7. “A college friend who had been a wild child discovered Jesus in her mid-30s. She went to many Christian conferences and met her now-husband at one. She invited my parents and me to her wedding, but my dad bowed out because she had preached at me about how I was damned for having had premarital sex. Let’s just say there were numerous notches in her bedpost before her conversion, so that was amusing. She also preached about how my friends, who were primarily in the LGBTQIA+ community, were condemning me. Her wedding was at a cute little church well over 100 years old. In the middle of summer. With no air conditioning. With 100 people in there. And it was stifling. Her pastor had the five-piece electric Christian rock band serenade us for the first 10 minutes, then he said a prayer, and there were more weird Christian hymns with an electric guitar. Then, he started a sermon where he said no one was leaving until he converted one of us to his flavor of Christianity.”
“Half an hour later, the bride and groom walked down the aisle for a five-minute ceremony, then sat down for 30 more minutes while the pastor kept trying to convert us all. The bride’s family was deeply Catholic. The pastor was basically trying to convert them, plus the 15 of us who weren’t their flavor of Christianity.
After an hour and a half, we could hear a crowd making noise outside. The actual members of this church were supposed to be having a service while we were being exhorted to give ourselves to Jesus. Finally, a camera person volunteered to convert so we could all go to the reception.
The bride was very upset that her family refused to donate money to the wedding festivities. But the bride decided to buy a very expensive wedding dress instead of something more practical because it was her wedding. Which would’ve been fine, but the reception was at a Ramada Inn three miles from the church. Catering was from IHOP. My mom and I watched servers hustling from the in-house restaurant to the tiny reception room with platters of interesting hors d’oeuvres, fighting through the sweaty, thirsty, and hungry group of guests. Oh, and only water was served.
My mom and I bailed after 15 minutes. I don’t think the bride ever noticed we left. My mom and I met up with a male couple I was close to for a lovely dinner about 20 minutes away. When I told them about the ‘Elmer Gantry’ level of preaching that my mom and I had survived, plus the IHOP reception, they wanted to go gawk. I had to stop them. Friends, if you can’t afford a fancy reception, that’s fine, but please, no IHOP after an hour and a half of being harangued.”
—Anonymous
14 Tasteless Weddings You Won’t Believe
