Pastor Refuses to Perform Wedding Ceremony for Inappropriately Dressed Bride

Viczaesar

Apologies if this was discussed previously; it happened on August 10 but I don't remember seeing a thread about it.

Not in my church! Pastor refuses to perform ceremony because of bride’s ‘sexy dress’

This is the picture sent to AmericaPreachers.com of the exact style dress worn by a professional model from the company’s website. [The bride altered it in an unspecified way to better fit her "vision."]

Apostle Michael Canty of The Truth Ministries Holiness Church recently angered an entire wedding party and might have damaged his new ministry’s reputation after he refused to allow a bride wed her husband on her wedding day because he felt her dress was too sexy.

Lisa Washington said ‘she’s never been more embarrassed then Saturday’ when a local pastor refused to officiate and allow the bride to wed her husband on her wedding day in his facility. Both families were present and the food was waiting to be served at the bride’s aunt house.

Family members flew and drove long distances to be present for the couples special day. Upset and frustrated, guest at the wedding practically ‘begged’ the leaders of the church to reconsider but to no avail, not a budge.

The wedding scheduled Saturday, August 10th, was scheduled for 3pm. At 2pm, the pastor greeted the bride and groom when he noticed the bride’s dress. According to the bride’s mother, the pastor jokingly asked ‘where is the other half of the dress?’ Not thinking anything of it, the family laughed it off and continued applying make-up to the bride. Around 2:30pm the pastor asked a leader of the church to ask the bride and the family about the other part of her dress. The bride informed the leader ‘this is it’. The leader reported the news to the pastor and then the pastor informed face-to-face the bride and groom at separate times he could not perform the wedding with the bride in her selected dress. The pastor told the bride she would have to cover up her breast area and find a way to add length to the dress. The bride informed the pastor there is no way to accomplish this with so short notice and she has to wear her dress. The pastor let her know, he would not perform the ceremony then walked back to his office.

The wedding party tried many times to change the pastor’s decision but their efforts was ineffective. Around 4:15pm guest at the wedding were growing impatience and were looking for answers for the delay. When they were told the reason for the delay around 4:35pm their impatience change to anger and disbelief.

After hearing how the bride was crying her eyes out in back, a minister who was a guest at the wedding offered to perform the ceremony. When the minister asked the pastor for permission to perform the ceremony, the pastor told him ‘no’ and expressed to him how his request was disrespectful.

AmericaPreachers.com asked the bride and groom for pictures of the dress but instead was sent an email with a link of the exact dress worn by a professional model from the companies website. The bride did mention, ‘there were small alterations made to the dress to fit more desirably to my [bride] vision.’ “I’m a unique person, I chose this dress because it’s different than the traditional wedding gown you see at every wedding” the bride said.

Two days later the couple is not married and is currently looking into options to recoup money their family lost with travel, food, and other expenses.

The Truth Ministries Holiness Church was established 14 months ago and currently rent a converted shoe store for worship services. Calls to Apostle Canty and Truth Ministries were not returned. Neither the bride or groom were members of the church.

http://www.ynaija.com/not-in-my-church-pastor-refuses-to-perform-ceremony-because-of-brides-sexy-dress-pictured/

KeptInStitches

Totally his right, but wow. That's a dress for clubbing, not a dress to get married in a church. At least in my area.

NYCMercedes

I'm all for the pastor standing by his convictions. I have this feeling that naysayers are going to focus on the shoe store church locale. Thank you for posting the thread, V.

doeydo

That "wedding dress" =/= church wedding...

Teddy917

The bride should have asked about the dress beforehand since it was at a church. Although I do feel a little bad for her but this situation could've been avoided.

Simply Fated

I was going to ask "is that the sort of thing she would normally wear to church?" but sadly I know at my bf's family's church the teenagers all wear that sort of thing. You know, tank tops with spaghetti straps and short denim jeans. See through shirts with bandeaus and mini skirts. So maybe it did come as more of a surprise to the bride than it should have.

I'm not sure why everyone's money was lost. Did the guest/Minister have to perform the ceremony in a church? Could they have taken the ceremony elsewhere?

kmmssg

I have no problems with the Pastor standing by his convictions on this.  If the reception was back at MOB's house, why didn't they just move things back there?

artbyallie

I am a firm believer that revealing clothes do not necessarily speak to the morals of the wearer, but really. It should be plain common sense that you can't get married in a church wearing that.

heidirs731

I'm surprised the bride didn't realize this would be an issue. If she's been going to that church or worked with that pastor, she should have known it wouldn't work. And even if that wasn't the case, something should have tipped her off that it might not be appropriate church attire. 

