I think this is the problem mormons have with not understanding why people say the church should allow "unworthy" parents, unendowed friends and younger siblings and other family to all attend a wedding. They're thinking that it makes no sense that they could allow someone like that to enter the temple for any reason.

They're completely missing the point. NO ONE should be getting married in the temple. Weddings should be weddings. It should be a day that is inclusive, not divisive. It should be a day a bride feels beautiful, not afraid to look in a mirror because she has to hold tears back about how ridiculous she looks and then has to lie and say how beautiful it was. It should be a time when the couple makes real vows TO EACH OTHER. Vows that they may want to write themselves. Vows that say how they're going to be together during life. This life. The one they know. The one they have to somehow figure out and survive before they can even think about eternal marriage. They should have pictures of themselves making those vows to each other. They should have pictures of their first kiss as husband and wife. The wedding party should be, well, part of the f*cking wedding, ferchrissake.

The sealing should be a totally different animal. All couples should have the opportunities Mitt and Ann Romeny had. They should be able to get sealed the next day, week, month or year. I know two couples who have stood up for themselves and done it anyway. Even though they knew people would think they were unworthy to marry in the temple, which they were not. One guy told his brother (who I worked with), that they thought a sealing for their first anniversary would be even more meaningful than when they married. It would be a great way to renew their vows. They'd know for sure, after really getting to know each other, that they want to make that commitment for eternity. And if one of them died before the year was out, they wanted the other one to really decide whether they wanted to be proxy sealed or wait until they knew if they would be spending the better part of their lives with someone else who they'd bear children with and want to be with for eternity.

Kids these days have access to much more information. Many of them will know how ugly the temple wedding is before they go, unlike we did. I think if couples start using their own brains, communicating with each other and standing up for themselves, it might catch on. It is what I wanted to encourage my own daughter to do, but was too chicken. I hope that there are parents who are more caring and extroverted than I was and will start saying "enough is enough." My daughter is going to have a beautiful wedding.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2012 12:36AM by NormaRae.

Secret weddings are not recognized in England, so couples there enjoy a civil service followed by temple sealing.

If Kolobianism is a global church, why are the rules different for couples marrying in London than the ones for couples marrying in Logan?

My TBM brother just got married in England to his LDS fiance who wore a sleeveless wedding dress with a full wedding party in attendance. Nice civil service followed by the temple sealing. Don't have to worry about covering up your dress for your actual wedding, don't have to worry about excluding non-members and it's all 'legal' as the sealing follows with no one year wait. Must be nice.

It's purely because UK does not alow secret weddings. They are desprate for the church in the UK to contunue but ah I herd they cant have the civil cerimony any better than the temple wedding. They have to have restricted music for the wedding and such. Perosnaly Mormons are the best wedding killers about.

And to rub salt in the wound, if you dare have the kind of wedding that most brides, bridegrooms and their families would want, you get penalised so that you have to wait a year to go and be sealed in the temple:

1) there is no global standard
2) Jesus/God must be real vindictive ass****s when they thought up the 1 year rule.... well if it was revelation then it has to come from one of these two. If it wasn't revelation then it can be ignored.
3) trust the LDS church to control weddings. They already control funerals, underwear, people's time and how much disposable income one has, so why not control this too?

It isn't always a 1 year wait - in some situations it's longer. We were told that we'd have to wait *10 years* to be sealed, even though we had gone thru a "court of love", been excommunicated, rebaptized (doesn't that wash AWAY the past sins?) and were already civilly married for over a year and had a child.

That's what started my exit - being baptized didn't wash away sins of the past ?!?! I still had to continue to "pay" for my sins ?!?!? I was still in the mode of "nod your head & say yes" to whatever the morg wanted, but my exit started with that conversation.

I can't tell you how happy I am to hear your story! People think I'm not telling the truth when I tell them all the grief I got when I decided I wanted to be sealed to my husband of 20 years.

The sp wanted me to write down every sin I had committed in the last 30 years.I told him I'd been baptized 20 years ago. Didn't that wash away my sins of the previous 10 years? For the next 20 I had been a temple recommend holder. We all know that means I had been interviewed every year and found WORTHY.

