Never-Mo attending a temple wedding

by tl Feb 2012

I am a never-mormon. I am about to "attend" a temple wedding. Will I even be able to enter the temple building? Will there be anything to do while I wait for the bride/groom/worthy guests to come out? My reason for attending is to support the groom's father, since he is also a never-mo.

The groom's mother is my best friend and I love this family immensely--so I wouldn't dream of not being with them on this important day.

caedmon
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
You are not invited to the wedding. You are invited to stand outside a building you and the groom's father are judged as unworthy to enter.

You aren't missing much as the temple wedding is void of any special feeling. No music, no flowers, no talk of love or honor or cherishing, no vows, no rings, and (in this case) no father beeming with pride.

If you want to support the grooms family, go. But know that many of us have been in this man's position and hate the church for denying us the opportunity to be present at such an important and special moment in the life of our child.

janebond462
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
No, you won't be allowed in to watch the ceremony but you're apparently not missing much since it doesn't resemble weddings in the non-mo world. The couple doesn't make their vows to each other, they make them to the church. They wear temple clothing that's ugly as sin, and don't exchange rings.

You, you lucky unworthy Gentile, get to sit in a waiting room or wander around the temple grounds while the ceremony takes place. You'll be with: other non-mo's, any kids not old enough to be "temple-worthy" and any Mormon's who don't have a temple recommend.

Yep, the LDS church is all about families . . . gag me.

**I'm a nevermo so all the info I know, I've gleaned over the years here. Exmo's please point out any errors of mine!

Quoth the Raven Nevermo
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
You are better off in the waiting room instead of watching silly folk in silly outfits making promises to the crutch. Silly folk with green fig aprons.

ronas
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
Here's probably more info that you wanted to know.

Technically there are 3 areas of the temple availabe to public access. (Meaning areas where people attending the temple can go as opposed to offices and such for the volunteers working in the temple.)

1) The outside waiting room/foyer. You do not need a temple recommend to enter this room. If the weather is extremely inclement you will be able to enter here while waiting for the marriage to occur. In theory you are supposed to be very reverent and keep talk to a minimum only is whispers. In practice wedding parties are typically very loud and boisterous in this area.

2) There is a separate entrance to the baptristy - where they do baptisms for the dead. Typically this is a separate door off the main entrance but in some cases it is a separate entrance. A lesser temple recommend is required to visit the baptistry - for example mormon teenagers are granted these recommends but not the full recommends.

3) Just past the public waiting room there is a "recommend desk" where you show your temple recommend to proceed further. A full temple recommed is required to enter here - or a more rare special case where children are allowed in when "sealed" to their parents - in the case where the parents are married/sealed in the temple after children are born.

The temple wedding is done is a "sealing room". Usually temple patrons wear all white - the wedding ceremony is the exception - the bride a groom will wear all white in their temple clothes. Those attending wear their Sunday best (called street clothes in the temple.) There are some cases where all those attending also wear white, but that is getting to be less common because it overloads the temple locker rooms so the temples discourage it and/or don't allow it depending on the temple.

The actually marriage ceremony is about 3 minutes long where the bride/groom kneel down and lock hands across the altar in a specific hand grip taken from the Masons. The wording is always the same - both the bride & groom say yes at one point when they are asked if they willingly of their own free will give themselves and receive the other as a spouse.

Often a ring exchange ceremony occurs immediately after but this is not a official part of the wedding. This can be done outside the temple or not at all.

A sealing room can hold up to 50-75 people seated in chairs. Other than the 3 minute marriage ceremony - the sealer - a VERY old man who performs the ceremony gives a 20 minute or so speech to the bride/groom with varied marriage advice and references to Mormon beliefs.

One universal feature of the sealing room is mirrors on opposite walls facing each other. You then look into the mirrors and see reflections of reflections of yourself trailing off for a long ways - representing the concept of eternity.

Narnia
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
I went to my best friend's mormon wedding. i was a bridesmaid but was not told til i arrived (had to take a plane) that i could not actually go inside the temple. i still inquired and went into the waiting room of the las vegas temple. It's decor was tacky. SOO tacky. i felt like i was in a dated hotel lobby: glass stuff, that weird pink/peach color on the walls, just blah. I caught glimpses of people in robes and stuff. It just felt so...unnatural. I had never been to a place of worship where i felt like the members were looking down upon me. Ive been to jewish temples with friends, and workers are usually super friendly, and ive been to assorted temples in asia, and the monks are always very happy looking, but here was just blah.

