what the chances are that she will NOT see another bride today? Where we live, churches and catering facilities make certain that a bride does not encounter another during the day. (Many wedding venues make this a selling point stating that they only do one wedding at a time.) I want to know, specifically what this day will be like for her? I know the wording of the ceremony but I want to know the ancillary details. Do the bride and groom walk down the aisle, does the bride carry flowers? Does she wear a veil or do the bride and groom where their temple clothes over their wedding outfits? How long does the ceremony last?

Sorry but inquring minds want to know.

out

on the grounds or on the plaza. It is very possible there will be more inside, but I do not know if they take measures to prevent them seeing each other. When I was endowed I remember seeing at least two brides. The sealing rooms are adjacent. There is no aisle in the temple. I do not know anything about the sealings, because I have only been to nonmember weddings. If anything the temple is guaranteed to be subdued, and stifling due to its "reverent" nature.

I do have answers to a couple of your questions.

1. Chances of not seeing another bride - zero. There are brides, grooms and wedding guests all over the place. The day and venue are not reserved exclusively for just one bride.

2. Walking down the aisle? There is no aisle. The "ceremony" is performed in a small sealing room. There are only about 30 chairs for guests. The bride and groom just walk into the room and kneel at the altar.

3. Clothing - They wear temple clothes over their wedding outfits. The look is not attractive, at all.

Yes, the bride wears a veil but it is the Mormon temple veil, not the usual bridal veil.

The guests do not wear the temple clothing so the bride and groom look even more outlandish, being the only ones in the get-up. The sealer (wedding officiant) is in an all-white suit.

4. Flowers - No!

5. You didn't ask but - ring exchange - No! (They are specifically counselled against having a ring ceremony in the temple).

6. It lasts about 15 minutes, maybe. It depends how long the sealer talks, as that is the sum total of the ceremony - his speech and standard Mormon spiel with the bride and groom doing the secret handshake stuff over the altar.

This is why I think that there is some comfort for families left out of the Mormon wedding ceremony as it is not at all the same as non-Mormon weddings. I know it is awful to be left out but it's not like they're having a wonderful ceremony in there. You don't even get to see their wedding outfits until they emerge outside afterwards for their photo session.

I'm not sure where they exchange rings - outside? at the reception? in another service somewhere?

I have NO CLUE why the Mormon Prophet doesn't change things up such that weddings can take place anywhere of the bride's choosing and the couple can go to the temple for a sealing afterwards. That way, it can be a family event with the sealing part not anything that separates loved ones at such an important event.

It is ironic that the Family Church, that promotes quick and young marriage with pressure to have children right away, and many of them, cannot let its members even enjoy a conventional wedding with the entire family together for the service/ceremony, like normal people do.

Oh yeah, there aren't even any vows exchanged between the couple, just the promises to the church.

They may not, likely do not, even know the sealer. They just get whoever is assigned to them who happens to be on temple duty that day.

At least, that is my experience with the Mormons I have known and the wedding I attended. I was deeply embarrassed that as a convert acquaintance I could attend but the groom's sisters had to wait outside as they had not received their own endowments yet (translation: they had not been through the temple yet so were not allowed in for their brother's wedding).

Sorry for the bad news. It's not that great an experience, even for the bride.

You have no idea what your talking about even if you have attending a sealing. They are sacred and beautiful (IF YOU UNDERSTAND IT, which you obviously dont) A LDS bride and groom can get married wherever she wants then get sealed in the temple afterwards, but BECAUSE THEY WANT TO (not forced or pressured) they decide to get married in the temple. As a LDS bride, my husband and I are thrilled to have the opportunity to marry in the temple, even if not all of my family can make it.

And I think the extravagant wedding today put the sacredness and importance of marriage to shame. People in our society tend to focus on the excitement of the celebration, and not the joy of the start of a marriage and a family. An LDS temple sealing helps the family, friends and most importantly the couple getting married remember that a marriage is what is happening, not a booze filled celebration. I am an LDS bride and even though I can get married wherever I want and still remain a valued member of my church, I would not have it any other way than in a beautiful and sacred temple.

cmh Wrote:

"And I think the extravagant wedding today put the sacredness and importance of marriage to shame."

