Jana Duggar 12: Will She or Won't She?

[JermajestyDuggar]

I’ve been to weddings where there was a short amount of time between the wedding and reception. Like an hour. But there was usually a cocktail hour. Which is totally fine with me. 

[CanadianMamam]

Ok, Esther and Nathan are back in Tennessee because they all at Josie's putting together invitations (and Joy is there too).

[GreenBeans]

On 8/5/2021 at 11:19 PM, SassyPants said:

Sounds like my 1983, Italian wedding, except there was a buffet dinner.  My own daughter did City Hall and use the money for a down payment on a house.

We basically did the same as your daughter. We had been together for over 10 years, living together etc., and never felt like we needed to get married at all. In the end we did, basically because we purchased an apartment together, and that’s just easier/with certain advantages if you’re married (in terms of tax, if one spouse dies etc.). We asked for the next available date at city hall, which was about two weeks away and fine for us. In the end we had a really small wedding, only parents and siblings attended, we all went out to eat afterwards, and that was that.

It was perfect for us, and looking back we were so lucky, because just a couple weeks later the pandemic was in full swing and the first lockdown started, and we wouldn’t have been able to have even this small celebration 

Edited August 13, 2021 by GreenBeans

[CanadianMamam]

1 hour ago, CanadianMamam said:

Ok, Esther and Nathan are back in Tennessee because they all at Josie's putting together invitations (and Joy is there too).

Ok it appears that actually isn't Joy. It just looks similar to her (hat and ponytail) but seems to be another random friend (and no Carlin either)

[viii]

My favourite wedding was the couple did photos in the morning. Had a 4 pm ceremony and then moved right into dinner and reception. 

[Not that josh's mom]

We had all our photos before the wedding, none during the ceremony. We went straight to the reception, just a few blocks away. Our ceremony had a limited guest list.  The reception was announced in the church bulletin and the local weekly paper as "all welcome".  We lived in a very small town, but didn't want to invite everyone to the wedding itself, but knew there were many who wanted to celebrate with us. It worked perfectly! A relative on his side took hundreds of pictures as we left the church and at the reception. He got a picture of every single person there! Those pictures were their wedding gift to us. I still treasure those photos after nearly 40 years. So many of those friends and relatives are gone now. 

[Antipatriarch]

19 hours ago, viii said:

My favourite wedding was the couple did photos in the morning. Had a 4 pm ceremony and then moved right into dinner and reception. 

I think this is the best way to do it. Only downside is if you follow the "bad luck to see the bride before the wedding" tradition. If you do pictures first you can be freshly dressed and take your time. If you do it after the ceremony, you either keep your guests waiting a long time to see you, or it feels rushed which I don't think gets you good pictures.

[Snowless]

3 hours ago, Antipatriarch said:

I think this is the best way to do it. Only downside is if you follow the "bad luck to see the bride before the wedding" tradition. If you do pictures first you can be freshly dressed and take your time. If you do it after the ceremony, you either keep your guests waiting a long time to see you, or it feels rushed which I don't think gets you good pictures.

I’m trying to remember, but didn’t Jill and Derick see each other before the ceremony?

Besides, traditions and superstitions are made to be broken, I think!  But yes, photos before the ceremony sounds much more practical.  Actually, when my brother got married, they did photos before and after the ceremony.  (He and my sister-in-law had their wedding and reception at a restaurant, so it was all on-site and there was plenty of trees and stuff on the property where they could do different types of pictures.)

[mpheels]

I’ve attended weddings with picture time before the ceremony, and others with pictures between ceremony and reception. The ones with pictures after the ceremony all had a nice cocktail hour, so the guests really didn’t notice. The bar was open and there was plenty of food to snack on, who cares if you have dinner at 7:30 instead of 6?

