Scenes from a Wedding…
Posted on August 10th, 2006 by Kevin Burtt (The Baron)
It’s August, so it must be wedding season, as “The Baroness” and I experienced this last weekend travelling down to California for my cousin’s wedding.
Other than myself, my extended family has virtually no participation in–or relationship to–organized religion at all. In fact–as I discovered over the weekend–I’m now largely known among my uncle’s family and friends as the “Mormon Nephew” thanks to my ‘unconventional’ beliefs. (Discovered through a number of conversations where people said, “Oh, you must be the Mormon Nephew…”)
My cousin is a good guy, (He has a degree in EE, but abandoned it to become a teacher. A public school teacher. A California public school teacher. He’s a good guy.) but is not to my knowledge involved any more in organized religion than is anyone else in my family. I also knew absolutely nothing about his fiancee and her family before the wedding.
In 2006, for relationships between young, attractive, non-church-going people, pre-marital sexual intimacy is almost a given, with a high likelihood as well that they’ve been living together for some time before the wedding. We had not had this specifically confirmed or denied beforehand in the case of my cousin and his girlfriend, but had simply anticipated it as a common occurrence in modern-day society.
We were surprised, then, to hear the minister directly announce during the course of the ceremony that the (forthcoming) kiss between man and wife was to be the FIRST kiss the two of them had ever shared, as they had been ’saving themselves’ before the Lord for this occasion.
Well, now…
Everyone knows nowadays because of tradition the bride still wears white as a symbol of purity whether or not she’s actually…you know. And, out of tradition, most weddings still involve a Bible, a chapel, a minister, and the mention of God and Jesus Christ in the words, whether or not the participants have ever stepped foot inside a church before in their lives.
This, however, was different. Unlike wearing white, no one pretends out of tradition that the kiss after the “I do’s” is really the couple’s very first kiss, even before today’s ’sexually liberated’ age. There is no tradition for that… This was either a blatantly cynical and offensive attempt to ‘one-up’ the traditional morality of marriage by attempting to cast a fake and hypocritical sheen of glossy white ultra-purity over a rotting corpse of long abandoned moral standards simply for show…or it was true.
As it happens, it was the latter. The bride’s family’s religious beliefs became very obvious during the rest of the evening (the father personally gave an ‘opening prayer’ to the reception afterwards, and his toast–along with the head bridesmaid’s–was only a few steps short of missionary-style proselytizing). I’m still not clear on which church they belong to (no one I asked on my side of the family could answer), but the sincerity of their beliefs is hard to deny.
Rare, seemingly, are the instances where a conservative, temple-worthy Latter-Day Saint family would find themselves…well, “out-standard-ed”, but such was the case here. (Full Disclosure: “The Baroness” is, in fact, the first and only girl I’ve kissed, but, admittedly, we did so long before our wedding.) We do know a handful of LDS sisters and brethren who in a similar fashion have made commitments to only kiss their eternal companions over the altar of the temple, but even within ‘Law of Chastity’-bounded Utah, this decision is fairly rare.
Defenses of no-sex-until-marriage are unnecessary and beyond the scope of this article. Defenses of no-kissing-until-marriage are probably fewer in number, but are likewise unnecessary. Any area of physical intimacy deserves sober consideration, including when, where and who to kiss. I have no regrets for ‘waiting’ as long as I did, nor do I imagine any of the ‘altar kissers’–or my cousin’s new bride–spend any amount of time on regrets either. The purpose of this article is not to argue whether kissing early and casually is either wrong or harmless. It is not my purpose to argue conservative vs. liberal attitudes towards kissing, nor try to present any statistical data that shows those that wait create stronger marriages and are less likely to fall into chastity traps later (although this may very well be true…)
Rather, I’d like to focus on the immediate effects of such a decision on others. Before the wedding, I couldn’t have cared less about the bride and her family’s religious background. After the ceremony, the first question out of both of our mouths was “So, what church does the bride belong to?” (And, remember, I HAVE a church, already…)
What would other, more secularized people–well accustomed to couples often having sex after the first date–think upon hearing that this young, attractive couple had willingly and happily waited almost a year to kiss for the first time…for seemingly NO reason? Probably exactly the same question: “Wow…those two must really care about chastity and purity to make that decision, strange as I may find it. They must have really strong beliefs…what church do they belong to, again?” Simply by setting the standard and holding to it, they’ve created their own unique missionary opportunity for everyone around them.
It’s easy to argue that, for example, one drink of alcohol doesn’t mean much. That’s still debatable, but regardless–what does it mean to be able to say, in public situations, “No, I don’t drink alcohol. Not even a little…” and let people wonder why? Are there benefits to being faithful to, say, the Word of Wisdom beyond any minor effect on the body?
The power of standards goes beyond just any individual benefits–it also creates opportunities to witness to others those standards, and make them ask themselves some pointed questions (”Why do they follow this strict principle so faithfully when everyone around them does not? What church do they belong to, again?“) Liberal attitudes towards standards may turn out to be somewhat acceptable from a condemnation standpoint, but they certainly don’t impress anyone. Perhaps part of the reason for strict standards is simply to reinforce the ‘peculiarness’ of the Lord’s people–in a good way–and present opportunities for others to ponder the difference in standards and pique a bit of curiosity about other things they believe at the same time…
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11 Responses to “Scenes from a Wedding…”
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I think the honeymoon would be funner when people are chaste. Although, perhaps not.