Interesting you say this, when mostly all mormon women who marry in the temple spend money on a fancy dress, have bridesmaids, and go all out for the reception.

They are trying to have the beautiful wedding they were promised, which unfortunately doesn't happen in the temple.

Many of us have been there (sealed in the Temple), done that, DO know what we're talking about.

Remember, this is a RECOVERY from Mormonism website. You're not going to see your very narrow view of life reflected here.

Was speaking to "cmh", just in case that wasn't clear.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2011 03:45PM by Sorcha.

Pardon me...but what are you doing here, then?

Not everyone has had the same experiences you have, and to be perfectly honest, many of us have found temple marriages to be disappointing, to say the least.

Its not sacred AT ALL -- its a stupid cult and JS made it all up and/or begged borrowed and stold it from the masons.

Its dumb, dumb, dumb! Its like believing that the world is flat. DUMB!

cmh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A LDS bride and groom can get
> married wherever she wants then get sealed in the
> temple afterwards, but BECAUSE THEY WANT TO (not
> forced or pressured) they decide to get married in
> the temple.

This is just plain false. In countries like the UK where laws do not allow secret marriage ceremonies this is Church policy. In the USA it is not. Couples are strongly discouraged from having a civil ceremony before the sealing. If it is done without getting special permission (which is rarely given) then Church policy is that the couple has to wait a year to be sealed. It's in the CHI. Look it up.

1. How come there is no mention of love or honor in a temple wedding?

2. How come the couple makes their vows to the church and NOT to each other?

3. Why are you here?

Thank you and please drive carefully on your way home.

An 80 year old man groped my ball sac.

Sacred? Not to me it wasn't

By the way, a lot of people have ring ceremonies to include all of their family and almost all of the couples who get married in a temple have receptions with flowers, cake, presents, dancing etc...

like brothers and sisters.... i am SURE THEY get to see the sealing dont they? and it is a sealing not a wedding in the temple right?

until a full year after the wedding. If you have and LDS wedding, in the Relief Society room or whatever, the bishop will go out of his way to point out how inferior this is. And you will hear all kinds of stories about the couple who were in a rush to marry first, but were in an accident on the way to the temple, so will never be together forever (*sniff*). And you don't consider that pressure. Hope your blinders don't give you a headache.

cmh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> By the way, a lot of people have ring ceremonies
> to include all of their family and almost all of
> the couples who get married in a temple have
> receptions with flowers, cake, presents, dancing
> etc...


First off, don't think for ONE minute that the fluff anuffer ring ceremony is the real thing, because it is NOT and all of the family members who couldn't make it inside the temple for whatever reason know it is NOT the real thing and resent it.

Couples are not allowed to make vows or saying anything during their ring ceremony that sounds like vows. (I know this because my daughter was going to have a temple wedding and ring ceremony and that is what she was told...no vows...whatsoever)

So if you think for one moment that others don't feel left out, you are wrong.

Not everyone can have a temple wedding and ring ceremonly...but let me digress.

A mormon reception in the church. The bride and groom and their parents stand in a half circle looking like a bunch of statues aka they are in the mormon receiving line the whole freaking time of the reception while everyone else eats finger food and mulls around because there is no place to sit in the primary room done over for a reception.

WOW WEEES that was fun. Talk about ruining it or being a poor example of the real thing. That is not a reception.

As I was saying, not everyone gets a ring ceremony and reception or a good one anyway.

The wealthy biatches in the ward I used to go to boycott the receptions of those people who are not as wealthy. My daughter had one nasty malicious witch bad mouthed her, lie about her and had a boycott started.

One my daughter and her fiance (a recent convert) found out, they made waves and the bishop wasn't going to do a thing about it.

They all walked away from the church and it's for good.

