my husband, best decision I ever made!
We saved our kiss for our wedding day as well – absolutely no regrets!
We saved “our” first kiss for our wedding day. The only regret I have is that we took the Lord’s Supper right before…not the best kiss in the world but the most memorable. LOL! 15 years later…we still laugh.
I really respect all of you who had the willpower to save your first kiss for your wedding day! I agree, there are a LOT of good reasons why it’s a great idea.
Sometimes I wish my husband and I would have waited, at least until we were engaged, to start kissing–it would have made physical temptations a lot easier for sure–but there is a lot I know now about dating and relationships that I didn’t know then.
I will encourage my children to wait at least until engagement to kiss their future spouses, for all the reasons you outlined above, Ashley.
Do I regret the way we did things? No, except that like I said it made physical temptations more of an issue. But considering how incredibly awkward our first kiss actually was, I’m glad it was in private and not in front of all our family and friends! Also, we were each other’s first kiss–neither of us had kissed anyone else previously–so that was still incredibly special in that we DID save our first kiss for our (future) spouse.
Now, of course, we’re pros.
I definitely think it is well worth it to wait until your wedding day for your first kiss. My husband and I shared our first kiss on our wedding day and don’t ever regret it! Oh and we were together and engaged for a year and a half, too. We really hope our kids will do the same with the person they will marry for all the reasons you listed above. I think it’s also an issue of respect…it says I respect your body enough to wait and that respect carries over into other areas of the person’s heart and relationship.
Thanks for sharing this!
Kathy
http://www.christianbookmom.blogspot.com
I love this! The world has a lot of crazy ideas, right. “They” also say you have to live together so you get to know your bf/gf but society has a divorce of 50%. I’ll take God’s words over anything
!
Thanks Miranda for your comment here. God’s word is much more wise than worldly experience. And results will show that those who wait have a longer lasting marriage than those who don’t.
I wanted to kiss my future husband at engagement but he wanted to wait until we were married, so we did. He said that for him it would have awakened desires that couldn’t be fulfilled yet. Our first kiss at the altar was not awkward and definitely worth the wait!
Great post Ashley. I think anyone who waits will not regret it, but you might regret not waiting. We waited and on our wedding day our first kiss was funny. We both turned our heads the same way, then both turn the opposite way then we got it right. We were laughing at ourselves! Then when we left the auditorium I told him to “kiss me for real”
it wasn’t a perfect kiss but it was so special because it showed neither one of us gave that away ahead of time. Someone told me people might tease us but ignore them, and you know – no one ever did tease us!
Amen! Twenty-three years ago, I never had heard this, but wish that I had. We are encouraging our children in this way. Excellent post!
I think it is so awesome that young people are not only saving sex for marriage, but their first kiss! In this day & age where anything goes it is a beautiful expression of love & faith & morals! And if you can stop before kissing it will be SO much easier not to do anything else either! I commend you & hope my daughters will follow in your footstops! God bless!
My husband and I saved our first kiss for after we were married too – and I’m very glad we did
Here’s our courtship story -
http://pleasantplacess.blogspot.com/2012/07/our-courtship-story.html
We saved our first kiss too, and I hate to break it to ya, but it is super awkward having your first kiss in front of everyone. lol. I have one piece of advice: Let HIM kiss YOU. Not the other way around. Or both. Just let him handle it. I wish I would have done that! Instead we both tried to kiss each other…my mouth smacked his chin…I had bad aim at the time. Haha. I see you’re engaged…blessings on your marriage. It is such an amazing gift from God. Very helpful in the sanctification area as well.
Wow – this is the second post on this subject I’ve read today. And I’m so glad it’s gaining interest. While I didn’t save my first actual kiss (sadly), my husband and I did save “our” first kiss for our wedding day. And we’re both so glad we did. Not only that – we save most physical affection for marriage. It was the best decision we made. I plan to teach our children to do the same thing. Blessings from Croatia: A Little R & R: http://www.littlerandr.org
Well, we didn’t save our first kiss and I honestly don’t regret it, but my sister and her husband did save their first kiss. And, yes, it can, in fact, be a little awkward. Right afterwards, while my husband and I were driving them away from the ceremony to the reception, my sister’s first question to me was, “Liz, are your teeth supposed to hit when you kiss?” Ummm, no.
Obviously didn’t matter in the long run but it was funny.
I admire your commitment to purity and know that God will honor that. What a special gift to be able to bring to your wedding day. The man that gets you is getting a gem! Visiting from Be Not Weary, and glad I did
A sweet first kiss is one of the best parts of the ceremony. When one of the girls I worked with heard my fiance & I were saving our first kiss she said “you wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it” I was shocked. If you would not marry someone b/c of how they kiss What are you going to do when the unexpected difficulties come up in marriage??? I just looked at her & said “marriage is much more than how he kisses & I sure we will figure it out just fine.” Seventeen years later I will testify it has worked out just fine. ;D No regrets.
When I set out to truly wait for my husband, I had already been through dating relationships that the Lord used to bring me a lot more wisdom. One of the big criteria I went looking for was a man who would love me enough to wait for kissing, etc. until we were married. And the Lord did bring him to me!
Our first kiss was sweet and just the start of many, many more. Ten years and three kids later, we are still sharing the passion and freedom that came from waiting on the Lord’s timing for our physical intimacy to begin.
Loved this post, Ashley.
It also caused me to think. Most of my reasons fell inside the 1st, 3rd, and 4th categories. But the second reason made me think a little.
Hi,
So we didn’t wait for our first kiss and I’m okay with that, but I have to say I think it’s important sometimes to be careful on how we talk about this subject. I sometimes see phrases like “I’m looking for a man who will love me enough to have saved x for me.” And while that’s fine, I think sometimes we can end up shaming people who make mistakes and go farther than they should, as if they would love you less than someone who didn’t. And also sometimes it can turn into a kind of self-righteousness. It is a beautiful thing to wait and I will always encourage my children too, but I also want to encourage them to have grace and forgiveness for those that don’t and not think that those who wait are somewhat better than those that don’t because we all make mistakes – some in this area and some in other areas.
Melissa, you are very right. We should never have a prideful atitude in regards to our physical standards or relationship choices. To those we do not see eye to eye with we must show humility and grace. No one has it all figured out. We must seek the Lord for guidance and wisdom.