[Maggie Mae]

I think the weirdest wedding I've been to was one where the wedding was at like 3 p.m. (so obviously it takes up the entire day.), pictures were between the wedding and the "reception." There was nothing for non-wedding party members to do (and there were only, like 6 of us who weren't in the wedding party) except watch this photo shoot. Then the reception was in the basement. It was soda and pie. No one gave speeches and we weren't sure if/when we should leave. It was a beautiful summer day and irritated everyone. 90% of the guests and wedding party had their cars packed to get out of town for fishing as it was when the reds were running. 

All that was boring but OK. The groom lip-synched to a christian rock song during the ceremony, which was the longest 20 minutes of my life. The Bride was hung over and yelled at me for not attending her bachelorette party which she didn't invite me to. And its not like she needed a shower or a bachelorette party as this was a second wedding and her adult children were in her wedding party. 

2nd worse was my cousin who had a buffet which always grosses me out. She was suuuuper late to the reception. Like, reception was supposed to start at 6:30 or something, but they arrived at 9. I think they had probably been fighting. That too would have been OK, if all of my elderly relatives had been allowed to eat so they could take their meds. Instead I had to hear about how so-and-so needs to eat so they can get their meds and go home. That marriage lasted all of 2 years. 

[Mama Mia]

Most of the weddings I’ve been to have the photos done right after the ceremony, but 90%+  of the time the ceremony and reception are in the same place, and it’s a buffet, so the guests are eating and drinking while the photos are going on. No one is waiting on anything except cake. The main problem in that set up is occasional extra pushy photographers who don’t give the couple time to eat / socialize. Ideally, I’d think giving the couple / wedding party a half hour to decompress and have a snack and a drink before photos would be nice. 

[OHFL2009]

My favorite wedding I've been to was a family wedding in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. All along the islands there are huge vacation houses that sleep like 20-30 people. The wedding party rented one of those houses right on the beach, with a boardwalk going from the pool area of the house over the dunes to the beach. The wedding was on the beach, but they had a bar set up at the start of the boardwalk by the pool, so everyone stopped for a drink to take with them to the ceremony. The ceremony was beautiful but pretty short, and then everyone went back to the house for basically a poolside barbecue. 

[Flossie]

I liked my wedding, although I think my MIL and Sister in law thought it was lacking in romance and formality.  My MIL got married at a court house, so you'd think she'd have been on board with our carefree and minimalist approach, but then again, she and my Sister in law spent months trying for the perfect wedding when SIL got married, and even then that one was was nice but produced on a budget.  I think my FIL thought that we should have appeared to put more effort into it, simply so he could be assured that we were taking it seriously.  But he was also keen to get his son married because we already had two kids.

I chose the church because it had nice stained glass windows that I'd always admired.  I got our rings for $5 (for the set) from Walmart.  I got a matching top and skirt on sale with money sent by my stepmother.  We got my husband a nice set of slacks and a button down shirt from Walmart.  He wore his dress shoes from the Navy, even we knew his work boots or sneakers wouldn't fly for a wedding.

We forgot to get a wedding license until the last minute, and only got it on time when one of the drivers who knew we were getting married the following weekend asked why she hadn't seen us mentioned in the local paper as having applied for one.  So hubby's boss let him off for the afternoon so we could attend to that.

I'd forgotten to order the cake so I went to a local supermarket and ordered a quarter sheetcake, and had to pick it up just hours before the wedding.  It wasn't right, and the employee prepared herself for me having a royal fit, but I was in a hurry and said I'll take it.  My Sister in law was astounded that I didn't demand the changes to be made or at least get a discount, but the cake wasn't a priority to me.

I stopped to pick up my Maid of Honor and her two kids and we went to my in laws house where we all got dressed.  My Sister in law was shocked that I was only planning on wearing some foundation and a little blush and only brought a curling iron for my hair.  So she insisted on glamming me up as much as possible in the small amount of time we had.

