My wife is having her first birthday party in July, and we're looking for a place to hold it. We found an Episcopal Church online that offered their fellowship hall for such occasions, and we went to check it out this morning. When we arrived they were having something in the hall and were setting up for it. I'm guessing a Mother's Day event, small and for the church members. My wife and I walked in and it started, just like the days of yore with the J-dubs. People were asking if we were new to the church, very friendly, but very friendly with that desperate look in their eyes like you would get when visiting a rural Kingdom Hall where they desperately wanted new blood. They offered us cupcakes and other snacks that they had out and were very welcoming, to be sure, but we both got thrown back to the old experience of walking into a new congregation.
I do think we'll end up renting their place. My wife likes it, and she admittedly likes the thought of throwing a birthday party in a church hall just as a way of throwing it in the face of what her whole life has been like. It feels so wrong and so right at the same time. You only get one shot at your first birthday, and most people never remember theirs, but my wife wants one day to be just about her and to have fun and I want to make sure that she has it, even if renting places isn't cheap.
I hope we don't have to agree to a Bible Study to use their rental hall, lol. That would be awkward.