Reading papa Kens post made me wonder how many of us gentiles had to wait outside the temple as your kid got married to the cult. I sat outside in my car and invited for pictures after the wedding cerephony.

I had the humiliation of doing it twice, not that I wanted in as much as I wanted my kids out.


so there's 2 times for me - who's 3,4,5 etc etc

Been there, done that. It was a surreal experience. Luckily only once for me.

The church is losing this battle, and forbidding me to witness my own son's wedding gives me multiple opportunities to explain to non members why the church is an unhealthy organization. I have a ton of missionary zeal now in explaining cult like behaviors of LDS Inc to those who are unaware.

I may be dumb not knowing this. Is there any other religions that bans friends and family from attending a wedding? I think Europe has the right idea in making it be a civil ceremony first and sealing later.

I remember years ago a woman standing up in sacrament to give her testimony. She was crying as she spoke of her daughter preparing to get married in the temple. It wasn't tears of joy but tears of sorrow as she (the mother) would not be allowed to go. She was a good righteous person and attended church every week, but couldn't afford a full tithing so therefore was barred from witnessing the marriage ceremony of her only child. I now shake my head in disbelief. It's just NOT RIGHT.

Having been married in the temple, I am at a loss as to what all the hoopla is about concerning attending a wedding there. There certainly was nothing of great significance going on during my temple wedding that would fall under the category of “can’t miss” or “must be there”. I suppose it is all about the “event” because my temple wedding was…blaaaaahhhhh. About as exciting and noteworthy as getting a root canal.

A little over a year ago my son got married in a temple around 350 miles away from me. There was nothing inside of me that wanted to travel that far to wait around outside and be in the presence of my TBM ex all day/night. I told that to my son and gave him two options -

Option (A) - If he really, really, really wanted me there, I would attend.

Option (B) - I would not attend (he could Photoshop me into any wedding pics), I would give him $5,000 cash as a wedding gift (would have done this anyways), I would pay for two nights of his honeymoon at a nice beachfront resort ($450/night), we would get together a month or so later for a great dinner, shop for stuff for his newlywed apartment, load him up with groceries, and in general have a much better time together than what we would have spent on his wedding day. His bride was a little upset that I would not get to meet her parents so I added that during the holidays (that they would spend with her folks), I would make a trip to see them (meet her folks), take everyone out to a nice dinner, and enjoy our time together.

They chose Option (B).

A month or so later I traveled to Rexburg to their “poor, starving, married student “ apartment, took them out to a great dinner, went to Sam’s Club and loaded them up with over $700 of groceries and furnishings for their place, and we had a FAR BETTER time than we would have had I had attended their wedding and reception. Over the holidays I visited them at my daughter-in-law’s parents place, met the folks, had a GREAT dinner and a great time. I gave my son another $1000 cash for a Christmas/graduation present and it was all good.

I’m not getting all of this “boo-hooing” about being left out of some boring, nondescript, cult ceremony when there are better times to be had. I don’t get it. All over a ceremony that you feel you “have to be there”??. Is it THAT big of a deal?? Worthy of standing around outside waiting for it to be over with?? Really??

When I found out my daughter was getting married, I had a meltdown, but then I realized what it was about. I would have liked to see my daughter's wedding, but I didn't want to go in the temple NO MATTER WHAT. I would have liked to hold up a sign outside that said, "I choose not to be there." I planned on spending my time at my parents' grave, which was about a mile away. Most of my family would have been with me as we are all heathens now. I did plan on being there for pictures, but then I only had to drive a few miles to get to the temple she was going to get married at.

I realized my meltdown was more over the trauma my temple marriage had caused me. Just the idea of facing that again was very traumatic.

BUT she cancelled the wedding at the last moment. . .

As my sister (who could be there) pointed out, her children would all be outside with me. They are all out of the church.

what a great way to handle it....excellent!

I waited outside the San Diego Temple for my daughter's marriage. It really sucked!. I felt so left out and alone. I was the only immediate family member from both sides to have this shitty "opportunity".

I also did this for my son's sealing. But, this wasn't as bad because I attended his wedding the year before.

My wife and I sat outside the temple while our Niece was married... Does that count?

My wife is a photographer and was photographing weddings at the time and our "gift" was doing their wedding photos and we wanted to get photos of them going in and coming out. They did a "ring ceremony" later for the rest of the family that couldn't attend. But it was just my wife and I who waited outside.

I hadn't fully left the church at the time, I still believed, but was inactive. So, oddly, in my head at the time, this was "OK" and acceptable. I didn't have a Temple recommend, so I couldn't go in. Looking back, I see how demeaning it was.

