A Reason Not To Get Married in a Church

See if Heff will let you rent out the Grotto at his mansion for your wedding.

Have it in Vegas. But yeah just had my wedding this year and my mother wanted me to add some mentions of god in it too. I said no and since we were paying for it it was our decision anyway.

You know, most museums will rent space for events. We hosted many events at the Aerospace Hall when I worked for the California Museum of Science and Industry. (My favorite was the Air Force’s salute to Brig. Gen. Jimmy Stewart. I got to meet the great man himself.)

I think a wedding held at the Field Museum of Natural History would be particularly appropriate. You could get married on the main level under the watchful eye-sockets of Sue.

I used to be on the Speakers Bureau at Rockwell International in Downey, California. We held lectures and family nights in the Design, Engineering, and Implementation room. In the room where we stored our things during the events there were large valves in the wall that had fed air to astronauts testing space suits during the Apollo program.

The main feature of the room was a full scale mock-up of a space shuttle. It was missing the port wing and the upper part of the tail, but it was there in all its glory. My dream was to get married sitting in the pilot’s chair, with my groom in the commander’s chair.

Unfortunately, Boeing bought Rockwell’s aerospace divisions, and the Downey plant was closed. The space shuttle was disassembled, and the DEI room is now a movie studio. It was used as the lake in A Series of Unfortunate Events, one reason why I couldn’t go see that movie.

I don’t expect to get married, but if I do, I’ll have to come up with something similarly appropriate. A wedding on the Vomit Comet?

Stonehenge!

@Rex I was going to suggest Stonehenge, too. You need to make sure it’s on a solstice or some significant date and play that part up. Also, include a brief history of religious marriage rituals (plus a secular one) with your invite and tell people that you are picking one for your wedding. Better yet, you could always include a poll and have people suggest a choice for a ritual for your wedding.

My father is an Xtian minister.He’s performed the ceremonies for my 3 brothers so it was sort of a case of I either had him perform my wedding ceremony, or piss off the entire family. I TOLD him repeatedly, I’m athiest (they think it’s like a 30 year phase or something) so NO religious business in my wedding.

2 prayers, 3 scripture quotations (that he claimed I REQUESTED) and a religious theme later, we were officially married.

I now realize that marriage may be for you and your partner, but weddings are simply overblown productions for families.

Hold it in a museum. Trust me, my family is huge and I attend a LOT of weddings and I always leave thinking “Not enough interactive and educational displays”

Besides, if you wanted something really cool you could use the hominid statues instead of bridesmaids and grooms men for an ascent of man joke.

Wherever you get married, have the reception at a preschool… all-you-can-eat buffet!

We had the Wedding and Reception at a Function Hall, we rented. We had one person in a wheelchair, one blind person, & one deaf person attending.

On top of everything else — The reception immediately followed the wedding, and no one had to move part way through.

Stonehenge is a bit too touristy and overcrowded. England also has some odd rules when it comes to weddings and is a bit far away for most family and friends (unless he marries an Englishwoman).

Given Hemant is a math teacher something math related seems appropriate and one should also consider the future bride and her family.

I vote museum, or just someplace outdoors that is amazing. Like Yosemite.

Burning Man. That’s the place to have it.

Oh good Flying Spaghette Monster. There are, Flying Spaghetti Monster knows, enough pushy intrusions by theists to call for loud comment, and sometimes angry comment [e.g. the Arkansas school board member whose Christian principles led him to applaud gay suicides], but this does not seem to me to be one of them. They sent a gift and expressed their heartfelt and best wishes, while [needlessly] adding their disappointment that the marriage was not in “the church.” That suggests to me they may have been family members?

In any case, I don’t see much reason to be angry about it. A little sad, maybe, but that’s all. A gracious thank-you note ignoring their rudeness would be the way to go here, I think. Save the outrage, anger and protest for theist effusions worth the angst and confrontation. This one wasn’t.