But it sounds nice to me. Bill and I were married in the temple. We’d both been married twice before, but we were chaste as we courted. And I’m so proud to tell my children that.
My response is that the cultural norm is pre-marital sexual activity and congrats to the couple at this wedding. I have never been to a non LDS wedding where the couple was NOT living together.
My greatest missionary moments have come because of my being “different” than those around me. I was a paramedic and started working in the ER just after my mission and nobody knew anything about me- until I spoke Spanish to some patients. I then had dozens of questions about how I- the white boy- could speak such fluent Spanish. They wanted to know what it meant to serve a mission in South America. At my current job I was taken out to celebrate after our company had finished a big project- and my glass of ice water had people asking why I didn’t drink. The guys I work with each day were very surprised to find that my wife and I waited until we were married. I even heard the comment that I didn’t fit the normal image of a “geek or nerd.”
Being different will get you one of two things from people. You will be scorned and ridiculed by many, but sought after by those interested in the standards that you have chosen to follow. I joined the church just after high school because of friends who were strong enough to stand against the crowd around them. Twenty years later, I am now the guy who is just a bit different. I have much better gospel conversations started by those who ask me questions about why I do what I do. The last paragraph of the original post sums it all up very nicely.
I married into a family that has various different religions. It is weird to be “Outstandardized” by the one Baptist family. The women always wear dresses. My neice’s wedding included the couple’s “first kiss” as well. They went to church Sundays and Wednesdays (all of them). They wouldn’t watch TV.
Definitely different to be considered “wild.”
Kevin, it seems you have nicely captured one of the many reasons we are told to keep the WoW and have other standards — we are meant to be peculiar and stand out from the rest of the world in some ways. I also think it’s important to show that some people actually walk the talk. I’d love an update if you find out what religion the bride’s family belongs to. I’m guessing it’s a conservative evangelical group (Assembly of God) or Seventh Day Adventist type of group.
Kevin,
Elder Bruce Hafen cites the Japanese word “amae” as an extraordinary sense of belonging; a word that seemingly does not possess the same power when translated to English.
Your story to me, is an excellent example of two people whose wedding was all about their reverence for standards and their sincere love for God, and each other. Further it seemed to have positive influence on you and the “baroness” that gave you coming away, a feeling that staying true to one’s convictions is still alive in some corners of the world.
What do we normally talk about when we come home from a wedding?: the cake, the dress, how many bridesmaids, the decorations, the different colors and flowers and the type of foods and beverages available. All of those things are absent your report because something more important was present.
Is it okay to say that when others around us show their true colors and those colors turn out to be Christlike, that our feelings of belonging to something a bit more eternal becomes more apparent?
Thank-you for your perspective. Excellent post.
I call shenanigans…No way that was their first kiss.
Well annegb,
I’d definitely say the honeymoon would be funnier. Mine was hilarious. Not that I’m telling …
Really? The three non-LDS weddings I’ve been to the couples all stayed chaste until marriage. I guess they could have been lying, but then again LDS couples do too. The more I associated with non-LDS as I grew up, the more I realized they weren’t the smoking/drinking/sexualized people I was led to believe by various youth leaders.
Not kissing until marriage is, in my view, a bit extreme and not even something I would recommend, but I say bravo to this couple anyway.
To comment on what JKS said, as much as many LDS like to think we have the “highest” standards around, it might be surprising to some how many churches there are that hold “higher” standards. We once had a neighbor who was United Pentecostal, which meant no TV in the home, no “men’s clothes” for the women (not even when working on the lawn), no haircuts for the women, and certainly no dancing. Such churches are a tiny minority, of course, but there are quite a few churches that have standards very similar to ours — which shouldn’t be surprising considering that the Church wasn’t born in a religious vacuum, plus of course that we share most of our scriptures in common.
As a non-member who has studied many different areas of religion and who has studied the LDS church extensivly, I would have to say that the power of standards is a very important thing. It is unfortunate that so many members of the LDS church have become so lax in their standards for intimacy and dating. Sure they live the word of wisdom but they will jump right into a full out make out session. As an investigator that was raised in a society that had very strict standards when it came to “how to get married”, I have been very disturbed by some of the attitudes of young LDS church members.
There is a pronounced movement among certain Christian groups towards a very serious attitude not only towards dating, but about intimacy in general. Including very basic things like kissing. Recently I attended a Baptist wedding and was very impressed with the preacher and the seriousness of the occasion in general. And the couple was deffinitly not living together prior to that.
I believe that people respect other people for being commited and responsible. The respect dedication. They might mock it also at times, but they respect it deep inside. I pesonally do not drink alcohol. Period. But I have dear friends that do. If they invite me to a party that they are having and I choose to go, it will subdue them in the degree that they will not drink or act like they might otherwise if I were not present. They tend to act more decent and refined when they are around me. Who really knows why, but I have observed it on several occasions. Each person has the abilty to bring the good or bad out of another person.