Anyway, sitting around the "lovely" temple grounds made me think about becoming active again. Then a member from the ward we went inactive from spotted us, was invasive, judgmental and pretty much ruined any "spirit" we had from being near the temple and I was reminded why we weren't going anymore. After we got rid of him, my wife and I looked at each other and without saying a word, we knew that we would be staying inactive, if only to avoid people like that.

It wasn't long after that that I researched my way out of the church altogether. Maybe that was a first step along the way.

My husband lied to get a recommend, paid his tithing once, went to the wedding, then told TCSS to eat a bug.

Me! And it was one of the eye openers

For our oldest daughter's wedding, it was all of my husband's family, including his elderly mother, and our children. The only good thing is that our son-in-law had been thoughtful enough to have a ring ceremony outside afterwards so that all of my in-laws and our kids could see them get "married".

In 1997, I stood outside the SL Temple while my daughter went in to be married. As I was about to walk down the street, a distant relative came walking up. I was surprised to see her as she lived out of state. She saw me and said " I came here to support your daughter. Somebody should be in there with her, if her mother isn't". It was one of the most insulting things she could have said, and the self-righteousness was just dripping off her.

Now that the grandkids are starting to get married, I've made it clear to them that I will NOT go to the temple grounds and wait around just so I can be in a picture like I was included in the whole she-bang.

My stepsons mother stood outside while I (his stepmother) was there for the whole thing. It felt so wrong to me, even though i'd raised him from the time he was 5.

Can't really answer the question, but do agree with Mr. Happy that from what I've read, the actual ceremony (with the excepetion of the cool-sounding part where the couple kneels and looks at each other over the little padded altar thingy) is more like a brief business meeting with religious words thrown in here and there, and then you promise to give *everything* to TCOTPOTCOJCOLDS.
Plus, in "heathen" weddings, the church is booked *for the wedding*, but temples crank 'em out AFAP. It's a wedding mill.

In other words, if you're TBM enough to actually be in there and drink the kool-aid, you'd probably be like "What the actual f&*^!?"

Me, several times, when I was a bridesmaid. I was too young. It seemed silly to have the dress, and stand in the wedding reception line, and be in the photos--but not be allowed to attend the actual wedding.

Mr. Happy, money makes up for a lot! You probably paid far less than you would have paid in tithing.

I was "inactive" when my daughter married a Mormon RM in the temple. I gave her a choice.

1. I would go through the temple with her, and go to her temple wedding, which meant I would get a temple recommend, and pay the cult 5 months' worth of tithing, and attend 75% of the sacrament meetings, as the bishop demanded. (I would not attend any other Mormon stuff, and would not take any callings.)

2. I would give her the 5 months' of tithing, in cash, as a wedding present.

She said she wanted me to attend her wedding, so I did. The temple was crowded that day, and the in-laws coaxed the photographer to take lots of pictures around the temple. I had hired the photographer, and had instructed her to take pictures of the reception ONLY, and the bridesmaids and groomsmen (who couldn't go to the temple) and the guests, etc. Too much time was spent in the 100-degree heat, and my daughter didn't have time to repair the damage the heavy temple veil and hat had done to her hair, so she had to go to the reception "as is." She started to cry, and said, "This is NOT what I expected my wedding to be like." I wanted to say, "I told you so!" Instead, I told her that her real marriage happened when she and her husband signed the marriage license. I also reassured her that we had spent months planning the perfect wedding reception of her dreams! The great reception party--live band, dancing, great buffet, beautiful garden, all our friends WELCOME, made up for the bad temple jou-jou. (Hissssssss--it was evil in there!)

What a nasty, insulting display of fake-power, on the Mormons' part. Sitting in the holding-pen for the unworthies was never a good experience. I did it for my siblings, and those other Mormon brides, and my nieces and nephews. Usually, I would end up trying to entertain the little kids in there. One time, we went to McDonald's. Another time, we walked around the grounds, and played in the parking lot. The Mormons did not like that! They said it was disrespectful to play. I lost it and said that WE were the ones being disrespected.

No, I think Mormonism is the only "religion" (it's really a cult) that bans loved ones from weddings. I use this, too, as a persuasion to help new investigators decide to NOT join the cult.

The experience of being held in that crowded temple waiting room, with crying kids, and Mormon advertising on the TV screen, at my daughter's temple wedding, only reinforced the aversion that my other children, and their father, feel towards the cult. It was like the final nail in the coffin.