We waited outside for about 2 hours with my friends family (she had only been mormon for a bit over a year, got enegaged 3 days after meeting this guy, got married 4 months later, and she was pregnant buy the end of the month) so her family was pouring out negativity. and when they walked out the temple doors, hand in hand... it was so anti climatic. like "were married guys. thats it!"

i never did learn about what actually happened. They did a ring ceremony later on a basketball court at a mormon community center and the party was done by 6pm. You know, as a married mormon couple they needed to hurry and do the babymaking thing. we all felt like we were at a funeral. I helped the bride out of her dress and watched her awkwardly jam her gammies into her pants.i felt i lost a good friend that day. her religion and babymaking mode have seemed to have taken priority. :/

enoughenoch19
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
You and all other nevermos will be in a waiting room together and will probably get dirty looks while you wait.

summer
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
As others have stated, you can sit in the waiting room, or walk around the temple grounds if the weather is pleasant. The people attending the wedding may try to recruit you as a babysitter for their children, since children are not allowed to attend temple weddings unless they are being sealed to their own parents. For that reason you might want to make yourself scarce until the ceremony begins.

You can google the temple wedding ceremony. It bears little resemblance to other weddings you have attended -- no walk down the aisle, no father giving away the bride, no exchange of rings as an official part of the ceremony, no flowers, music, wedding march, etc. The bride and groom are dressed in temple clothing over their wedding clothes. You can also google Mormon temple clothing.

NYCGal
I went to one temple wedding and waited in the room for
the "unworthies". I swore I would never do that again, and I have not. I make it a practice to show up at the wedding lunch after all the temple nonsense is over. Even that is a trial, with so much holiness and talk of families are forever, and love at home, and blah, blah, blah.

After I moved east, I found out how fun real weddings are!

Oh well, it's very nice of you to support the groom's father. But, I'm afraid you will end up agreeing with me that being put in the "ghetto" for the unworthies is very distasteful and unpleasant experience. Suffice it to say, once was more than enough for me.

nickerickson
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
When my wife and I were married, almost 13 years ago, she was non-mo and I was not active. A mormon bishop conducted the wedding for us because he did it for free. Her parents, daughter, best friend and my best friend attended. The ceremony took about 10 minutes. The bishop did a great job, talked with us about marriage and then did the vows. Very nice, quaint ceremony we were both happy with.

Fast-forward two years my wife is a mormon, I'm active and we go to the temple. Aside from my wife being completely overwhelmed from taking her endowments, having to wear some ladies white bra because she had worn black, the sealing was terrible. At the last minute they did not let us bring in her daughter, only our son. And the actual sealing ceremony was short, very un-emotional, and a very unhappy event.

That ceremony was the beginning of the end for my wife, pissed that they would not seal her daughter to us. Pissed because they waited until that day to tell us.

I guess I have the temple to thank for seeing the light!!!

As for non-mos you have a waiting room to wait and will not miss a thing. You'll only miss some ancient of days man mumble about being sealed for time and all eternity as the bride and groom look into the mirrors reflected on both sides of the room, reflecting you and your wife on in to eternity.

Funny thing about those mirrors is that in our new house, the old owners had a mirror fetish, and as I sit on the toilet I can see myself taking a crap for eternity. I get more relief after getting off my eternal toilet than I ever did from attending the temple.

saviorself
"...I can see myself taking a crap for eternity."
ROFLMAO !!!

Thank you!

omreven
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
Not all of the temples have a waiting room, at least I don't think the one here does. You'll just to sit and chat outside or walk around, find a shady spot, chat with other unclean and unworthy. When I went to the one in Utah, they had a waiting room...Provo? Salt Lake?. I remember it being a 70s brown or orange and there was a cash register in the corner. I remember saying, "Look, honey, money changing in the temple." At this wedding, some guy dressed in all white (white suit, white tie) took us into an office to talk to us about eternal marriages or something. I honestly don't remember what was said. The whole thing was just weird. I sat outside the Mesa temple a few times by now and never had to go into an office for something. Really strange. It certainly wasn't warm and welcoming or joyous by any stretch.

I never understood the purpose of going at all. Can you imagine sending out invitations to sit outside the church while you get married and then meet us at the reception later? In this case, dad is going to have to be there for pictures; otherwise, I'd say don't bother going at all.

The receptions typically suck. No music, food, or anything. Cake and punch, in and out in 30 minutes, stop at Taco Bell on your way home, grab a movie, meh. The bride and groom and wedding party stand in a line and another line is formed to shake hands and greet. After you stand in the line, you mingle about at chat with friends and family and exit. I've been to one reception where NonMormon parents put together something a little nicer and there was no line, the bride and groom mingled much like a regular reception I'm used to, but it was still boring as hell and the ring ceremony in no way equates to a wedding. Half the people at the reception didn't even bother sitting down and attending that portion of the event.

I'm glad you're going to be around for support. This is a tough and hurtful situation. Mormons suck the joy out of everything.

forbiddencokedrinker
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
Have fun in the waiting room. I suggest you bring a book, or else the Mos are going to try and convert you.

