ferret herder: United Church of Canada, also a liberal branch (unrelated to the one you mention). Forgive me, I’m just being paranoid.
Well, that certainly starts things off nicely with the new in-laws. I feel terrible for his wife and for him. I hope they move FAR away from them.
PS Mary’s ex, my older brother, was best man when she married my oldest brother…in a Catholic wedding…
Ah, I see. I do wish you luck regardless; you never know who’ll raise a fuss, sometimes.
By the way, I came upon the latest Miss Manners column online today - she says that a host, especially one who is recovering from alcohol abuse, is in no way required to furnish alcohol for guests. She stated that it would basically be far worse to tell guests to bring their own, or to have a cash bar, than to serve them alternate beverages. So good luck with your wedding, as at least you know you will have her blessing! 
It might be a good idea to mention the woman’s behavior to her priest. Priests can be cool. If he’s cool, he might pull her aside and persuade her to reconcile. If he’s not cool, I don’t see how it could make matters worse. John’s probably too stung to do this, but perhaps you could tell him.
Ack! I realized, I just mixed up scott_evil’s wedding preparations with matt’s, didn’t I? How dreadful of me, I’m so sorry. Forgive my posting before I’ve gotten a decent amount of caffeine in my system.
This makes me so upset.
How could parents be so selfish? Not only with religious issues, but with any issue that they get their panties in a bunch about. I was maid of honor in a friend’s wedding a couple of years ago and spent most of the reception trying to keep a mini war from breaking out between her mother and father (divorced, father brought his new fiancee). I couldn’t believe how childish they were acting. Couldn’t they at least be cordial to each other for a few hours for the sake of their daughter??
Who cares what religion someone is? My grandparents were devout Catholics (all the children in my family, including myself, went to Catholic school) and they had no problem with my mother marrying my father, who was Jewish. All they cared about was the fact that he treated her well and was willing to adopt my brother (who was from her first marriage to a “nice Catholic boy” who proceded to beat the shit out of her). My parents are the same way. They don’t give two shits about what religion, race or gender of person I’m with, as long as I’m happy. When my mother discovered I was Wiccan, she went out and bought a bunch of books on Wicca so she could, as she put it, “know where I was coming from.” She never once showed even an ounce of displeasure at my chosen path. She merely accepted the fact that this makes me happy and that’s enough for her.
My point is, why do some parents think it’s okay to stomp all over their children’s happiness in the name of religion? Do they actually think they’re doing a good thing by making their children miserable?
Well- she was a heartless bitch, sure. I’ll grant that. She was wrong.
But- (warning- rant follows) she did NOT “ruin” his wedding for him. Only you can “ruin” your wedding for yourself- by letting others “ruin” you wedding. Now, our OP has a legit & non-trivial complaint- but I am so fuckin tired of hearing some bride whine & cry that “xxxx is/has RUINED my wedding”- for whatever trivial reason. Brides-to-be, a word of advice: “Your Day” will NOT be “perfect”. “Uncle Harry” will get drunk. Either/both/all of caterer/fotog/flowers/band will screw up. The weather may or may not cooperate. One of your bridesmaids will misbehave. One parent will be a problem over something. Etc.
SOMETHING will go wrong. Murphey’s rules- and human nature makes this an absolute certainly. Thus, if you are pinning your hopes on the follwing “black/white” dicotomy “perfect/ruined”- you will get “ruined” every time. Thus- congratulations! YOU just “ruined” YOUR wedding. NOT “Uncle Harry”.
Throwing more money at it will not increase the chances of a “perfect”. It actually decreases the chances.
Note also- for the cost of many weddings nowadays you could: buy a car outright, or a downpayment ona house, or a killer honeymoon in Tahiti, or start a savings account which will put your firstborn through an Ivy-league college when he/she gets that old. Please do not tell me that you really think that “MY perfect day” (which, as said above-won’t be) is worth more than a great education for your child
Sadly, yes. There’s a certain mindset, and I’m sure you’ll find it in members of any of the major religions, that it’s better to make someone unhappy in this life than to go along with something that’s immoral and endanger immortal souls. And for some people, marrying outside your religion is immoral. That’s also why people disown their gay children and other such foolishness. They hope by inflicting pain to turn you from your sin, and if that fails, at least they’ve not contaminated their souls.
