The Cultural Hall Run-Around

[_MsJack]

I got engaged to my husband in May of 2003, with a wedding date of November 1. We were planning our entire wedding and reception on a shoestring budget of $2000-$3000, so everything we did was as inexpensive as possible. After we got engaged, my then-fiance asked for a list of tasks that he could perform so that I would not be burdened with all of the wedding preparations. I was easily able to book the Rock Canyon Assembly of God chapel for our wedding and get my pastor to agree to perform it. I delegated my husband with the task of procuring a cultural hall for the wedding reception. The RCAoG building was fairly small and lacked facilities for something like a wedding reception, but all Mormon meetinghouses are equipped with such facilities, so I figured this was the best arrangement. Besides, in this way we were asking both of our faith communities to participate in our big day, which I thought lent a nice symmetry to our interfaith marriage theme.

I thought that procuring a cultural hall for the wedding reception would be a simple enough task. My husband was attending a student ward that met out of the Manavu Provo Chapel on 600 North and 400 East, which (I thought) was one of the nicest-looking LDS chapels in the area. I figured he would simply book his own ward's cultural hall for the reception, and that would be that.

My then-fiance soon reported back to me with bad news: the events coordinator for his meetinghouse had informed him that their ward had a "no wedding receptions" policy on the cultural hall. They did not allow the cultural hall to be booked for wedding receptions. Period. No if-ands-or-buts about it. Was there another church building that members of the ward could use for wedding receptions? Nope, he was told by the disinterested events coordinator, we were entirely on our own.

Well, okay, I thought. So we'll start contacting other wards in the area and finding out if any of them will allow us to use the cultural hall for a wedding reception. We tried both student wards and family wards all over the Provo-Orem area. We always got one of two responses:

(1) "We don't allow our cultural hall to be booked for wedding receptions at all." (Student Wards)
(2) "Only members of our own ward and their families are allowed to use our cultural hall for wedding receptions." (Family Wards)

I soon learned that the people in charge of scheduling events for the LDS meetinghouses were some of the most unhelpful people in the world. No, we couldn't use their cultural hall. No, they had no idea if there was another building somewhere with a more open scheduling policy. No, they didn't care about helping someone who was (ostensibly) a brother in Christ. No, they did not care how many meetinghouse coordinators we had contacted before them. Several of them unhelpfully told us things like, "Maybe you should try contacting your own ward meetinghouse coordinator." Brilliant! Why didn't we think of that??

I had attended wedding receptions for fellow students at cultural halls in the Provo-Orem area, so I tried asking these students how they had managed to book said cultural halls. It was always via a grandparent or parent or other relative who lived in the area. My fiance and I had no LDS relatives among our extended families, let alone LDS relatives who lived in the area, so we didn't qualify. I tried asking a few beloved professors if they could check on their meetinghouses, and the answer was the same: only for members of our ward and their relatives. Screw everyone else.

This went on for months, and as August turned into September, I began to get desperate. I needed to book a location for the reception so that I could print it on our wedding announcements and send them out. I was on the verge of contacting another Protestant church and asking them if we could use their facilities because Provo-Orem Mormons are too stingy to share their cultural halls with fellow members of the church outside of their wards, let alone with non-members. There were so few Protestant churches in the area and so many Mormon churches, it struck me as incredibly pathetic that it was coming to this, but that was the way it was starting to look. And I had really wanted the LDS church to participate in our wedding festivities in some capacity.

At this time I was living in Arcadia Apartments on the eastern side of Provo, where I had moved to in May. My then-fiance and I had signed contracts on apartment complexes in different parts of the town before we had gotten engaged. Because of this, I had little contact with my roommates or the ward that I was technically living in the boundaries for. I had never once visited this ward because, if I was going to go to a Mormon church on Sundays, I was going to go to the ward that my then-fiance attended across town. My roommates and I all did our own thing and tried to stay out of each other's way.

One night my roommates heard me ending another exasperating call with a building coordinator who couldn't (or wouldn't) help us, and they asked me what was wrong. I explained to them the terrible run-around we were getting in trying to book our wedding reception in a cultural hall. I explained that my husband's ward flat-out refuses to let students use the cultural hall for wedding receptions, and that the other eleven+ wards we had checked with either had identical policies or would only allow members of their wards to use the cultural hall. I told them that I could not believe Mormons could be so uncharitable to one of their own.

My roommates asked me if I had checked on their ward. I said no; I wasn't a member of the church and my husband was not a member of their ward, so they would probably say no, too. This ward had never even seen either of us in church on Sunday. Why would they say "yes" where so many others had said "no"?

