 Briest first married Friedrich Ehrenreich Adolf Ludwig Rochus von Rochow (1770–1799), a young officer, who possessed an estate in the neighbourhood, and was attached to a regiment quartered at Potsdam.None of her work during this period was published.Rochow became a gambler and the marriage deteriorated until his wife returned home to her father at Nennhausen with her children, two sons, including Gustav von Rochow, who became Prussian Minister of the Interior and Minister of State, and an illegitimate daughter.