One of my better Mission comps got married today to an 18 year old girl who would still technically be in high school had she not graduated early. And *GASP* it wasn't in the temple! The girl's father, who also happens to be a bishop, married them. My thoughts:

-Everything seemed awkward and unorganized. It was like they hadn't even done a run through.

-No, "Here Comes the Bride" music, no exchanging of vows, no nothing really. If you're going to get married outside of the International House of Handshakes, why the hell not do NORMAL marriage things?

-All the terminology was in Mormon speak. (E.G. Vows became covenants, "Till Death do you Part" became "Married for this Mortal Probation" etc).

-Instead of feeling like a celebration, it felt somber and depressing.

-The whole thing lasted literally five minutes.

I am still really steamed right now. What should have been an awesome event for my friend turned into another Mormon bout of guilt-tripping. Has anyone been to a legitimate non-temple mo wedding?

(PS- My mission comp had a non-temple wedding so all of his less-active family could attend, not because of unworthiness. At least, that's what he told me).

(PPS- I also learned that my comp and his eighteen-year-old bride plan on popping out babies as soon as possible SMH).

I'm temple sealed but had a ring ceremony for the no-mo family. Not sure how the church delineates between actual non-temple weddings and ring ceremonies, but they have their whole set of hoops to jump through to protect the SACREDNESS of the temple. If there is any way to make a marriage traditional, special, or memorable it simply CAN NOT be done. It would mock the importance of the sealing! Your friend just has to suffer through this mock wedding, because that is all it is. A mockery to the real temple deal. The only redeeming quality of a non-temple marriage or ring ceremony to the morg, is that it is like a funeral -- A wonderful opportunity to preach to those present about God's plan for righteous people. The truly hilarious thing is that the temple, for all it is ramped up to be, is really nothing different than what your friend had today. A five-minute prelude to sex.

True... The only difference between a church and a temple wedding in Mormonism is that in the temple you get to wear green aprons and use the patriarchal grip. It's too bad young Mormons aren't told this beforehand.

Nothing like getting married under the decorated basketball hoop in THE church.

Rushed annd unplanned wedding? I wouldn't be surprised if they pop out the first baby in seven months or so.

Mormon non-temple weddings are worse than Mormon funerals. Even at my most TBM, I swore I'd never get married in a Mormon chapel by a bishop. My uncle was a Catholic priest and I told my parents if I married a non-Mo, my uncle was going to do the ceremony. Period. Mormon chapel weddings are designed to be as grim as possible so as not to tempt any young attendees to marry outside the temple themselves. It's an absolutely abominable abuse of power to force girls to marry in the temple by ruining the weddings of those who don't with a dismal atmosphere of failure. If you didn't marry in the temple, we are sadly gathered here today to mourn your shame with you. There may be some people who pull off a lovely wedding in a Mormon church, officiated by a Mormon bishop but I've never seen one personally in 30 + years of knowing Mormons.

I went to a wedding in a chapel once. It was so DEPRESSING!! The bishop was so awkward. I don't think he said anything about love during the whole thing. It was more like "We are gathered here today in this ward house because you guys are such losers. If you weren't such losers you would be at the temple. Since you are such giant losers for not getting married in the temple I'm not going to try very hard to make you feel good about this huge mistake you are making by not getting married in the temple." The mormon church should have nothing to do with weddings.

Are you kidding me?!! They got married in a Mormon chapel and not under the basketball hoop???

I had a friend get married this past summer. I had no idea his divorced three time and still married when they were dating girlfriend was TBM. Same kind of wedding no music no celebration. Just you two should go to the temple as soon as possible. I was pissed this was his first marrige and the bishop just lectured them for ten minutes, and then said you guys can exchange rings I guess.

They purposely try to keep non temple weddings as ugly as temple "weddings" so they are not rewarding kids who don't get married in the clubhouse. I had an SP tell me that's why they changed the rule about weddings in the chapel. As it is, they already get to wear a nice dress (that the groom can see DURING the wedding) and don't have to dress up like a clown. They don't want kids who were already married in the temple to feel like they got cheated out of a nice wedding, which we all did, of course, and which young people are still getting cheated out of.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 01:06AM by NormaRae.

I got married in the Relief Society Room. They wouldn't allow it in the chapel and I sure as hell had no intention of getting married under the basketball hoop. So sad. We deserved so much more. To young and dumb to be our own advocates then.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 12:40AM by laurel.

There were no nearby temples, and I had to wait a year as a new convert, anyway. The Bishop provided very decent counsel, but did include that we plan for a temple sealing, which eventually ended up being one of the worst nights of my life.

