For a decade we lived in Boca Raton, Florida \u2014 a city with a synagogue on every corner where you were much more likely to be invited to a bris or bar\/bat mitzvah than any other religious ceremony. Boca had a single ward that varied between fairly thriving (when IBM had a campus there) to barely surviving (when they moved out) and spots in between. But few in the area seemed well-versed in Mormon culture or doctrine.<\/p>\n
One day I hosted a meeting for the room mothers for oldest daughter’s kindergarten class. When the women walked into the living room, one saw a picture of a temple on the wall.<\/p>\n
“What is that?”<\/p>\n
“That’s the Salt Lake Temple. It’s where Sam and I got married.”<\/p>\n
That’s when the fussing started. They were all amazed and impressed at the grandeur of it all. It took me a minute to realize that it was the imagined cost<\/strong> of renting such a “castle” that had them all fawning over me. Darn.<\/p>\n “Oh, actually, it didn’t cost anything to rent. It was free.”<\/p>\n Sam’s response, “Yea. It only costs 10% of our income\u2026for life.”<\/p>\n Now, 18 years later, my daughter is engaged to be married. She is amazing. Her fianc\u00e9 is a wonderful guy. They have chosen the Salt Lake Temple as the venue. And they have kindly given us until April to plan the blessed event. We couldn’t be happier.<\/p>\n Except that we are utter neophytes in the LDS wedding planning arena.<\/p>\n I’m a big fan of Emily Post, but a great deal of her wedding etiquette guidelines doesn’t fit with a temple wedding. So, immediately I began asking friends with experience as parents-of-the-bride for an LDS wedding for advice. They’ve been very helpful so far, but I have a big learning curve ahead of me.<\/p>\n The best advice as from my dear friend, Jan Stanfill: “Give the couple a budget and let them decide how to prioritize things.”<\/p>\n I think that’s a fabulous idea, with perhaps a few caveats. The only problem \u00a0is that I have no idea what a reasonable budget would be. And I can’t very well start asking people how much they spent on their kids’ weddings. At least not in real life. But maybe I can get away with it on the internet where responses can be anonymous. So, here’s what I’m asking: What’s a reasonable budget for a typical, LDS temple wedding?<\/strong><\/p>\n OK. Before you go on telling me that the cost varies widely, or that it costs whatever you want to spend, or that it’s different all over the country\/world. Let me just say that I know. Really, I do. But being given any starting point at all will help. So if you are willing to offer a ballpark estimate, some guidelines, resources, or any other wedding advice, I’d be very grateful.<\/p>\n Please comment below and tell me everything you know about how to have a wonderful LDS wedding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For a decade we lived in Boca Raton, Florida \u2014 a city with a synagogue on every corner where you were much more likely to be invited to a bris or bar\/bat mitzvah than any other religious ceremony. Boca had a single ward that varied between fairly thriving (when IBM had a campus there) to barely surviving (when they moved out) and spots in between. But few in the area seemed well-versed in Mormon culture or doctrine. One day I hosted a meeting for the room mothers for oldest daughter’s kindergarten class. When the women walked into the living room, one saw a picture of a temple on the wall. “What is that?” “That’s the Salt Lake Temple. It’s where Sam and I got married.” That’s when the fussing started. They were all amazed and impressed at the grandeur of it all. It took me a minute to realize that it was the imagined cost of renting such a “castle” that had them all fawning over me. Darn. “Oh, actually, it didn’t cost anything to rent. It was free.” Sam’s response, “Yea. It only costs 10% of our income\u2026for life.” Now, 18 years later, my daughter is engaged to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13456,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13367\/revisions\/13456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}