Getting In Line

The bride’s feet ache. The parents are broke. Everyone’s exhausted. This is celebrating?

By JeaNette Goates Smith

When Lavina Fielding, then an editor at Ensign Magazine, married Paul Anderson, they held the wedding reception in a public par, dressed in blue jeans and twin western shirts. Guests brought their kids to the adjacent playground, ate muesli, drank fruit juice, and listened to flute music.

No one seemed to miss the interminable reception line. No one wept over endless bills for reception halls, flowers, tuxedos, and all the rest. No one agonized over the color of bridesmaids dresses or the myriad other details of a typical Mormon wedding reception.

Best of all, the marriage didn’t start in a cloud of fatigue. In fact, the party came before the wedding, on a Saturday. Sunday was spent with family. After the temple ceremony Monday morning, the couple left immediately for a week at an isolated cabin.

That’s a bit different than the image most Mormon girls have of their wedding reception. “When I think of marriage, I think about bridesmaids dresses and flower girls and a crowd of 500 people,” says Jenna Heatwole, a Laurel from Jacksonville, Florida. When an event is built up for so long, anything less than grandiose would seem a disappointment.

The pomp and expense that accompany marriage have a purpose, some claim. According to one LDS mother, “It’s important to make a big deal of marriage because it helps the couple realize how serious it is.” To Mormons, particularly, marriage is serious.

Fifty-three percent of LDS newlyweds are married in the temple, and a temple marriage is intended to last an eternity. Only seven percent of temple marriages end in divorce. For the most part, the commitment is indeed forever. An event that occurs once-in-an-eternity is regarded more seriously than one that occurs once-in-a-lifetime.

But although it is important to emphasize the importance of the marriage covenant, the costs are high at the typical LDS marriage celebration.

On cost is to the marriage couple themselves, if they become so caught up in planning the pomp of the occasion that they neglect planning for their future together, or if that future begins with a night marred by exhaustion.

There is a literal cost to parents who, in their determination to keep up with the Joneses, incur expenses they shouldn’t and needn’t.

And there’s a cost to the guests, when those who plan the occasion are more motivated by showing off the bride than by providing enjoyment to those who have come to honor the couple. “I was forty-seven years old when I got here,” muttered a guest as he inched forward in an hour-long reception line. “I’d rather be home priming the pyracantha.”

Excluded From The Joy

In some cases, more serious problems arise. Even when the marriage itself brings joy, the event and the celebration that follows spark emotions quite the opposite. The ordinance that is intended to seal families in heaven can often divide families on earth.

When children of active LDS parents don’t marry in the temple, it can cause hurt and embarrassment. “My mother was devastated when I had a civil wedding,” said one woman. “My father was the bishop, so he married me and my husband at a small ceremony in our back yard. We were both crying so hard we had difficulty getting through the ceremony.” For three years feelings between this mother and daughter were so tender they could not discuss the marriage.

The opposite circumstance can also divide a family. Parents without temple recommends cannot witness a child’s temple sealing.

“When my oldest son was married, I had to wit in the lobby,” said Ed Shropshire, who, although he has attended church with his family for 25 wasn’t baptized until last year. “It helped that there were other parents there in the same boat but I would have liked to have been more of a participant in the actual marriage ceremony.”

“Neither my parents nor my husband’s parents could attend our marriage,” said Linda Espensheid, a recent convert to the church. “They thought it was unfair that they couldn’t come, and asked, ‘Why do you want to get married like that?’”

Sharing With Everybody

The wedding breakfast that usually follows lets family and close friends celebrate together, and the customary evening reception allows the families of the bride and groom to share their joy with more people still – usually everybody they know.

But here, too there are problems. When you’re an active member of the church, it’s hard not to know a lot of people. The term “ward families” indicates how church members feel about inviting their whole ward to share their joy. A couple that invited everyone they know in their ward has an automatic guest list of between 200 to 400 people – twice that if the bride and groom are from different wards. Families that have lived in more than one ward will want to invite friends they have collected over the years. These numbers do not even reflect the business and community associates who will be invited to the wedding.

Russ Robison at Dave Newman photography says the couples they service order an average of 600 announcements. Eighty-five percent of the announcements he prints also extend an invitation to a reception. Such large guest lists explain hour-long lines that trail out reception centers and down sidewalks – and leave invited guests disgruntled or worse.