Cruel, selfish, and heartless, yes, but that’s between them and Og.
Dr.Deth, I think you’d like Robert Fulghum’s take on ruining a wedding: Nothing can ruin a wedding if the spirit is right. Nothing can help a wedding that’s a military exercise.
I believe it follows his story of the wedding where the bride in a pull-out-all-the-stops blowout orchestrated by her mother and recorded by no less than three video cameras barfs all over herself, the groom, and a good section of the sanctuary. Right in the middle of her vows. I could be wrong, though, he writes about a lot of weddings, and most of them are pretty funny.
Of course, the point of your whole post was that in a lot of cases the spirit isn’t right. As you were.
Good point, Dr.Deth, but I still think that there is some obligation on people attending what is a very momentous event to not actively contribute to the things that go wrong.
(We started out our wedding day by going to pick up the cake on the way to the hall, and found it had been decorated with the wrong pattern - there was a huge yellow icing umbrella on our lovely blue and white cake! I took some deep breaths, didn’t yell at anybody, and we ended up getting the cake for free after the bakery ladies re-frosted it in about 2 minutes flat! And the rest of the day was virtually perfect.)
Right- I’ll look up one of his books now that you mention it- what section would he be in? (I Know I recognize the name, but…). I should have mentioned the 'spirit"- and thanks for filling that in ofr me.
(Ps- how many do YOU have 
)
Matt, if your UCC relatives are like my UCC mom, (a) their church probably has a gay minister already (many do) or (b) openly welcomes gays and lesbians (as my mom’s church does), and they’ll probably want to get to participate in the pagan part, too.
A more liberal branch of actual Christianity is difficult to find, trust me! (The Unitarians are probably even more liberal, but that being said, are they truly Christian if they don’t quite believe in Christ?)
Just for the heck of it, I started a “what went wrong with your wedding day?” thread
here.
I’ll have to respectfully disagree. Your point is valid if we’re talking about a friend or cousin or great-aunt of the Groom, but we’re talking about his fuckin’ mother. Her behavior runs directly against the whole purpose of a wedding, IMO.
Frankly, I’m tempted to label Mom’s reprehensible behavior over the wedding as borderline child abuse. Not liking the dauther-in-law, or thinking the marriage is not a good one, is one thing; but once your child has made the decision to go ahead, to deliberately withdraw your support and love is just cruel.
I can only hope she wastes away her twilight years alone in a convalescent home somewhere, ignored by uncaring strangers and shunned by the son and daugher-in-law that she’s pushed away; it would only be appropriate.
Oops, sorry for the hijack. I meant to say that, but am apparently brain-dead today.
I always hate it when I see parents do this kind of thing. Papa Tiger’s grandmother, a devout Norwegian Lutheran, cut off all contact with her son, his dad, when he married a Catholic. She was the one who lost out, needless to say.
On second reading that should have been “try to ruin” because in the end John and wife were having a good time letting mama sulk in the corner. It wasn’t ruined, thank god, just a little more stressful in the church than it should have been.
How could she tell the difference? Oh, yeah, the Old School Norskie Lutherans were different from the New School ones.
If you have a religious objection to the marriage, at least make it known beforehand. It is simply wrong and unfair to pull something and make a scene at the wedding itself.
I have a cousin who married a non-Jew. As such, I could not attend the wedding. It caused some hard feelings in the family (we’re a very close family) which are still healing to this day; but at least it was well known well in advance that I and my immediate family would not be attending. I would never dare presume to show up and make a scene there; especially if I was that close to the bride/groom (i.e. a son/daughter, etc.) To cause a scene at the wedding (especially on an issue that you knew about beforehand) is simply reprehensible.
Zev Steinhardt
Why couldn’t you go to the wedding, zev?