I understand she wanted to go with a different look, but at the end of the day, if thepastor refused and I wanted to get married, I would have wrapped a bed sheet around myself, anything just so I could get married. Or walked down to the courthouse.

It's a shame all that money was lost and no one got inventive to fix the issue and the bride and groom still aren't married (assuming that's still the case).

OliveOilsMom

Good for the pastor.  That dress was in no way appropriate for a Church wedding.  I always cringe when I see those see through lace dresses on TV being purchased to wear in a Church, but even those dresses are more covered up than this thing!

If one of their wedding guests was a pastor himself, why didn't they just all go back to the Aunt's house to get married there, by that pastor.  No jury should give that couple a dime's worth of monetary awards, the pastor was certainly within his rights to say no.

crunchymamaof2

I think the couple is absolutely out of their minds for trying to recoup monies lost. Seriously? I think the Pastor was a bit....harsh...but it was his church and his rules. Common sense was lacking here. I could see why she wouldn't want to wrap a sheet or something as that wouldn't make for nice pictures, but they simply should of went back to the aunt's house or a park and their minister friend could have married them. I know it must have been a shock and all but they had guests...they should have figured something out!

WildMagelet

I was wondering the same thing @SimplyFated.  Why didn't the guest/minister just wed them elsewhere?  And why did they wait almost two hours to inform their guests?

I would never dream of wearing something like that to a church.  

Xstatic3333

Yes that's an awful dress.  I think it's a shame that they didn't just have the other minister who offered officiate at the reception location; that way they wouldn't have wasted everyone's time and money. 

grumbledore

I have really mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, if the church has a dress code or expectation of modesty, they should have made that clear to the couple when they asked to be married there.  On the other hand, wtf was she thinking wearing that to a church?

Ultimately, I think it was ridiculous that they chose not to have her throw something else on and get married, do their pictures with her dress, and go to their reception instead of wasting a ton of money sitting there and crying about it...

jessicabessica

I agree with @grumbledore.  The church and the officiant absolutely can set dress/modesty requirements, but they need to make that known, especially if they would actually refuse to marry someone if the dress was inappropriate in their view.  But the couple could have gone to their reception site and had their minister guest do the wedding.  

misssunshine17

Eeek. Girls get kicked out of prom for wearing stuff like this, how could she think it was okay in a church!? 

AprilH81

Wow.  That dress is not appropriate for a church wedding.  If you want to wear that in a secular venue then be my guest, but that is nowhere near appropriate for a church.

TerriHugg

While I don't think this dress is appropriate for church, I realized that in my area of the US, church etiquette has been very lax depending on your denomination etc. For example, I know many people who feel comfortable wearing jeans and a sweatshirt to church, but I feel as though it is inappropriate even though they are covered up. So what is considered appropriate is subjective. After all, there are several bible versus with the underlying meaning of "Come as you are." Under that bible premise alone, some might argue the bride did nothing wrong even though she wore a revealing dress. 

Furthermore, despite the dress being inappropriate in my opinion, the pastor should have been clear about attire expectations beforehand. It seems as though that discussion never happened before the wedding. 

kmmssg

How do we know that the church didn't provide the proper information about clothing?  They may have been given a wedding packet with rules about what you can throw, what kind of music, what you can wear....  We don't know that.

I would like to see the "‘... small alterations made to the dress to fit more desirably to my [bride] vision.

DD showed me a couple of dresses she was considering for her BM's.  One was a bit low cut.  Not skanky or clubby, but a bit low.  I mentioned that that might not be acceptable at the church altar and she said, "I thought about that too.  We'd like to do an outdoor wedding so that won't be a problem."  Like I said, the dress wasn't skanky or clubby, but it would definitely be the limit in what you would even consider asking a Pastor to approve.  She doesn't want to choose that dress any longer, but she is sticking with the outdoor ceremony, same Pastor.

phira

grumbledore said:

I have really mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, if the church has a dress code or expectation of modesty, they should have made that clear to the couple when they asked to be married there.  On the other hand, wtf was she thinking wearing that to a church?

Ultimately, I think it was ridiculous that they chose not to have her throw something else on and get married, do their pictures with her dress, and go to their reception instead of wasting a ton of money sitting there and crying about it...

I agree with this.

I don't like policing people for their clothing choices at all. I don't have a problem with this dress, and I honestly wouldn't care if I went to a wedding where the bride wore this dress.* However, common sense suggests that the bride should have realized that churches DO tend to police clothing choices, and that this would not be appropriate for a church wedding.

I'd like to believe that in her place, I would have made a mad dash to get a more appropriate dress or cover up so the wedding could proceed. But who knows? Maybe I would have been too upset to think about that solution.

The couple is still unmarried ... they COULD go to city hall and get that fixed if they wanted to.