To talk about any sins before my baptism is to deny Christ. It's saying baptism doesn't matter. He was telling me being worty didn't matter. I thought about this for a while. I wrote some letters to SLC. They told him to sign the papers. He still wouldn't.

I went on line to look up a few things. I resigned last November.

That's horrific Mia. It's in situations like this where I'd like to say something along the lines of 'Is this what Jesus/God wants or is this just your personal opinion/prejudice? If they answer it is by way of revelation, then I'd like to understand in what way this was revealed to them (feeling/thought?), how did they know it was divine and not just their own thoughts/feelings etc...

Clearly such an approach would frustrate them very quickly and they would simply refer back to their PH, their calling and 'authority' of their position and right to inspiration. I'd just love to call them out on this and get them to really try to justify and convince that it is exactly God's will. Clearly it isn't, but they're accustomed to not having to justify their decisions.

If it doesn't follow the formula (age 18 - grad HS, age 21 - marry RM in temple, age 22 - give birth to 1st child), they figure that you MUST have sinned and therefore have something to hide.

Glad I could confirm your situation wasn't out of the ordinary for TSCC - glad to be out, and I am sure you are, too!

LDSinc will try to limit or eliminate extra ceremonies as much as it can. Why?

Weddings are big business. The temple is offered without rental fee, but the all of the attendees pay combined FAR more than would ever be charged by the average wedding center. Close to the most elite wedding centers.

For example, The Plaza on 5th ave in NYC charges $375 per person attending your wedding. A wedding party there requires min of 200 people, and upwards of 500. That's a price tag of $75,000.

In the typical LDS temple wedding, you have 20-30 people, of which 10 households may be represented. Each paying on average $5K in full tithing ($50k being average US salary), that's about $50k per wedding in tithing. Furthermore, think about how long the wedding lasts compared with the elite services, which provide entertainment, food and more. The LDS church pumps through wedding parties at some temples at rates that would make an amusement park look slow.

Every LDS wedding is nearly as expensive as the most elite places. It's a fantastic bizness model, and control over it is essesntial to the profit.

When it comes to LD$ policies... Follow The Money! I love your analogy as to how much the church rakes in for a temple wedding. I have laughed before when people have told me that the beauty of getting married in the temple is that it doesn't cost anything. Hahahahahahahah.

The temples are the money machine. If you can convince people that the only way they can be with their families for eternity is to come to your clubhouse, and to show your devotion--keep coming back, and the only way to get in is give a full 10% of your income, you have a constant money machine. Even though a small percentage of the 14 million claimed membership belong to the club. Temple weddings are the Powerball Jackpot for the cult. How many people keep their recommends for the sole purpose of attending weddings? I did for a long time. I couldn't bring myself to attend another stupid endowment circus show, but was young married and at the age when my friends and relatives were getting married. I just wanted to be able to attend their weddings, which is all I did the last 8 years I had a recommend. When my kids started getting marriage age, I would have started paying again if I could have, just to be able to attend their weddings. Even if I'd been a true believer and lover of the temple, I couldn't have, though, because I was a newly divorced single mother and was not going to choose clubhouse membership over food, shelter, insurance, etc for my kids (even though that's what they would have had me do).

Very well said.

Yep, it's like the ultimate family protection racket. If you don't pay us, we will bust up your family, drum you out of your family and keep your important family moments hostage. Pay up or suffer.

Pressure from outside will lead them to "allow" (as if they have the authority to dictate) couples to have a wedding outside the temple, and the sealing will be a sacred, seperate, holy sacrament.

Pisses me off since I missed both my kids' weddings, and all because of an untrue church!!

NormaRae Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> NO ONE should be getting married in the temple.
> Weddings should be weddings. It should be a day
> that is inclusive, not divisive.

Thanks for the post NormaRae; my sentiments exactly. I have been excluded from my older and sister's and brother's weddings, and my family doesn't see how that affects me. They just see me as "unworthy". What a self-righteous, elitist mindset.