Then they had to go outside and wait in the crowds, to be photographed on those hard stone steps which lead to an ugly, giant "door" that isn't a real door. They had to smile and pretend they were at a wedding, when they weren't really in there.

Not only do they ban you--they make you smile and pretend you weren't abused at all, and that it all was wonderful--they have the smiling photos to prove it. It was the forced phoniness that bothered my daughter's father the most.

Neither of us will attend anything Mormon, because it will be interpreted as "supporting the cult", and we do NOT.

I know how the OP felt:

"...not that I wanted in as much as I wanted my kids out."

My grandmother was a non member who stoically withstood two of her children being LDS. She hated the whole not being able to attend the wedding thing but gracefully waited outside.
One year when my brother was getting married she actually went in to the waiting room at the front. When the family finally started shuffling out I asked her what she thought of being inside an LDS temple. Her response was perfect: "Its like being in a funeral home".

Grandmothers are very wise people.

Can I do a side hijack of this thread.
Who has been married in a temple, knowing that someone they hold near and dear to their heart, was stuck out side, unable to witness their event? Also how did it affect you?
Personally I feel bad for both the inside and outside wedding party.

Twice. I had time to make peace with the idea. The weddings were not about me anyway. They were about my kids.

Besides, more of my children were outside waiting with me. And, excepting my ex and her coven, everyone seemed cool with it.

Here goes the other side of the coin: In 1983, when DW and I married, I insisted it was the temple or nothing. I told her that her parents had nearly a year (long engagement by BYU standards) to get worthy.

Not a day goes by that I do not regret my actions. Not a single DAMN DAY!

My wife told me I better not do the same thing to our daughters. Well, daughter #1 is semi-active at best and may never marry (it happens). Daughter #2 resigned from the church and lives with her BF. So, problem pretty much solved!

But it does not change the fact I was an arrogant asshole all those years ago (and for many years thereafter).

I did pretty much the same thing when I was married. My wife was a convert, her parents were not members. I insisted on a Temple marriage, without really thinking about the consequences to her family, all I knew what that we had to be married in the temple, or there would be no wedding.

After I left the church, and after seeing several other non-LDS weddings, not to mention being forced to sit outside during my niece's wedding while I was inactive, I realized what I had done to her and her family. I apologized profusely to her and her parents for closing them out of their daughter's wedding day. They've been very nice about it, but I still regret it.

I was told not to show up for my sister's wedding, two nephews and upcoming niece....

it really hurts.......

I did. It was pretty overcast all day and drizzeled a little. But at one point it started raining harder and we didn't want to run to our cars in the parking lot. They supposedly had some room we could wait in but it was behind the temple (Atlanta) and it was getting close to when my daughter would come out. So we grabbed the door, thinking we could wait in the entrance area between the outside doors and the inside doors to the lobby. There was nothing but indoor/outdoor carpet in that little area and we didn't even open the doors to go to the ticket check area.

We were run out of there very quickly so we all huddled up as close as we could to the building under a small ledge. The rain let up but the ground was all wet for the pictures and stuff.

When my daughter came out she said, "I can't understand why a mother can't be allowed to go into the bride's room and help her daughter get dressed. They don't see any secret stuff in there. It was kind of nice to hear her question it a little. She's now far away from mormonism.

I've stood outside with my younger children as their older siblings got married. I'll pass this counsel on for others--

Be there for the marriage of your children. Be there for them for the future. Love your children and celebrate their marriage as two people in love who are creating a new family.

Forget (as much as possible) the hurt of not going inside the temple to see a 30 minute stupid ceremony with outrageous clothing. PRIVATELY, say, fuck Mormonism and its stupid leaders! Respectfully, The Boner.

Still the biggest heartache of my life. My parents were not allowed to attend my marriage. They never complained or made an issue of it.

My parents smiled when I told them they couldn't attend my wedding. I wasn't bright enough to find someone to drive them 90 minutes to LA. They had to find their own way. Then they had to find out where I was.They smiled through the phony ring ceremony.
Years later our son was married. They smiled and said they would stay in town and get the reception started.
I was an idiot who broke their hearts. but because it meant something to me they smiled and said okay.
Not too long ago, I made a trip across country for the sole purpose of apologizing for that horrible day. They accepted graciously.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2017 10:01AM by rutabaga.

I was invited to my daughters wedding. It was a full blown temple wedding. I told her I wouldn't be there and sit outside. I did meet them afterwards and pay for nice meal for them and several friends. I felt like the only reason I was invited, was to pay for the meal. It was the last time I ever seen her.