* One of the reasons I'm so adamant about NOT policing people for clothing choices, especially when it comes to brides, is that I don't want to wear a white/off-white dress when I get married. I know that a lot of people might say that whatever I choose to wear would not be an appropriate wedding dress, on the basis of color alone.

heidirs731

Even if no dress code was provided, it still surprises me that no one thought, "you know, the church might have a problem with it." No one at all thought to ask. That just boggles my mind.

But beyond the dress and the pastor's decision what really shocks me that in the end nothing was done. There's a number of things they could have done to continue the wedding: the minister could have performed the ceremony elsewhere, the bride could have wrapped herself in a table cloth, they could have walked down the courthouse. But they did none of those things and just let their wedding pass them by. That's the thing that shocks me the most, that they just gave up and went home instead of getting married and having the celebration they wanted with just a few modifications.

Jen4948

I'm surprised that nobody thought to find out in advance whether or not that dress would pass muster in the church.  I'd be even more surprised to find out that it did.  I know some houses of worship are okay with very casual or revealing outfits, but what doesn't surprise me is that the pastor refused to perform the ceremony.

I'm also surprised that the bride didn't put something else on so the wedding could continue.

Grabows14

Wow, If that's what she thinks is appropriate in church, she needs to step off the catwalk and take a look around

WildMagelet

@Lobster1987

I agree.  Refusing to get married that day just because the bride couldn't wear her special snowflake dress is ridiculous.  There are so many options that would have ended up with the B&G still getting married.

Pepper6

In general, I think it's a good idea for churches to specifically outline their dress code requirements, but I think there's a big difference between "shoulders must be covered" to THAT dress.  I don't know how anyone could possibly think that's appropriate for a church wedding. 

I think the pastor was a bit harsh about it, but still well within his rights to do what he did.  I would lose faith in humanity (again) if they awarded any options to recoup their money. 

Dreamergirl8812

Lobster1987 said:

This is all on the bride and her own stupidity. She should have checked beforehand, relatives could have mentioned something, and/or she could have ran to a store quick and bought something or ran home and throw something else on....or utilized the minister friend at the reception or moved the wedding elsewhere....

 

This article almost makes them out to look like poor little victims, but no. This all could have been avoided and/or could have been fixed. Trying to recoup wedding costs is asinine.

Her friends and family were probably afraid of offending her so they nodded, smiled, and oohed and aahed when she showed them the dress.

So really, it's the bride's fault for not coming on TK and saying "OMG guyz look at my dress im wearing to at myi church for my weddding!"

That shit would have been shut down real fast.

artbyallie

Dreamergirl8812 said:

show previous quotes

Lobster1987 said:

This is all on the bride and her own stupidity. She should have checked beforehand, relatives could have mentioned something, and/or she could have ran to a store quick and bought something or ran home and throw something else on....or utilized the minister friend at the reception or moved the wedding elsewhere....

 

This article almost makes them out to look like poor little victims, but no. This all could have been avoided and/or could have been fixed. Trying to recoup wedding costs is asinine.

Her friends and family were probably afraid of offending her so they nodded, smiled, and oohed and aahed when she showed them the dress.

So really, it's the bride's fault for not coming on TK and saying "OMG guyz look at my dress im wearing to at myi church for my weddding!"

That shit would have been shut down real fast.

Nah, she would've just cried and whined about how mean we all are and how it's HER DAY so she can wear whatever she wants.

nebullama

Pepper6 said:

I think there's a big difference between "shoulders must be covered" to THAT dress. 

I think this may explain why the pastor never directly explained the dress code.  It could be that the church didn't have specific or strict rules. The pastor probably never dreamed that the bride would wear something so far off the mark, and didn't think he needed to tell her beforehand that it was inappropriate to wear a Penthouse wedding dress.

CharliesWife12

Awesome for the pastor, I can understand how he would not be able to give his blessings and officiate the service. 

It makes me laugh thinking about the other post about the bride being "very christian" and asking guests to "dress modestly" for church.  I would assume most people would realize this dress is not church appropriate, but I guess this post just proves, some people don't have common sense!! 

Chipmunk415

I'm not getting married in a church, and I wouldn't be caught dead wearing THAT to my own wedding.  Hell, I wouldn't even wear it to the private dinner FI and I are having later that night (morning wedding, lunch reception). I MIGHT wear it if we go to a nice bar/club after dinner. I might wear it to the dinner, but if it lost the keyhole in front. Low cut, yes. Low cut plus a keyhole? NO.

justmekimmie

Good for him! Why would you wear a dress like that for a church wedding to begin with? Guess this is a cautionary tail for all brides to perhaps run their dress option by their officiant if it leans in the non-traditional direction?