Ways my parents & bishop made my sisters civilian wedding the worst day of her life.

Growing up Mormon, my parents always cared allot about what other Mormons thought about them. They did not want us to make them look bad (I remember getting dressed for church & my skirt was above my knees, my dad made me change bc he was worried that the ward would think I'm a slut)

Anyways, my sister wasn't able to get married in the temple & had to have a civilian wedding. My parents were super embarrassed about it. They told her that it should only be a small family wedding & encouraged us to not tell anyone that they're getting married. They didn't want to have to explain that it wouldn't be a temple marriage.

They had the wedding at the church & barely put any effort into decorating it. My sister had to beg my dad to walk her down the isle. He ended up basically running her down the isle bc he was worried about someone taking a picture of him walking her down the isle& posting it online. (If someone posted it online everyone would know that they had a civil ceremony & not a temple wedding)

Then the ceremony... our bishop preformed the ceremony & spent the entire time talking about how this isn't an eternal marriage. He made sure to emphasize multiple times, that unless they went through the temple in the future, they wouldn't be able to be together or be with their future children in the next life. He basically spent the whole time shaming them.

My sister told me that she kept hearing my parents say "this is so embarrassing" under their breath throughout the day. After hearing how horrible her wedding day was, I realize how shitty my parents are & how toxic the church is. My parents couldn't, even just for one day, be happy that their daughter found someone she loved & wanted spend her life with. They didn't care that this is meant to be a beautiful day for my sister & that she was happy. All they cared about was what the people in our ward would think. They really ruined her wedding day in so many ways, all because they were embarrassed that it wasn't a temple wedding. Ugh it makes me so angry!!

When I got older my mom started bribing me to get married in the temple. "If you get married in the temple I will raise your wedding budget. I'll buy you this fancy dress. We can do an actual venue & not just the church" I did end up getting married in the temple & the way they acted was completely different than they did with my sisters wedding. They sent invites to literally everyone they knew bc they were so excited to show everyone that I was getting married in the temple. After getting sealed on my wedding day, my parents didn't even say "congratulations" or "I love you" to me. Instead they just said "thank you so much for bringing her to the temple" to my husband.