katiekitten:
You sure can paint a picture. I've never been in England and I'm not familiar with the way things are done there, but I get it. I felt as if I'd witnessed it all. It funny and poignant.
My experience was quite different, although I never married in the JWs. I have two sisters, one older and one younger than I, and they had boyfriends at about the same time. They decided to have a double wedding. My sisters had never even dated anyone else (it was not allowed, and it was frowned in our Hispanic culture and at the KH), but on they went. My mother didn't plan everything, but she controlled a lot of it. My sisters weren't happy. My mother made the dresses. My parents paid for the whole thing, flowers, limos, reception. Coming from a Latin-American culture and living in N.Y. at the time, it was the rigour to have the reception at one of those facilities that were exclusively for parties, particularly weddings. It was a per-plate affair for nearly 75 people and, obviously, other people that attended the KH were not going to be invited over family and long time friends. We had the full service including a band.
Now, here's the kicker. My brother-in-law (who married my older sister) decided that he was going to put on a show. He didn't tell anyone including his new wife. What he did was to put on a biblical presentation like the ones they do at the assemblies, complete with costumes, pre-recorded dialog and music in the middle of the reception. Now, this place was good but it was essentially a big huge hall with some acoustic dividers (big huge folding doors) that separated or created other rooms. Next door, another wedding reception was going on. It was about that time we were going to get into it, you know, dancing to Salsa and Merengue and having drinks (most weddings I attended from the Spanish Congregation had music and good food), when out come trotting several people dressed in biblical garb mouthing off some unintelligible dialog that was being drowned by the talk of the people all around the room and the noise of the music from the party next door. I was so pissed!, my younger sister as well (she didn't know). I went to my older sister and asked her what the hell was going on and I could see the distress in her face. She was surprised too. Apparently, my brother-in-law did this not for her benefit, but for the benefit of his mother. What was he thinking? It wasn't her fricking wedding!
Yep, he hijacked the reception. Needless to say, we lost nearly 40 minutes putting up with that biblical drama crap. It wasn't appreciated by anyone that I talked to and the people there that were not Witnesses were, to say the least, not impressed. What an asshole! The band earned a good keep that day. They didn't have to play much at all.
Etude