“My son offered to loan me his boom box and sleeping bag for the next reception I attend,” joked one father.

In spite of the quantity of attendees at an LDS reception it seems that every sheep counts. “I used to take wedding receptions lightly. I would attend if it was convenient and I wouldn’t worry if it wasn’t,” said Carol Smith, who responded to 26 wedding invitations last summer. But after my first son was married, I gained an entirely new perspective. I wanted to throw my arms around everyone I knew so they could share my joy. I felt disappointed when someone I had invited did not attend.” Now Carol goes out of her way to attend a reception. She feels a wedding reception should be just like a dinner party you hold in your home. You invite guests you truly want to attend, and the party isn’t quit complete if one of the guests can’t come.

The Eternal Expense

Throwing such a large party is no small expense. A picture of the father-of-the-bride displaying the lining of two empty trouser pockets is a common sight in wedding albums. The picture is supposed to bring out the humor in a potentially tense situation, but sometimes it’s anything but funny.

Money is too often the root of ill feelings. Recently, a couple married who met because their parents were such good friends. The bride and her father decided they did not want a reception, but the groom’s parents chose to host a wedding breakfast. As is etiquette, the father of the groom asked the father of the bride for a list of the people he would like invited to the breakfasts. The list kept growing and growing. When it reached 150 names, the groom’s father put down his foot, declaring he would invite only immediate family to the wedding breakfast and no one else. The bride’s parents were so offended they severed relations with their friends of 20 years.

Economics have also been known to create a rift between the bride and her mother. One mother complained that her daughter kept making selections for her reception that the mother thought were too expensive. The daughter refused any alternatives, and as the wedding date grew closer no one had decided on a reception location, invitations, flowers, dresses, tuxedos, or a menu. Their struggle to plan the wedding almost caused a permanent rift between mother and daughter. In such situations, it’s the wedding preparations that seem to last an eternity, rather than the union.

Bills pile up when proud parents refuse to settle for anything less than a first-class reception center. Although cultural-hall receptions are usual elsewhere, along the Wasatch Front lattice arches underneath basketball standards are seen as not keeping up with the Joneses.

The food at a reception can be one of the biggest expenses. Punch and cookie refreshments have evolved into expensive buffets where guests can select anything from cream puffs to jumbo shrimp. (Although the selection seems to diminish at the punch bowl, where guests find a sweet, syrupy beverage that will destroy the most lenient diet.)

It is no wonder that one father offered to send his daughter and her fiancé to Hawaii if they would forego a reception.

It is no wonder, either, that the newlyweds, too tired to move at the end of their reception, wondered if they shouldn’t have accepted his offer.

A Joyful Occasion For Everyone

Newlyweds can’t share their joy when they choose to celebrate in solitude. However, if they could alleviate the inconvenience, the expense, the hard feelings, and the exhaustion that accompany the part of a lifetime, Waikiki wouldn’t seem quite so enticing. How can some of the problems be avoided?

Harsh feelings from non temple-recommend holders are not at all necessary. Tactful planners can stage a pseudo wedding that everyone can enjoy. Laura Lowder of Fullerton, California staged an unofficial ceremony before the evening reception. The father of the bride escorted Laura up the aisle while an organist played the wedding march. The bishop gave the couple advice, and they exchanged vows they had written themselves.

A caution to those who try to mix traditional with LDS weddings: Help the guests know what to expect. Non-members may mistake a reception for a dinner and plan to sit at their tables all night.

An End To The Eternal Line

Decreasing the number of people who attend a reception is a difficult way to approach the problem of long lines. It may be possible to cross names off the list if the guest would not truly “share your joy,” but the list is still long. However, lines need never grow if the planners and people in the wedding line practice good sense and common courtesy.

There is little more discourteous than the practice of trying to catch up on the past year’s events in a receiving line. One disgruntled guest weary of waiting in an endless, non-moving line, broke into an animated conversation between the bride and some friends with: “May I join your study group?”

A quick hug tells the bridal party, “I share your joy.” An invitation to call or drop by at a later date is a gracious way to keep garrulous guests moving along.

A receiving line need not include all the bridal couple’s friends, cousins and neighbors. Friends may seem all-important at 21, but 1 years hence, a husband and wife will want to see family members in their wedding album. Honor friends by asking them to be ushers or hostesses.