I have this vengeful/spiteful idea of wanting to have a wedding that excludes all temple recommend holders from my wedding just to see what type of reaction I would get. I would never go through with it, but I have been curious on what type of feedback I would receive. And what could temple recommend holders say "That is hateful"? "That isn't right"? Well, in my mind, "You temple recommend holders are not worthy to attend my wedding. It is for the people who are not devoid of fun. And what's good for the goose is for the gander...so don't complain."

Although most couples can ill afford a private jet to whisk 'em to Salt Lake, I totally agree with what NormaRae said.

As apparently does my TBM oldest sister (next in lineage from me, the firstborn). She and her hub were wed in Las Vegas at about the same time that I left You-taw and began my new life in Callie-phone-ya. Then later (though I forgot how much later), the couple did get themselves sealed up in Salt Lake.

But, aside from England (and who knows where else as well), the church higher-ups ain't gonna totally separate weddings and sealings because, you know, "Follow the Profit!" (yes, I did spell it that way on purpose).

until they find out for sure if they want to be together for THIS life.

I've known several women who unwittingly married abusive men in the temple, supposedly for all eternity.

And what does that do for the LDS woman who wants to remarry after divorcing? It makes it VERY difficult for her to remarry in the temple. If that woman becomes a widow while sealed to a man she is miserable with, she will be unable to ever get the sealing cancelled, and is therefore ineligible for a second chance.

that happened to my brother and his wife. She was married to a abusive sob that died. The world is now a better place.

But, because of that marriage she can't be sealed to my brother who she is crazy in love with. They got married, but no sealing allowed. Its plain stupid.

I don't discuss how hurt I was by the temple marriage exclusion with TBMs because they just don't get it. They think I wanted to attend the temple ceremony which I could care less about.

It isn't about the time or place, it is about being present at this unique and special moment of your child's life - as I had been present for every big and most of the small moments of her life for the previous 20 years. For me, as a mom, it was about fussing over the dress, telling her how beautiful she was and how proud I am to be her mom, about a final hug and kiss before she became a married woman, about shedding tears of happiness as the officiator pronounced them married.

If they had decided to get married on a beach in Hawaii and announced that only good mormons could attend, I would have been just as hurt.

There is NO doctrinal support for the one year punishment. If there were, it would be inforced in the UK as well.

I even think that TBMs have just learned to brush off the wedding and just think of it as the part they have to endure until they can go back in the dressing room, take off the clown costume, put their pretty veil back on and go outside for the picture taking--the part they consider the start of the real wedding festivities. They refer to "the wedding" when they mean the reception. When they say "I'm planning my wedding," they mean they're planning the reception. You can only WISH you had anything to do with planning your wedding. You can't even pick who gets to marry you and you can't make vows to each other if you want to.

This kind of thinking has gotten so ingrained in them that they don't even see how offensive it is to invite people to the reception and say you are inviting them to your wedding. It helps them compartmentalize the fact that their parents or siblings or friends don't get to be there. My daughter said her day started out horrible when she was in the brides chapel and realized that nothing about the temple to that point had been anything even a non-mormon couldn't see. So why can't a mother at least be "worthy" enough to come in and help her daughter put on her dress. She said it was all downhill from there, especially when they were doing the stupid phony ring exchange at the luncheon that was supposed to appease all those she had shunned. But how does a bride ever really brush off the fact that she was cheated out of a wedding? Maybe it's easier to do if you live in Utah and you haven't attended many, or maybe any, non-temple weddings and don't know what you are missing.

My convert DD also had a ring exchange. It was very elaborate and I was surprised the bishop allowed it.

My DD said she wanted a ring exchange so that we wouldn't feel so badly about being excluded from the earlier ceremony. I told her not to bother it it would do nothing to appease us.

However, I'm glad we did it. Not because it helped us to feel better but because I knew about the temple ceremony (thanks RFM!) and was sure she would be disappointed. I wanted them to have happy, fun memories of their day. So, we all put smiles on our faces and were as gracious as we could find it in our hearts to be.

I'm sure we fooled all the TBMs there. I'm sure we are used of an example of non-Mormons who were "okay" with being excluded from the temple.