Since there were only about a dozen of us at the church, the pastor simply brought all of us up and me and my Maid of Honor stood facing soon-to-be hubby and his father.  The pastor stood on one side and the other attendees stood in a semi circle on the other.  Just after the ceremony started, my Maid of Honor's son, an infant at the time, started crying.  She tried to hold him, but he didn't want her.  The adults passed him around until he landed in my father's arms,  where he snuggled up and went to sleep.  This was the first time either of them had met.  I thought it was cute.  I don't think the pastor did.  We raced through the ceremony in record time and then all of us went to my in laws house for a barbeque.  Except the pastor, I think he hoped to never see us again, and he didn't.  When a pastor invites you to stop by sometime for a service, and he's saying it through gritted teeth, the invitation loses something.

The rest of the day was great.  Since it was July, we changed into comfortable clothes and hung out in the back yard eating barbequed chicken and hot dogs.  We had plenty of side dishes and just whiled the day away .  When one of the kids got tired we put a blanket under the crabapple tree and let them sleep.  Eventually we divided up the leftover food and cake and we all went home.

My sister in law tried to be nice, but it was obvious she couldn't understand why we were satisfied.  We said it was fine, we wanted to get married, and now we were.  The barbeque was good.  The cake tasted good.  Everyone had a good time.

The next day my new husband and I packed up the kids and spent a week wandering around Northern California.  We didn't have a schedule, we just went where the mood took us.  We toured the Tillamuck Cheese Factory, wandered through the Redwoods, and stopped by a farm that had Emus.  We stayed in little motels along the way and eventually ended up on the coast.  The kids loved playing in the sand and we took them out for wave jumping a couple of times when the surf was mild.  At some point we went to a small coastal aquarium and we got to pet some sea anemones.

We'd taken an electric frypan, a hotplate, and a big cooler stocked with food.  We had some canned fruit and veggies, some dry foods like cereal and bread, etc. so I did most of the cooking in the hotel room.  We had to restock the ice daily and after a couple of days we had to buy more food.  But gas prices were lower than expected so we had extra money.  At least once we ate at a little family diner and got to squeeze in a bonus night on our honeymoon.  It messed up our plan to spend a full day at home recovering from traveling, instead we got home late Sunday.  It was worth it.

There's a lot to be said for having a set itinerary, but sometimes just moseying along fills the bill.  

[Alisamer]

18 hours ago, Snowless said:

I’m trying to remember, but didn’t Jill and Derick see each other before the ceremony?

Besides, traditions and superstitions are made to be broken, I think!  But yes, photos before the ceremony sounds much more practical.  Actually, when my brother got married, they did photos before and after the ceremony.  (He and my sister-in-law had their wedding and reception at a restaurant, so it was all on-site and there was plenty of trees and stuff on the property where they could do different types of pictures.)

The "First Look" is a newer tradition that I think is very nice, and kind of helps with the photography issue. The groom sees the bride for the first time in her dress before the wedding, just the two of them (and the photographer and maybe videographer, close enough for shooting but far enough away to give the couple a little privacy). It's usually really special and romantic, and the photographer is able to capture the look on the groom's face when he sees the bride, and the couple are able to have a few minutes together AND get some good photos of just the couple. The photographer if they've planned well might have also gotten the photos of the bride and her attendants and the groom and his before the first look happens. Then after the ceremony all that's left is the full wedding party photos and full family photos, so much less to be handled at that point. 

We even did the "first look" at the smallest wedding I've been to. It was pre-pandemic (though it would have been perfect for during as well!), second wedding for the bride, first for the groom but he's a very private person and absolutely not into big shindigs. Neither of them had family there, other than the bride's elementary age daughter who was the only attendant. My family and the pastor were the only others there, and my dad and brother-in-law were the only ones without actual assigned duties. I did all the photography. My middle sister was in charge of cueing up music, and youngest sister was the daughter wrangler. Mom manned the video camera. I did makeup, and my sister did hair. My sisters and I helped the bride with her dress and helped get her daughter ready. The week before we'd helped her make her bouquet out of silk flowers and faux succulents. My dad and brother-in-law mostly hung out with the groom and kept him distracted beforehand. 

