Alison

This is one of the few problems I have always had since learnign about the church. I have only been a member for 5 years and have grown up in a household that taught me that your sexual orientation was simply the way you were born and there was nothign wrong with being gay. I have quite a few gay friends one of which is going to be my bridesmaid at my wedding and recently got engaged to her long time girlfriend and I am soo soo happy for her. I believe that God made us the way we are and intended everyone to be happy to to be able to find love. Love is different for every person and you deserve yours. The important thing to take away here is that htere is a difference between love and lust. Living a Gay lifestyle does not mean you need to be promiscuous but seeking someone who you can truly love and have a deep connection with as well as passion when the realtionship gets to that stage is important. I think that this is a place where the church makes it very difficult for some good faithful members to be part of the religion and is really asking people to choose between the church and their innate happiness. I say follow your heart.

I am in a similar situation and was wondering the same things. My fiancé and I are both members however I am a convert of just over 5 years and I joined alone. None of my family are mormon and while they are some of the best christian people you may ever meet they are non-denominational and will probably remain that way. When we decided to get married we had a lot of very difficult tear filled conversations about what we should do and after many talks, praying and searching our hearts we realized that while he (being raised in the church) felt very strongly about getting married in the temple, neither of us wanted my parents and siblings to have to stand outside the temple and ultimately miss my wedding. I knew it would break my heart and regardless of the blessings I recieved it would make my wedding day a very mournful one. So we have decided to have an outdoor wedding (in an orchard when the blossoms are im bloom) and want our local bishop to perform it and get sealed a year later (possibly in Europs while backpacking). However since I now have the chance to go all out and have a big wedding I was also wondering about the guidelines, if there are any tradtitions we have to include or would like to include etc. P.S. LDSbride09, don't listen to the people who question your choice. While there are a lot of good mormon men there are also a lot of good non-mormon men adn the heart wants what the heart wants. No matter what anyone says love and good communication is key to a strong marriage and the fact that he is planning ot get baptized tells me that he is a good man who understands your faith and will support you in it regardless of his standing in the church or his own personal beliefs.