So don't give me that Mormon weddings are more sacred. If that was true and if people really believed that, they would have never ever treated my daughter and her fiance the way they did.
There is nothing sacred about a sealing in the temple. I was sealed years ago and it is nothing but a bunch of hoopla mumbo jumbo wrapped up in hush hush silence.

cmh, I was a 19 yr old, tithe-paying member of the church, put in my mission papers and everything, and my bishop STILL told me that I could NOT see MY OWN SISTER get married unless i received my mission call first. What is so special and sacred about excluding perfectly honest, good and upright people from seeing the weddings of their own siblings in the temple?

cmh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> By the way, a lot of people have ring ceremonies to include all of their family

Sorry, not good enough. No immediate family members should ever be excluded from a wedding, and the fact that the LDS church is willing to exclude the "unworthy" PARENTS of the bride and groom is shameful. SHAMEFUL! The LDS church has no right to call itself a family church (or in my opinion, even Christian in the sense of being people who emulate Christ) for that reason alone. Where is the love? Certainly nowhere in the temple wedding ceremony as written.

It's an assembly line with old people constantly nagging people to move along.

That is ridiculous. Have you ever been? How would you know? 600 a day? Really? Sheesh. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Yeah, 600 is a bit high, but if you reduce that number to 52, which is how many sealings took place the day that my ex and I got married back in 1980, it still is a marriage mill. Everything else Nightengale said was correct.

it was heresy or heresay!! :)
and obviously that is mistaken! 600/day= 25/hr for 24 hours..... so it is "possible"?

fossilman said: "Everything else Nightengale said was correct."

Thanks. I love comments like yours! :)

To CMH, the happy TBM bride, I did say I had only attended one wedding. However, I did note a lot of the details and remember them. Also, they are verified often here from the experiences of many others.

It seems somewhat disingenuous to state broadly that TBM couples choose to get married in the temple because they know it's so spiritual and that they can have a ring ceremony for non-TBM family and friends afterwards. The reality is that temple marriage is strongly promoted by church leaders from the time kids are in Primary. Indeed, many TBMs, including local bishops who exert a lot of influence over their flock, consider that only temple marriage is valid or right. There is concerted lifelong influence for TBM couples to consider only temple marriage. For those who out of devotion and sincerity try to conform to the expectations of the church, that is far from having a free choice.

As for ring ceremonies, many bishops expressly forbid such. The temple sealer states right in the sealing ceremony that there will be no exchange of rings in the temple. It is not accurate to say that everyone can or will be able to have a ring ceremony. In marriage as in many other things within Mormonism, there is a lot less free will than many TBMs either recognize or admit. As members are assigned to the ward they must attend, with no choice to go elsewhere (short of moving) individuals are at the mercy of whichever bishop happens to be in charge of their assigned ward. As the COB routinely fails to correlate anything that is actually helpful or important or even to clarify hazy mo stuff (although that indeed would be a full time job for an army of clarifiers) local bishops can oversee their fiefdoms according to their own will and the members are stuck under their bishops thumb in all matters.

Members are not permitted to go over the bishop's head (even to the SP, as I found out the hard way) and are directly instructed by top Mormon leaders not to reach out to them for guidance or clarification. Therefore, if your bishop says go to the temple, not the chapel, you make that a goal and view anything else as less than, and especially if he says no ring ceremony, you don't have one.

More Mormons need to recognize that Mormonism is not uniform throughout the church; i.e., your experience is not the same as that of another member in a different ward. For those who are happy in the Mormon Church, fair enough, but your happiness does not indicate that all is well all over Zion for every other member. Failure to recognize or acknowledge that is just one of the insensitive, unkind and frustrating things about Mormonism.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2011 04:09PM by Nightingale.

DW and I were married in SLC purposely on a "Friday the 13th" and even though most people may claim to not be superstitious, according to everyone at the temple that day it was still the SLOWEST day they'd had for a LONG time ... only a dozen or so weddings instead of the usual 40 to 50 or more (I don't remember the usual number right now but I'm pretty sure it was something like that (edit to add, this was in December too).

