In the Park Avenue Hotel, a mile down the road from Stormont, they had been celebrating a marriage while the politicians finished their talks marathon, and the talk was about unions of opposites.
"Everybody should be prepared to compromise in order to get peace," said a young woman recruitment counsellor. She thought most things about the agreement sounded fine, but was rather worried about the North-South bodies.
"They must have limited powers. Everything must be powered through the Assembly. They definitely shouldn't have any say over the RUC. Too many powers could see us ending up in a united Ireland."
Her civil servant companion was concerned that paramilitary splinter groups could carry on the killing for a long time yet. "There are too many people making money out of it, too much racketeering."
A group of young men thought that for as long as every side was giving something the agreement could work. "It's all been very hectic over the past 24 hours. People need time to digest all the changes," said one.
Another thought the 15 per cent of the population which voted Sinn Fein could not be ignored. A man from the Newtownards Road worried that the proposed changes in Articles 2 and 3 might be rejected in the South. They all felt there was little in the agreement which threatened the Union with Britain.
They split two to six against the proposed early release of paramilitary prisoners. "You don't cut someone's throat and get let out in two years," said one man.
In the Northern Ireland Football Supporters' Club on the Shankill Road the drinkers left off watching the Manchester United game to give their opinions, most of them favourable.
"Power-sharing between the parties is the way it has to be," said the doorman, noting that there were "still plenty of people outside who'd like to bring it down".
"There's a big man called Ian Paisley who wants nothing but conflict, who just wants to be top dog up at Stormont saying `We rule'. That just won't happen any more."
He thought the real turning point had been when the governments started talking to the paramilitaries.
"At the end of the day, they were always going to have to bring them in. They're the ones who control the shots."
Inside, three men were adamant that Gerry Adams would not come near a seat at the cabinet table in Northern Ireland until he had begun the decommissioning of the IRA's weapons and denounced violence.
An ambulance-driver who had been awarded an MBE for his duties up and down the Falls and the Shankill during the worst days of the Troubles thought the most important thing was that Articles 2 and 3 had been changed from a claim to an aspiration.
He, too, warned that there were "hardliners out to wreck this agreement", but "you have to bring them along with you".
"The greatest catalyst towards movement for a settlement were the loyalist paramilitaries and their leaders, David Ervine, Billy Hutchinson and Gary McMichael," he went on. "They had the armoury behind them to make them strong.
"Last night Ian Paisley backed a loser. He had no input to the talks, so how did he expect to be able to get into them at the last moment to hold a press conference?"
The well-informed man opposite him worried about a split in Sinn Fein and the IRA. "There's got to be a loser somewhere on the republican side. Is Adams going to end up like Michael Collins?
"The Republic should scrap Bunracht na hEireann and start all over again. This is 1998 not 1937. The Republic is a young country. Their young people should get them out of being stuck in the Civil War politics and help them go forward. We're all Europeans now."
The ambulance-driver said "the most important thing is making this agreement work for our children and grandchildren". At the end of the day it was economic realities which mattered most: "If this doesn't work and there's civil war tomorrow, then we'll all be grovelling in the gutter for a crust of bread and nobody will win."