Posted by:
Joy
(
)
Date: September 05, 2013 03:36AM
This was like my temple experience, too. CK described it very well. We were not late, but we were rushed through, and the matrons were cranky. That heavy veil and awkward headpiece would ruin any hairdo. It smashed mine close to my head, and the humidity caused it to frizz.
My temple wedding was probably the worst day of my life, because I married the wrong man. The phony sicky-sweet gentle giant fiancee turned into a violent wife-beater, immediately after the ceremony. Anyway, back to the subject. We did the endowment and the wedding one after the other, because the temple was far away. I had been up since 4:00 am. The whole thing--from having my loins anointed (touched) to be fruitful, to vowing obedience to my husband (instead of to God), to consecrating everything I had to the cult--was creepy and de-humanizing. I was extremely upset by it, and actually felt the rituals and chants were satanic. I became sick to my stomach, and had to leave the ceremonies several times, which made the matrons more angry than usual. I still have nightmares of my husband's sweaty, bloated face in that baker's hat. I had only known him a few months, and I had not seen him all summer. He looked repulsive to me, when I met him at the bus station two days before our wedding. I felt it was too late to back out, and that it was probably just "wedding jitters."
The Mormon temple wedding ceremony is "impersonal and rushed" at best. But for me, it was cold and institutional. The word love is not mentioned at all in the ceremony! Neither is the word "cherish." It is all about obedience to the church. The couple are pronounced "husband-and-wife-under-the-new-and-everlasting-covenant" all in one sentence. BTW, the "new and everlasting covenant" means polygamy in the hereafter. The words were so strict and dictatorial, that I felt I was being punished, somehow. When I was forced to cover my face with that heavy veil, I couldn't breathe. I had to concentrate on not being sick.
Fast forward through a fast divorce from the temple husband, who I didn't know had a history of violence, had beaten his sister and sent her to the hospital, and ended up doing the same to me, a second marriage several years later, and finally children....
My daughter was married in the temple, and I managed to be there, by paying 5 months worth of tithing out of my own earnings (over $15,000!) I told my daughter and fiancee that I would give that amount directly to them, if they would have a normal wedding that included everyone, and wait a year for the temple stuff. They said they were believers, and they wanted me in the temple with them. After the ceremony, my daughter broke down crying, and said, "That was NOT what I thought my wedding would be like." Her hair was destroyed, too, and her dress got torn on the lockers, or somewhere. The temple was so crowded that brides and grooms were lined up at the photo places on the temple grounds, and the pictures took forever, in 100-degree heat. We barely had time to try to repair her hair and dress for the reception. Fortunately, I gave her the reception she wanted, and everyone had a great time--including all her bridesmaids, and her own brothers, and the groom's brothers, who were all unmarried and/or too young to be at the temple wedding. Her father, also, had to wait in the waiting room for the unworthy, too. The groom followed through with a great honeymoon, so all's well that ends well, for her, except she is trapped in a satanic cult.