On a related note, I've got a funny story made possible by the large number of wedding parties at the SLC temple on an average day .....

An old HS friend on Facebook posted pictures about two weeks ago. Her husband (who I've never met) is apparently a bit of a joker. They went to a family members wedding in SLC. While waiting their turn for pictures on the temple steps her husband worked his way over there and joins a bunch of strangers in their big extended family pictures on the steps. In one picture one guy nearby seems to be eying him from the side a bit like he's trying to figure out who he is but otherwise no one apparently noticed that a total stranger had joined them for the pictures. They probably just assumed he was from the "other" side of the new family. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall when this couple is going over their wedding pictures some day and pointing out who is who and then ... who is this guy?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/2011 10:26PM by Scott.T.

My hubby and I were sealed on December, Friday the 13th 2002 in the Atlanta temple. It was thunderstorming and everything.

About seeing other brides. In the Brides Room, where the brides get dressed, there was another bride getting ready...even at 8 o'clock on a stormy Friday the 13th morning. I was a convert and had no one in there with me and the temple matron picked out the most awful temple dress for me to put on that didn't even fit. The other bride had 3 generations of women fawning over her and a beautiful gown (under the ugly temple clothes that is). My family being Catholic wasn't allowed in, neither my best friend or my husbands family for not being worthy Mormons. They drank coffee *gasp* and didn't pay a full 10% *double gasp*. Many of my family were so insulted by the idea of being patronized with a ring ceremony that they didn't come.

My husband and I are very happily married. We are a great match and we are best friends. However we dearly wish we could have a do over on a special day that was supposed to be about us and our families, not about masonic rituals, secret names (mine is Ruth btw), magic underwear, and a 5 minute kneel down at the altar of Joseph Smith.

You should ask your niece or your family. They would love to explain it to you :)

+1

And who'll tell you that the sealer still tells you you'll be fruitful and multiply even though you're both in your fifties when you're getting sealed?

Oh, I forgot: the lawd's inspiration.

From what I have personally seen from mormons and attempted wedding ceremonies outside of the temple - the institution has absolutely no idea how to perform a wedding ceremony, what the institution of marriage has to do with Christianity, nor do they know the first thing about the history of marriage.

It's a sad tale indeed.

There is no way that taking family out of a marriage event makes it a MORE special day.

like % active in each ward;

resignations

ex-coms

tithing receipts

ward budgets

# of marriages & sealings


etc etc etc ad infinitum

'BUT' of course... they d/won't!
matters of the budget, attendance stats 'too sacred'?

NOPE NO HOW NO WAY.

ChurchCo want to keep ALL it's information Behind the Curtain.

how many sealings on each day?

how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
room for how many ChurchCo presidents' pics on the wall?'

It's ALL MADE UP.

One thing I did notice about my TBM step sister's SLC temple wedding was that she only had the bouquet outside for pictures, in February and she still wore a short sleeved wedding dress. I noticed in the background that you could see at least one other couple posing for pictures, so she was basically part of the assembly line that day. The main thing my step dad remembers about that day was that it was so cold, as it was 20 degrees below freezing when they took those pictures on the steps.

By the way, a lot of people have ring ceremonies to include all of their family and almost all of the couples who get married in a temple have receptions with flowers, cake, presents, dancing etc...

You are right the couple is able to have a ring ceremony...however the church tells you how to do the ring ceremony. They tell you what can and cannot be said during this ceremony. This is just another way of the LDS church controlling it's members.

The family members not allowed to attend do suffer. My convert SIL was married in the temple and none of her family could attend. Her mother was devistated, staying in a motel room and crying. My SIL is my in-laws only daughter, and my FIL was very disappointed he could not "walk her down the isle." My husband and I didn't even bother to go to Utah. Why make the trip to not see a wedding! TSCC has continued for the last 33 years to alienate my SIL's non-mormon family from her TBM family.

It's a good thing the ceremonies last only about 15 minutes, otherwise JS, BY et al would do nothing all day but get married...

;-) ;-) ;-)