We attended the non-temple wedding two weeks ago of a family member. Beautiful reception center, bride was radiant and looked wonderful without the funny clothing. A family friend who is a SP performed the ceremony. No lecture about attending the temple in a year. Just some good common sense advice and then the short vows. Nice light dinner and then the reception which was a lot of fun with nice refreshments and dancing at the end.

The bride had prepped all her family with a letter expressing why she was choosing not to marry in the temple (no longer believes), and asking them all to be happy and celebrate her wedding to a great guy. It worked. Everyone had a wonderful time. Brave girl to be a "pioneer" in a 6 generation TBM family on both sides.

I'm flying the kids to the beach (assuming the get married outside if the temple, damned if I will let it be a drab ceremony. I'll even become and ordained minister to do it if I need to.

so far as I know any joe can say you're married forever.

Definately if you leave a non-temple wedding up to a TBM to plan you are going to get a wedding disaster.

I did not get married in the temple but I had been away from Utah for several years by that point and I planned and paid for just about everything. My in-laws helped with some. My Dad was angry with me for quite some time after I announced I was getting married outside the temple and my mother barely helped with the planning. I didn't even bother to ask my Dad to walk me down the aisle... I walked myself down. My BIL who was inactive for most of his life offered to "give me away" but as a feminist I felt that I should be giving myself away. My sister (BIL's wife and also inactive most of her life) sat with me as I got ready. My mother was "busy". We did have a SP do the ceremony but he was a friend of my husband's family and was a convert so he met with us prior to the wedding and allowed me to dictate the vows I wanted... I just couldn't include "forever".

The actual wedding went beautifully and I'm very happy that I took control of it to make sure of that. In spite of the cold shoulder I'd been getting from the family. They lightened up after the dead was done and seemed to enjoy the dinner reception. I guess they figured they might as well enjoy the food since I was already lost.

So, I actually meant for this to be a reply to the whole thread...not exactly sure what happened. On the vows part, I specifically told our officiator that he was not to mention the word "death" in the vows. He was very respectful of my wishes...some TBM are not. Pick carefully who in the Mormon community who you trust to be a part of the wedding ceremony because some will take the opportunity to preach or who knows what else to promote their own agenda.

My daughter got married in a friend's beautiful back yard. It was a lovely wedding, surrounded by friends and family, and the vows they recited for each other were sweet and genuine, from their hearts. So THIS is how the rest of the world does it!

Can someone please remind me why we gave up so much to do the crap-tastic temple version?

Mormon chapel and temple weddings are both depressing. Those of us who went through either should have a big renewal of vows with a real ceremony, going down the aisle, big reception with a real dinner, etc. etc.

I agree - we tried to do this last year because we had one of those milestone anniversaries and thought it would be cute to have the whole family go out to Vegas and have a theme wedding. I would have gotten more enthusiasm inviting everyone to a nudist beach or a KKK rally. Total wet blanket response from all our family - except my dad who said he'd be happy to get a chance to walk me down the aisle since he missed out the first time. Since nearly everyone we are close enough to that we could convince to come with us to Vegas is TBM, except for my dad, and they were all so unenthusiastic, we dropped the plan. I didn't want to spend the day dripping in sour-puss Mormon disapproval and long faces and listen to side-swipe remarks about what a stupid, waste of time and money this is or what a mockery we were making of our temple wedding. The worst part is, I'd elope with DH if I could bring just my dad and get that walk down the aisle but the biggest detractor of this plan is my mom and she would insist on going, which would ruin the day.

I've only been to one non-temple mormon wedding.
They guy came from a mormon family, but was no longer practicing himself. The girl was non-mormon.

The particular church building had a large gym and the ceremony was done there. Although they did have the walk down an aisle and such, it was the first wedding I had ever been to with a basketball hoop looming over the ceremony.

What really bothered me though, was the officiator. He made it seem more like a funeral than a celebration. He kept saying that eventually the marriage "will dissolve in death". It was the first time I had ever heard such a saying.
Since the bride and groom weren't TBM's, I can't believe they wanted THAT for a ceremony. It was just so depressing.

In fact, I don't understand why couples who don't get married in the temple think they HAVE to be married in the gym by the bishop or SP. My exmo sister and nevermo husband had a fabulous wedding in a botanical garden officiated by the non-religious but ordained brother of the groom. They wrote their own vows and it was gorgeous. There were plenty of TBMs in attendance but the bishop and sp had nothing to do with it!

Last year I attended my cousin's wedding in the Mo Chapel. She is a member; the groom is not. She is not real active.

Same stuff as above;

Bishop was not interested. (He's an acquaintance of mine)

Very somber; boring.

No laughter...


The Mormons sure know how to ruin everything....

breedumyung Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Mormons sure know how to ruin everything....