I went to a beautiful wedding just last Saturday of the daughter of a friend of mine--totally non Mormon. The ceremony was so beautiful. Instead of a candlelighting, they did a blending of the waters. It was incredibly cool. The bride had a beautiful dress without those stupid cap sleeves. Their vows almost made me want to cry. They had real wedding programs, real champagne, a wonderful buffet dinner, beautiful flowers, candles, decorations, formal tables, a great pianist during the dinner, it just felt like such a celebration. There were no kids, they didn't have to invite their whole church, no red punch or little temple-shaped mints, they cut and we ate the wedding cake, not some stupid sheet cake.

Although it's been many years, I couldn't help but think back to my own wedding. My parents were there, my inlaws were not. I should be shot for that alone. My inlaws did so much for us through the years and I am so ashamed for the way I treated them on our wedding day. I put on my dress, then those sock things over my arms and some stupid thing over my neck and then the ugly veil tied in a bow, did I say ugly? Then covered up my dress with the toga and topped it off with a fig leav. A FIG LEAF! I got married wearing a GDF-ing fig leaf! You can't make this stuff up!

You are right that you just have to endure your wedding. How sad is that. Get the stupid wedding over with so you can get out of that creepy place. What a wonderful wedding memory. Yes, we were cheated. LDS brides to this day are cheated and made fools of. Even if you have all your family there that can be there, it is just a really stupid ritual in a really stupid place.

I do not believe any Mormon bride thinks they had a beautiful wedding. They might claim that. Hell, I claimed that for years but never meant it. Every time I go to a wedding now it brings those feelings of being cheated back up. The G.A.s must laugh all the way to the bank at what they are able to get people do while demanding a ton of their money for the privilege of doing it.

to establish traditions about how they make marriage contracts, who officiates and where, which are predominately directed by the state, country, etc. you live in.

The actual marriage contract is a piece of paper, properly signed and witnessed, in most cases. That is what makes it legal.

We have dozens of choices about how and why and where we can marry.
It's mostly decided by legalities, and religious regulations. Some enter into common law marriages with no contract, and no ceremony. But, in some cases it's legal. Good to remember that people have a lot of choices.

I was married in the Logan temple and will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary this August. Yes, it was strange, frustrating, I was not very well prepared,young and naive, but I hold no negative attitudes about it.It was my choice at the time. Therefore, it was important to me at the time to use that religious system in the LDS Church.

Life is short. Take your power back and own it and live your life on your own terms, whatever those are. My view? Never mind what others choose for themselves. That is about them, not me anyhow. I can respect and honor their choices just as I want the same for me.

Sure, every religion has the right to set any kind of rituals they want. They have every legal right to marry people in the temple and exclude anyone they want.

I'm talking about it from an ethical, compassionate, standpoint. I'm talking about what a church that (falsely) claims to be pro-family SHOULD do. What they should do as a matter of right and wrong. What they should do if they cared about people as people and not simply as income-producing commodities.

I think the psychological aspects of the church's "weddings" make it less than a choice.

The lds church wants to appear mainstream, but nothing screams CULT like temple weddings. "We're all about family" unless they are not part of the cult or don't tow the party line, or are too young to attend. Temple weddings may be a money winner for the church, but they will never be "mainstream" christian.

One of the ironies is that in Kirkland, JS published a statement on marriage and said that "all marriages should be performed publicly."

Kind of like the church today; say one thing, do another.

mcarp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One of the ironies is that in Kirkland, JS
> published a statement on marriage and said that
> "all marriages should be performed publicly."
>

He was speaking as a man, doncha know?

This is another aspect that just screams 'cult'. No other 'religion' (and I use that term loosely) does this by dividing families and friends in weddings and deems certain people 'unworthy' to attend. The cult only reluctantly doesn't force the American Mormon way of doing things like this in other countries because of they couldn't get away with it legally (due to differences in laws). But I have a feeling they'd try to do it if said laws weren't in place. And only those questioning, or those half in half out can see out exclusionary and damaging this is. Most TBMs can't see how damaging this is.