My roommates said that it did not matter that I was not a member of the ward. As a non-member who lived in the ward boundaries, I was still under the stewardship of the ward. They advised me to talk with the bishop.

So I did. I got on the phone with the bishop and I explained to him everything that I had told my roommates about the run-around we were getting. He said wedding receptions were allowed at their student ward, and he would check for me to see if I could use the cultural hall for my reception. The next day, it was done.

Scheduling a cultural hall for the wedding reception was, by far, the most stressful part of planning our wedding. Mormons talk often about Protestant divisions and in-fighting. I feel pretty confident that, had I given the Evangelical Free church in Orem a call, they would have let me use their sanctuary for my wedding reception immediately, and the fact that I was a member of another denomination would have meant very little to them. But the LDS wards in Provo and Orem wouldn't even let fellow LDS members outside their wards use their cultural halls (!).

why me has been suggesting on other threads that I could have held my wedding in an LDS chapel "no problem." I have no idea if that's true or not as I never tried to book a wedding in an LDS chapel. But booking a wedding reception in an LDS cultural hall was hell.

[_moksha]

Sounds like students are sort of screwed over as far as wedding receptions go. The Provo Walmart must have greatly reduced toaster sales because of that policy.

[_Cardinal Biggles]

I was married in the Relief Society Room of an LDS meetinghouse in 2001. I had no reception. A few weeks later, the Stake President and High Council disfellowshipped me for having had pre-marital sex with my wife before my wife and I were married (or, more officially, for "un-Christian-like conduct"). I have often thought it odd that they bothered to punish me for a problem that I had already effectively solved.

When I was a missionary, I witnessed a bishop marry a couple in the actual chapel of the meetinghouse--right up by the podium. But beyond the bishop, my companion, and the couple, nobody else was there, so that might have been an unusual event. I've never seen or heard of anyone else getting married in the chapel proper.

[_Yahoo Bot]

As a long-time agent bishop for my stake I strongly opposed wedding receptions in buildings. Our stake president permitted them but they were the lowest possible priority over other church events.

The problems we would face were legion: Smoking and drinking in the building or on the grounds; dress that didn't meet church standards; loud rock or punk or country bands. Cigarette butts, condoms, litter.

We tried to control that by limiting the buildings to ward members, but that didn't work. Kind-hearted bishops couldn't say no to a wedding reception.

Morever, funerals and baptisms would take precedence, and they don't schedule their events to meet the needs of the bride and groom so there is conflict.

So that is why they are not all that liked.

[_Infymus]

I was married in the Stake President's office. The guy didn't even get up from his desk, he just berated us for not having a temple marriage - signed our marriage certificate, shook our hands and that was it. This of course was all under threat of get married or be excommunicated. Took all of about 20 minutes, most of that was him yammering on about tithing and temples.

So we got married by an asshole Mormon Stake President - and then later on had a real wedding with the family involved. Ended up married for three months but unable to live together because of that. Even the Bishop who fake married us the second time berated us again about not having a temple marriage. He made sure that we knew it was time only. Screw your happy lives, it ain't happy until you've paid your $$ and done the holy handshakes.

Wish I could go back and tell him and them all to go “F” themselves, that it was our lives, he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

Unfortunately I was young and thought these men were inspired and God was watching everything.

Ah yes, Mormonism.

[_Yahoo Bot]

I get the impression that you just lack a set of balls. You let other people dictate your destiny. You're weak. I'd never have put up with that.

[_Infymus]

I get the impression that you just lack a set of balls.

Comon Yahoo, you've got to try harder to insult me. Right now you're just making me smile.

[_Infymus]

I get the impression that you just lack a set of balls. You let other people dictate your destiny. You're weak. I'd never have put up with that.

Ok, since you edited and added that last part, let's look at that.

I let Mormon Priesthood holders who claimed they were acting in behalf of God, that they had received personal revelation - that they held the mantel of authority - and were in a position to dictate my destiny.

And as a Mormon, I obeyed.

Weakness? Lack of balls? Really Yahoo? Well then, I'll have to quote Jason here, you must be a crappy member.

[_Jason Bourne]

Weddings can be performed in LDS Chapels least where I live. And any member can use the cultural hall, kitchen, Relief Society room or anything else we need. The building I was in as a bishop had receptions in it all the time because it is near the local temple and has other certian attractions. My rule as a bishop was weddings and funerals took priority over all other events and we even made some organizations reschedule already scheduled events when conflicts such as a wedding could not resolved with say a basket ball game.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

What's the point of paying tithing? If building up the Kingdom of God on Earth means you are stonewalled for one of the few basic rites a human being should enjoy then what exactly is the Kingdom of God? Sounds like a raw deal to me.

-DRC4ME