They had a tiny cake, after the ceremony, and we took some photos outside the church (it was gray and overcast, but the lighting was nice and soft). There wasn't a reception since there were so few of us, we just hung out for a little while afterward and then they left for their honeymoon (leaving their daughter with my parents for the weekend). It was perfect for them, the bride got to wear a wedding dress and be a beautiful bride, her daughter got to be in the wedding and participate (she was flower girl and also read a poem she'd written), it was in our church and it was beautiful and sweet - without the groom having the stress of a zillion people to deal with, or much of the expense of a big fancy wedding. 

Spoiler

 

[HeartsAFundie]

The most memorable wedding story I heard was one of a former co-worker's.  I was sadly not invited but I knew plenty that were!

Apparently this co-worker and her boyfriend with whom she had been living with for years were known for throwing an annual backyard bash for family and friends on Labor Day weekend.  On this particular Labor Day Weekend-1997, I believe-the party was on and guests were mingling and enjoying themselves as usual....when an Elvis impersonator walked in.  It raised some eyebrows but everyone knew the co-worker was an Elvis fan, so they assumed this was going to be some form of entertainment.

It was entertainment, all right.  "Elvis" called the co-worker and boyfriend over and announced to the crowd "You are all here for the wedding of B and B".   And except for the bride and groom, NO ONE KNEW.  Not the guests and not even the bride's kids from her first marriage or either set of parents.  Only Elvis, a justice of the peace in costume, knew.  Everyone in attendance had been successfully punked by the bride and groom.  

After Elvis performed the ceremony, the party carried on.  And those that were in attendance said it was one of the best weddings they had ever been to.        

Edited August 16, 2021 by HeartsAFundie

[SassyPants]

47 minutes ago, HeartsAFundie said:

The most memorable wedding story I heard was one of a former co-worker's.  I was sadly not invited but I knew plenty that were!

Apparently this co-worker and her boyfriend with whom she had been living with for years were known for throwing an annual backyard bash for family and friends on Labor Day weekend.  On this particular Labor Day Weekend-1997, I believe-the party was on and guests were mingling and enjoying themselves as usual....when an Elvis impersonator walked in.  It raised some eyebrows but everyone knew the co-worker was an Elvis fan, so they assumed this was going to be some form of entertainment.

It was entertainment, all right.  "Elvis" called the co-worker and boyfriend over and announced to the crowd "You are all here for the wedding of B and B".   And except for the bride and groom, NO ONE KNEW.  Not the guests and not even the bride's kids from her first marriage or either set of parents.  Only Elvis, a justice of the peace in costume, knew.  Everyone in attendance had been successfully punked by the bride and groom.  

After Elvis performed the ceremony, the party carried on.  And those that were in attendance said it was one of the best weddings they had ever been to.        

Interesting…wonder what they would have done if a critical/close family member couldn’t make the annual party?

[Four is Enough]

I had two fall weddings. 

With the practice husband, I got married on the second Saturday of October. (14) It was a nice, sunny, cool day with rain in the morning.. I had to drive myself to the church. (don't remember why) But it was a good thing we had both cars because both cars were filled with wedding gifts when we went home, back to where we were babysitting his nephews while his sister attended her high school reunion.

 

With Mr. Four, I wanted a summer wedding. He insisted on October, so I said, all I want is to NOT get married on the second Saturday of October. Guess what? That's when it was. (11). It was a nice, cool, breezy day, with rain in the morning. I think my sister drove me to the church that time, because we did both come home in the same car, at least. We went to a hotel before flying out next day to Bermuda. But first we stopped off at where we worked to drop off leftover wedding cake to our coworkers.  

[louisa05]

Worst wedding I've ever been to was long ago. It was a high school classmate who my friends and I were nice to when no one else was. I'm not sure we really liked her. She was quite odd. And her wedding...well...

