i find this whole situation amuseing........... those bastard elders think they can make any damned rule they want and the mindless will just follow it.
when i left i decided that i would fade and not send a DA letter..... why? because i no longer reconise their authority over me. if i sent that letter it would be me continueing to give them control over me.
because of that i put my real picture up, i dont care about those fools and they WILL not tell me what i can or cannot do.
if i were you.... and im not, I WOULD go to the wedding AND the reception, and i would take anyone i wanted with me. when you pay for something you get rights. hell if we were close to you me and my wife would come with you just to piss them off. (them being the elders and such not your sister, she loves you and would love to see you there no matter what they say)
i would completely ignore what she said to you and if the elders try and crucify her she can say she told you not to come and that is as far as she could enforce it. hell even if you didnt smoke i would buy a huge cigar and have someone show me how to light one so i could burn one right there in his face.
now for a funny experience from my own personal wedding. both of us met here, and were pretty much in the same place regarding hateing the wt. we were former pioneers who served in the congregation and had excellent reputations. we both pretty much faded so our dub family could come to the wedding. now my wife had an uncle who was very important in her district. horrible sob in real life but thousands of people in south florida flocked to him. to get him to give a wedding talk for you was like getting a member of the governing body to do it. he would make you jump through hoops and talk to the elder body in both congs to see what kind of people he would be marrying and then if there was so much as a blemish he would refuse......
there was nothing that would have stopped us from getting married in a hall........ hahahah AS IF we wanted to walk through the damn doors of one ever again. but we made our choice........ gonna get someone else to do the wedding at the venue of our choice........ well her choice.
this is where it gets funny......... if we would have asked his pompus fake ass to marry us.......... he wouldnt have done it for the world. but because we didnt, and not only that wouldnt allow him to........... he was trying to insist. problem was some witlessness knew my wife was getting married and would wonder why he wasnt giving the talk. and would assume that his neice had done something bad or something which would reflect upon his own sterling reputation in the cong( cause they didnt know the real him)
they even tried to come in late so they wouldnt have to listen to some so called WORLDLY PREACHER say the prayer.............. lol but wife was late and so they came in right as the prayer was starting lol
gotta hate that now dontcha