Gotta tell ya, one of the hallmarks of American Christianity these days is Christians hunting for ways and opportunities to take offense when none is intended [e.g. when someone says “Season’s greetings!” or “Happy Holidays!”]. I detect among some of my fellow Pastafarians the beginnings of a tendency to do the same. Not a good thing.

Pick your fights, particularly with family.

The museum theme seems good… especially in the dinosaur skeleton hall. Or, better yet, a Planetarium — which ideally would be advertising a program like… “The Big Bang to Today”. (with lots of Saganesque “billions and billions”)

I have a friend who is Baptist (but I don’t hold that against her). She once gave a Christmas card to a friend from her church that was not a Jesus-y card, it was a snowman card. That friend lambasted her about the whole thing. She said things like “how dare you send a Christmas card that is NOT Christian”! This woman was red in the face and so angry that she decided to not even be friends with my friend anymore. It was friggin crazy! The sad thing is that her reaction, as well as the sender of the above cards’, is atypical of Christian zealots. It is really unfortunate that people let their belief(s)destroy their humanity.

Hah! I’m getting married in May with nooooooooooo religious symbolism anywhere. My atheist brother is marrying us. My fiance is Jewish, but even all his relatives have gone out of their faith to find their partner. So happy to be the first of my cousins not forced to be married in church.

In our wedding,we used Plato’s story about love and how there were 3 types of humans; one was man and woman (before being separated) one was man and man and the other was woman and woman.We also had our best friend (who is also a lesbian) preform the wedding. It didn’t sit well with some of the family, but they were at least decent enough to keep MOST of their opinions to themselves. =)

I am getting married next summer in a park on Sunday morning at 10ish. We’re doing a Sunday-brunch style reception, with no religious nonsense allowed. Like someone above said, those that really want to go to church can totally skip my wedding.

My wife and I were married in a courthouse. One of her brothers did not show up. We later learned that he was kind of pissed that we were not getting married in a church. (He is Catholic).

There is a totally nice Stonehenge in Maryhill, Washington adjacent to the Maryhill Museum. Either would be great venue for a wedding and there is a nice winery just down the road a bit. Any of those three places would be fabulous for a wedding. If they don’t have weddings there they should.

I attended a beautiful wedding at an Atheist summer solstice picnic some years ago. There were about 65 – 70 of us in attendance.

A national park?

I REALLY wanted to get married at the Science Museum, or the Natural History Museum in London, but both were a bit too small. So I’m opting for a register office instead.

(Then a deconsecrated cathedral for the reception… I know, but it is beautiful!)

If you like sealife, an aquarium would be a nice setting, if a bit dark. Some of my friends thought marrying on a ship with the jolly roger raised high would be great, and make the groom and bride walk the plank (make sure the dress and suit aren’t too expensive, though)! Talk about taking the plunge.

It’d be a bit creepy, but you could marry at a cemetery.

hmm….. regardless of my future partners religion i would want a secular wedding for the actual government documents and if my partner wanted to have some sort of religious wedding that would be fine.. but honestly i would only agree to the religious one if we were both the same religion. So a secular one it is at the moment as my boyfriend (though I am NOT going to think that far ahead) is an atheist ^_^
i don’t think religious people need to be signing the govt documents anyways… i think if we separated that bit this whole “argument” over same-sex marriages would be over, because then bigots wouldn’t be “forced” to marry someone. 🙂

however, after the secular wedding I do want there to be an after party after the reception for adults with a big bonfire outside and lots and LOTS of Meade :3 (nomnomnom Meade <3)

thats all the "religious" ceremony I need thank you!

When I and my (now ex-) wife got married in a registry office, one of her Irish Catholic relatives wondered if it counted as a ‘real’ wedding or not! Ah well. 🙂

My wife and I got married in a park under a gazebo along the Ft. Lauderdale waterfront. Our friend, a notary public, did a non religious ceremony and then we all got on a yacht for the reception and cruised up and down the Ft. Lauderdale river and intracoastal waterway. No church, no shepherds, just fun. The cost was about the same as if we had rented out a hall or had it at one of the local club houses, maybe cheaper. I’d highly recommend it.