Holy sh!t, no kidding. I'm nevermo and this thread is depressing as outer darkness.

Thanks for the laugh.

So true. So true !

To me, being married under a basketball hoop or even in a Relief Society room is highly disrespectful to the the institution of marriage and the couple who are being wedded. It also sounds like there are some (or many) Mormon bishops or SPs who do not have any idea of how to conduct a cheerful, inclusive, and lovely ceremony.

With that said, I would encourage couples who are considering marriage to carefully consider *all* of their options. There are many beautiful venues available for weddings, including gardens, parks, beaches, historical sites, lodges, hotels, and so on. There are many ministers who would be happy to conduct a wedding for people not of their faith or of their church. My brother and his wife, neither of them UUs, had a very nice ceremony conducted by a UU minister. Some friends had their wedding in an Episcopal church (of which neither were members) in a park setting. For the nonreligious, I would search for a justice of the peace willing to perform marriages in various settings.

Have the wedding that *you* want. Don't settle for someone else's (possibly very sad) image of what your wedding should be like.

I admit I was a little pissed at my sister for getting married out side the temple. He wasn't a member then. They are sealed now. Now that I look back I am glade they did. It was a wonderful wedding and the reception was a grand party, not in a gym with a stage and hoops, and cold brightly lit, stupid paper streamers.

...many Mormons feel obligated to punish a non temple wedding.

They just aren't being good little morgbots if they allow a non-temple wedding to be any kind of celebration. They are drab and lifeless by design. It's devine punishment for disobedience.

Not all mormons are so deeply programmed, but you don't have to look far to find one. There are enough of them to do the job.

And don't forget the green eyed monster - JELOUSY! How hard would it be to "out-do" a temple wedding? Not very. In fact, it's kind of a chore to make sure a non-temple wedding doesn't far exceed the reverent gathering of shushed attendees who offer charity chuckles to the lame jokes of the old white garbed fossil who is presiding. The most exciting part of a temple wedding is wondering if that old fart will every wipe that white foamy stuff out of the corner of his puckered mouth.

DeludedAngled nailed it with this:
"Definately if you leave a non-temple wedding up to a TBM to plan you are going to get a wedding disaster."

That was just like my little brother's wedding in the Relief Society room.

had a nontemple wedding and NONE were in the local stake centers. Two of her kids married nonmos--both weddings were outside and were beautiful with wonderful food, alcohol, and dancing.

Her other son married another mormon--both sets of parents are very active mormon, but her parents opted for a nice reception center and it again was beautiful.

My sister got married in the R.S. room. That marriage lasted 2 years. Her next marriage, she went to Lake Tahoe.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 03:02PM by cl2.

My bestie and I spent 2 days decorating the chapel and the "cultural" hall for the reception. We made it look spectacular - with live tropical plants and twinkling white lights. We had a silver "champagne" fountain with a fun, kicky combo of ginger ale and what-not. Our food was fancy, horsdeurves (never knew how to spell that d@mn word).

It was nothing like my sister's over-the-top Catholic wedding - my parents actually had to take out a *huge* bank loan for that one. They were married in a historic Catholic church where an actually Kennedy had held a wedding, followed by a fancy country club reception.

But my wedding was nice by Mormon standards. I was an adult convert and JackMo hubby was born into "Mormon Royalty" (or so they believe - snark). And, hilariously, I *WAS* two months pregnant, and not feeling the least bit guilty about it! Ha. We did eventually have a temple sealing.

The best part of *MY* whole marriage experience, however, was the honeymoon. We packed up all the wedding food and took it with us to a high-end hotel here in town, and luxuriated in our posh surroundings, jacuzzi etc. Since there were no wedding jitters for us, we spent the night feasting, and laughing and . . . well, you know. ;o)

We drove out-of-town to Orlando the next day and caught a Paul McCartney concert in a massive outdoor stadium. Then we spent several days relaxing at the beach on a tropical island.

So, I guess, 20 years ago LDS chapel weddings really weren't so bad. And I, for one, don't regret it one minute that we didn't wait until our wedding night for sex. It was all magical anyway.

;o)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 03:25PM by shannon.

my little brother and his wife were both inactive when my TBM father married them but we don't live in the morridor and they are both very social - meaning that most of the people there were not Mormons

it was very revealing to me (I was having doubts at the time) as I was up front and could see the facial expressions of everyone in the audience - when my father got to the required part about 'doing it right' in the temple in a year and about how 'we'll all be there with you' it was painfully obvious that 90% of the people there were having a serious WTF moment

really, what kind of 'preacher' announces that the marriage he is creating isn't a REAL marriage?

and Mormons wonder why people consider them weird