She was 19 and pregnant. Groom was 40. He was the ex best friend and former army buddy of the bride's father. They became ex best friends when he got his buddy's teenage daughter pregnant. The father of the bride did not attend. The wedding took place in a tiny park with a gazebo with a huge sculpture of a pineapple on top of it. The mother of the bride stood outside the gazebo and sobbed and wailed through the entire ceremony. The only music was the sister of the bride holding up a boom box while the Kenny Rogers song "You Decorated My Life" played on a cassette. Apparently, about halfway through the sister was bored with the song or tired of holding up the boom box and aggressively pushed the stop button in the middle of the chorus--so it was "you decora---CLICK". And, of course, the mother of the bride was still sobbing and wailing throughout. 

The reception was in a park shelter at a different park 5 miles across town. They served baloney sandwiches and generic branded potato chips. I don't remember if there was cake. We may have made our escape before it was served. 

[AussieKrissy]

1 hour ago, louisa05 said:

Worst wedding I've ever been to was long ago. It was a high school classmate who my friends and I were nice to when no one else was. I'm not sure we really liked her. She was quite odd. And her wedding...well...

She was 19 and pregnant. Groom was 40. He was the ex best friend and former army buddy of the bride's father. They became ex best friends when he got his buddy's teenage daughter pregnant. The father of the bride did not attend. The wedding took place in a tiny park with a gazebo with a huge sculpture of a pineapple on top of it. The mother of the bride stood outside the gazebo and sobbed and wailed through the entire ceremony. The only music was the sister of the bride holding up a boom box while the Kenny Rogers song "You Decorated My Life" played on a cassette. Apparently, about halfway through the sister was bored with the song or tired of holding up the boom box and aggressively pushed the stop button in the middle of the chorus--so it was "you decora---CLICK". And, of course, the mother of the bride was still sobbing and wailing throughout. 

The reception was in a park shelter at a different park 5 miles across town. They served baloney sandwiches and generic branded potato chips. I don't remember if there was cake. We may have made our escape before it was served. 

Thanks for the laugh, I had some good visuals other than the 19 year old bride and the creepy old man factor I had a laugh at the red kneck sounds of this wedding 

[fundiefriday]

I'm starting to wonder about the whole Stephen and Jana relationship.  This seems to be a very long courtship based on fundie timelines.  I feel like they aren't engaged yet either although I could be wrong about that.  Taking more time to really get to know each other is always a good decision but it's unusual behavior for most fundies.

[Four is Enough]

maybe the whole thing is just "what shall we do about these two? They're way too old to be still flitting around, they're harshing our brand!"

"I know, let's say they're courting!"

And the whole thing is a sham...

 

[justmy2cents]

27 minutes ago, Four is Enough said:

maybe the whole thing is just "what shall we do about these two? They're way too old to be still flitting around, they're harshing our brand!"

"I know, let's say they're courting!"

And the whole thing is a sham...

 

Except they’re not being public about their courtship. And do we really think the Duggar brand can be harmed more than what Josh already did?

[CanadianMamam]

If Jana had wanted to rush into marriage, she would have done it long ago. I think she was genuinely waiting to find someone she liked and could imagine a life with and it doesn't actually surprise me that she is moving slow. The secrecy is kind of weird, but Jana might just want this to be about her. I do think they will be married by the end of the year (Duggar Data predicts December)

[Antipatriarch]

16 hours ago, louisa05 said:

The mother of the bride stood outside the gazebo and sobbed and wailed through the entire ceremony. The only music was the sister of the bride holding up a boom box while the Kenny Rogers song "You Decorated My Life" played on a cassette. Apparently, about halfway through the sister was bored with the song or tired of holding up the boom box and aggressively pushed the stop button in the middle of the chorus--so it was "you decora---CLICK". And, of course, the mother of the bride was still sobbing and wailing throughout. 

OK now I'm curious about the end of this story. Any idea if / how long the marriage lasted?

[Not that josh's mom]

Has Jana ever really gotten to do anything privately? Maybe she is just enjoying this time without cameras in her face constantly.