The immediate siblings of the bride and groom are plenty for a receiving line, particularly when the children in many LDS families can lengthen that line considerably. Limiting a receiving line to the parents of the bride and groom, a best man and maid of honor will not inhibit your efforts to share your joy.

If a line should start to form, Good Housekeeping magazine’s etiquette expert, Elizabeth Post, suggests serving drinks to those waiting in line. Also, position musicians or other entertainment so waiting guests can enjoy them and perhaps request songs. Displays of hand-made gifts, and crafts are appropriate so guests can admire them and glean ideas as they wait in line.

Any time a line grows longer than the front door of the reception center it is time for drastic action, particularly if the weather is inclement.

Omitting a receiving line altogether may be an even better solution, particularly if the parents of both the bride and the parents of the groom have the same circle of friends. Without the formality of a line, the event can have the warmth and enjoyment of a party. With a dance band or canned music, guest can join the bridal party in dancing, and everyone can enjoy themselves while awaiting an opportunity to congratulate the bride and groom. (Then the bride is not the only one who must leave a reception with aching feet.)

A good reception is designed so guests can choose whether they want to wait in a receiving line or not. Guests may prefer to visit with an aunt or a grandmother who in not in the line, and should not be made to feel awkward if they walk directly to the gathering area.

Many times an invitation will announce that a receiving line will be held during the first hour of the reception, after which the wedding party will mingle. Guests who want to meet members of a receiving line can schedule their arrival at the appropriate time.

Beyond China and Crystal

One who has never hosted a wedding reception may imagine the purpose of the party is to collect gifts. But once you host your own child’s reception, you realize it would be cheaper to give the couple the money you spend and let them buy what they need.

However, just as a reception is not given to collect gifts, gifts are not presented to offset the cost of a reception. You give a gift to show the couple how happy you are for them. It’s an added bonus if the gift is useful as well.

Finding a gift that is useful as well as thoughtful is a challenge for any wedding guest. Although china is lovely and newlyweds certainly couldn’t afford their own, neither do they need their own.

“When we were first married, we ate off china every night,” said a young father. “It was kind of amusing placing china on a card table. But we didn’t have any furniture.”

When you know the couple well, consider their hobbies and personalities when selecting a gift. Are they students? Do they enjoy camping? Are they living in tight quarters? Will they be relocating in a short time? A bride may specify colors for a bathroom or kitchen, but chances are her wedding towels will be threadbare by the time she owns a home where decorating is a higher priority than tuition.

Start your wheels turning by considering the items in your own home you find particularly useful. Perhaps you’ve discovered a new item that makes you think, “I’m sure glad they invented this.” Some gift suggestions follow.

Clever Discoveries: space savers such as crate-a-file, stack-a-rack, shoe bags, wall hooks, card table, portable lamps, mop, broom, wicker baskets, plastic baskets in varying sizes

Disaster preparedness items: food to store, dehydrator, apple corer and peeler, wheat grinder, canning tub, bread maker

Books on: unique recipes, basic recipes, decorating, home repair, investments, mending, career planning, gardening, living the gospel

Miscellaneous: spices, tupperware, plants, tools

Homemade gifts: wood items, craft items, sewn items, stitched items

Service to be rendered immediately or in the future: plumbing, automobile repair, genealogical records

Chip in with others to help purchase expensive gifts: vacuum, sewing machine, telephone, microwave

Not-so traditional kitchen toys: wall hung kitchen shears, pastry cloth, cheese slicers, cheese grater, riddle, cast-iron pan, sifter, pastry blender, egg beaters, microwave cookery, manual can opener

Traditional but useful kitchen items: blender, toaster, crock pot, fondue pot, electric frying pan, electric mixer, food processor, soup tureen

Engaged couple can help their guest select useful gifts by thinking carefully about registering for gifts. Brides can register at a hardware store as well as a department store. And many items can be listed on the registry other than china.

Guests who choose not to send an item from the store where a couple has registered should make it easy to exchange the gift. Leaving a note in the box or leaving the part of the price tag that includes the store name will prevent inconvenience.

It may save time for both the guest and the bride and groom to give cash rather than a gift. In non-LDS circles brides sometimes wear a silk bag around their wrists so guests can slip money inside. The appropriate amount of cash to give will vary, but according to the ZCMI bridal registry in Salt Lake City, the average wedding guest spends between 10 and 15 dollars on a gift – a useful guideline to determine the amount of cash to give. Even a small amout of cash will be appreciated more than a gift the couple can’t use.