NOM

http://www.ldsliving.com/How-to-Include ... ng/s/70222

I just have no words. Show them pictures? Yes that will make up for it.

I have recently become very sad that my very good friends sat outside and at the time I seriously thought it was OK.

I wonder if this article has been written to address some discontent over the practice?

The church is a church of exclusion. Every chance to exclude someone, the church will take the opportunity. I'm always thinking of ways around this terrible policy.
Here's one:
Couple gets married/sealed in temple on a weekday morning. Goes and gets the marriage annulled that day. Have the wedding for all to attend that evening. The marriage annulment wouldn't invalidate the sealing.

It will never be OK to exclude people from any wedding just because some church says your aren't "worthy".

Daughter: Mom, we're getting married! (jumping up and down)
Parents: Yeah this day has finally come! (happy tears, hugs)
Daughter: We're planning the big glorious wedding I've always dreamed of! (beaming with joy)
Parents: Yes, we've saved and saved for this very moment, so excited!!! (more hugs, happy tears)
Daughter: But wait.... you can't come. You have to sit outside the temple.
Parents: (crickets)(silent tear rolling down face of brides mother)
Daughter: (puts on fake happy face) Don't worry, you can babysit all the grandkids while were getting married. Afterwards we'll have cake. It will be fun I promise.

I can't imagine how a parent or sibling must feel when they are excluded from a wedding. How long do we wait and prepare for this moment to see our child take this big step! How dare a church take this moment away from parents and loved ones! How does the church ever think in any way this is acceptable! If I were to do it over I would do as someone suggested on another thread and do the endowment thing and then at the last moment tell everyone the marriage has been moved to the beach or some other place. Do the temple thing a year later. But knowing how I was back in my TBM days I would have been too puffed up in my pride and worthiness to even dare think of breaking from temple marriage protocol. I remember thinking nothing of those who "choose" to not be worthy enough to attend my wedding. I cringe at my 21 year old selfish thinking and actions that day. But I knew no different. Today I do. There is no easy answer here.

I agree with all this.

I want to take a different approach.

I know the church preaches a lot about marrying "in the right place", but I also know that a lot of this fear of marrying outside the temple is fear of negative gossip.

One thing I've noticed about our rising generation is they are very transparent.

All it would take is a couple here and a couple there deciding to have a civil wedding so all family members may joyously witness the event. Publish that on every invitation. If they need, show people their current recommends. If the objecting voices get too loud, just tell them the wedding is the joining of two families and it's only right all the members of both families who can make it to the wedding should be able to attend. Then just keep repeating, "it's about family". If the objections keep coming, gently remind those busy bodies it might be time for another dose of their medication.

Enough couples do that for long enough, the stigma is removed. The church may try to object, but this is about family, there really isn't a way the church can come back on this without looking really bad.

This is an area where I think there's possibility for members to take back their power without getting in too much trouble.

I too sometimes hate my TBM prideful self. Wish I could go back...
Something Give It Time said really made me think again what this new generation could do to accommodate all. They could put in their wedding announcement they are going to be married civilly, but could also put on the announcement that there will be a pre wedding endowment session that those endowed could attend. The wedding couple could both receive their endowments in advance of the marriage, then get married civilly. Those TBMs that worry about them being "worthy" would see that they must be because of the pre wedding endowment session that a large wedding group could attend. Then everyone could attend the civil wedding and the TBMs would be satisfied

That is good. That could work.

The cluelessness and moral tone deafness of LDSLiving never ceases to amaze me. This was an exceptionally stupid article even by their exceptionally low standards.

The Church needs to make the "Mitt Romney wedding plan" available to all members - a civil ceremony followed the next day by a temple sealing. If they can do it for Mitt Romney they can do it for everybody. They already do it for everybody in a lot of other countries - but in the U.S. they would rather separate families and cause untold pain on a couple's wedding day then give up one of their control mechanisms (unless you happen to be rich and well connected, in which case they apparently can bend the rules for you).

It is sick, it is wrong, and it is and something they could very easily change. Few things illustrate so clearly than this that they care more about power than they care about their members.

Not Buying It wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2017 8:59 pm The cluelessness and moral tone deafness of LDSLiving never ceases to amaze me. This was an exceptionally stupid article even by their exceptionally low standards.

The Church needs to make the "Mitt Romney wedding plan" available to all members - a civil ceremony followed the next day by a temple sealing. If they can do it for Mitt Romney they can do it for everybody. They already do it for everybody in a lot of other countries - but in the U.S. they would rather separate families and cause untold pain on a couple's wedding day then give up one of their control mechanisms (unless you happen to be rich and well connected, in which case they apparently can bend the rules for you).

It is sick, it is wrong, and it is and something they could very easily change. Few things illustrate so clearly than this that they care more about power than they care about their members.