Not that the book will stop them, but it will give you a prop to use. You can say "I would like to talk, but I am kind of in the middle of this book about the Mount Meadows Massacre."

omreven
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding

Dear lord, she had to wear a stranger's bra?

So what's up with not sealing your daughter but allowing your son? This doesn't make any sense? Do you know why?

Cheryl
Staff in the waiting room will see you as missionary meat.
They'll want your name and contact inforation to give to mormons who will likely show up at your door. While you're waiting, they'll have church materials for you to read and will probably play videos about why you should join up.

Mormons divide humanity into two categories, the worthy and the unworthy. You're in the unworthy class but they hope to save your wicked hide either in this life or the next.

sivab1
Right
It actually sounds more like after these definitions there really is still only one place for the non-mos to go in the temple. My dad was a sealer and when my sister got married they moved us to a smaller room last minute -yes they actually made us get up and move where we had to practically share seats there were maybe 18 of us but I guess the other group was more "high profile". I thought it was really rude how they pushed my dad around. Then they kept trying to rush the whole thing and told us to to keep it short because there was another group scheduled ten minutes after. Nothing sacred, personal, or peaceful about it.

Devoted Exmo
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
It sounds as if the daughter was not biologically the husbands, but the son was. Therefore they would not have sealed the daughter to the husband.
raisedbyjackmormons
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
At my niece's wedding in 2007 (Provo temple) quite lot of us unworthy were gathered in the waiting room. We were repeatedly told to be quiet. We were quiet. We were all laughing softly, but being very animated and happy, because that's how the noMo side of my family is. Funny and happy. The old guys were highly upset with us for not being REVERENT. They want you to be sad, prayerful and quietly in awe of the events occurring nearby. You should be repentant and depressed that you are unworthy, and so spiritually soiled that you can't attend the wonderful wedding. Above all, the dreary old temple workers want you to be in awe of them, and to OBEY them.
The most fun you can have at a temple wedding is to scowl at them and ignore their pleas. We just looked at them and carried on as usual. So much fun! Why would god want everyone sad and silent? What a bunch of backward, ego-driven cretins.
Mormon receptions are excruciatingly boring. Plan an early getaway, or some way to entertain yourself until its over. They compare in no way to a normal, rollicking wedding reception.
Itzpapalotl
I had to wait outside for 5 weddings in my family
It's annoying as hell, but from what I've learned I would RATHER be on the outside.

Of course, growing up Mormon, I "understood" that the ceremony was secre...ooops I mean sacred, so I accepted having to wait outside. Now that all my siblings who are still in the cult are temple married, I doubt I will ever wait again on the outside, even for my nieces and nephews.

When my TBM bro was married back in '08, my two apostate sisters and I went out for coffee during the ceremony. Last year whenb i explained the ceremony to my sister's wife, she was absolutely shocked that someone as reasonable and intelligent as my bro and his wife would believe and go through all the temple whackiness. I don't think I even got into the pre-1990 temple stuff with my SIL either.

And they deny they're a cult.

omreven
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
I was wondering if that was the case, but the son would have a biological mother, which apparently didn't seem to make a difference.

Misfit
Qualifications for mormons who are allowed to see mormon weddings
1.You have served a mission for the LDS church or are about to go on a mission for the LDS church.
2.You are about to be married in the temple, or have already been married in the temple.

As you can see, its a very short list.

If you are a single, tithe-paying adult, have not served a mission, and have never been married in the temple, you are out of luck.

unworthy
Re: Never-Mo attending a temple wedding
Over the years some of my TBM neighbors have invited me to their Families temple weddings. I went once. Sat in a empty room with other "unworthy" slobs. From then on I politely tell them I will meet them somewhere afterwards and buy them a meal or something. Always wonder what kind of "religion" is it that excludes people from what should be a good family event.
ronas
Re: Qualifications for mormons who are allowed to see mormon weddings
This is not completely accurate. You can get a temple recommend as an adult even if you are single and have not served a mission.

Typically bishops encourage people to wait for one of these events, but I have known a number of single people in their twenties with temple recommends. The timing of a temple recommend is up to the discretion of the bishop and the person, so I'm sure there have many times when jerk bishops have kept single people out of the temple who otherwise would qualify.

Hervey Willets
as a Never-Mo, you will be a captive audience for the Temple Missionaries. 

Hervey Willets
RE: "I suggest you bring a book..." Preferably a title by Christopher Hitchens
or maybe Under the Banner of Heaven or Blood of the Prophets.

Tristan-Powerslave
My mom was one such adult
Who received her endowments without being married or going on a mission. She was nearing 30 the time, & this was in the early '70s. She was considered a 'sweet spirit' (blech). I only know a few women in my mom's age group that went on missions in the 1960s.

"Recovery from Mormonism - www.exmormon.org"