I checked. This is true.

Otterson on not lifting the one year wait: This is a sensitive and difficult issue, with many complexities, not all of which are always apparent.

Me: Bull!

Let me simplify things for you, Brother Otterson. It's sensitive and difficult, because the church is being insensitive and obstinate. People are being cruelly shut out from a moment in their family member's life they should be able to attend. If there are complexities that aren't readily apparent, then I think those people who have been shut out deserve an explanation as to why.

[Personally, I don't have a problem with the one year wait, but it is definitely arbitrary and controlling in light of the fact that members in other countries don't have this same penalty.]

LostGirl wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2017 1:35 pm http://www.ldsliving.com/How-to-Include ... ng/s/70222

I just have no words. Show them pictures? Yes that will make up for it.

I have recently become very sad that my very good friends sat outside and at the time I seriously thought it was OK.

I wonder if this article has been written to address some discontent over the practice?

The comments section of this article is very enlightening. No one is agreeing and there are a lot of hurt feelings.

All this could be avoided by simply dropping the one year waiting penalty for a civil marriage. I am also waiting for some intrepid family to host a marriage ceremony after the temple sealing for a more inclusive ceremony.

I can grant that the church is entirely allowed to exclude or include whoever they want from the temple. But I can't conceive of a charitable reason for the other restrictions around weddings.

I was surprised that the article mentioned a ring ceremony. The church send to really frown on them, saying it should not even begin to look like it is a wedding. No walking down the isle, no brides maids, no vows, no officiator, and on top of making it look nothing like a wedding, just to make sure the ones who were left out knew it was not the real wedding, there needed to be an announcement saying that the actual wedding had happened in the temple. So, they made sure to rub salt in as part of any ring ceremony.

You know, people renew their vows for aniversaries. Why not just renew your vows four hours later?

Or, like my pagan daughter's first wedding. The pagan priestess who could do their religious ceremony could not do the legal ceremony. And besides a pagan ceremony would have horrified the relatives. So, they had our Mormon bishop do the legal ceremony. He pronounced them man and wife, in the traditional way with the "I do" being the only vows and they exchanged rings. Two minutes. Then the bishop explained they were going to do something the bride and groom wanted to do to demonstrate their commitment, then the bishop sat down. The pagan priestess got up and they had their hand fasting, which for them was the "real" wedding and religious ceremony. They had their hands bound together with ribbon, and the priestess said some words about them being bound together for life, and they exchanged vows about how they were to honor each other throughout life.

I don't think any one there except bride and groom and parents of bride and groom and various pagan friends realized there had been two wedding ceremonies. But everyone swooned about "how romantic".

So, as "part of the reception" to the Mormon relatives, do the full religious wedding ceremony of your choice, maybe traditions from where you went on your mission. Just don't make it look like a Christian wedding and explain to the nonMormons that you are having a Jewish, Moslem, pagan, Hindu, Greek Orthodox, Russian, Japaneese, ceremony rather than the boring old standard.

What gets me about the whole waiting a year bit is that for high profile people like Gov. Romney's son Mitt the church will wave the one year wait rather than suffer the bad press of "the bride's nonMormon family could not even attend her Mormon wedding!" The church can and will wave the one year wait to avoid bad press, but not to avoid hurt feelings of "little people" who are not rich and famous. So, the REAL key here is you have to be rich and famous.

When Charlene and Albert of Monaco wed, they had a legal ceremony one day and a religious one on another day. Just sayin'.

This article brought out one of my greatest frustrations with dealing with Mormons and Mormonism. They do something, they teach something, and when it is brought to the attention of others, they try to convince everyone that what they are seeing is actually the opposite.

My favorite example of this is when someone asked me if one has to pay to go in the temple, I said, "Yes, you have to be a full tithe payer". A believer immediately stopped me and gave a loooong explanation as to why that isn't true. In the end, the person asking the question finally said, "So you actually do have to pay, in other words". The believer was intensely frustrated at such simplicity, because it was too true and he couldn't weasel out of it.

This portion of the article jumped out at me:

Invite your bishop or another priesthood leader to explain the importance placed on the family and how the temple is an integral component of eternal families.

So, have someone say families are important and integral to the religion, and then explain why half the family must be excluded.

They need to be honest and just say:

You cannot enter the temple and witness it because you are unworthy of doing so. Period.

Worthiness is the word that is used in private and not to the public. Make them use it in public. Your parents are unworthy of witnessing your marriage.

Side note:

I still have guilt to this day that we excluded my then-wife's family from our marriage. When we were engaged, my mother-in-law asked me if we would have a ring ceremony and my believing self thought that it would diminish the importance of the temple. My finance agreed and our marriage had a grand total of 12 people there. It was miserable and we felt awful afterwards.