A Scientology Wedding
Doppelgangers and Smoke Rings
A few months shy of my 30th birthday, I received an invitation to a Scientology wedding ceremony. How I ended up on that list remains unsolved, but there I was, holding an embossed invitation from a casual acquaintance to a ceremony I never imagined attending.
When I mentioned the invitation to my roommates, they reacted with disbelief and fear. “You can’t go to that wedding!” one exclaimed. “What if someone tries to kidnap you or force you to join?” Another chimed in, “Or make you worship Scientology?” Their faces were a canvas of shock and concern. I found myself explaining that Scientology isn’t something you worship, but their unease was unmistakable.
As I contemplated the ceremony, my mind spiraled into a whirlwind of outlandish visions. What would a Scientologist wedding entail? A miniature auditing booth at the entrance, promising to clear my mind before I stepped into the unknown. Or mini lasers floating down from the ceiling, precision-cutting the wedding cake with sci-fi flair. I even pictured a mind-bending virtual reality experience, allowing wide-eyed guests to witness the couple’s supposed “past lives” together — would we see them as star-crossed lovers in ancient Rome or maybe fellow crew members aboard a galactic cruiser? As these ridiculous scenarios ping-ponged through my imagination, an irresistible curiosity began to take hold. My initial reaction of “There’s no way I’m going to this wedding” morphed into an eager anticipation. I needed to see what would happen.
The pull of the unknown was too strong to resist. Would Tom Cruise and John Travolta attend the ceremony? Would there be mysterious rituals? A sacrifice or blood oath, perhaps? Or a secret password to enter the ceremony? As the questions multiplied, my desire to attend strengthened. This could be the weirdest experience of my life — a story I’d tell for years to come. Despite the cautionary voice in my head, I allowed curiosity and a thirst for adventure to drive my decision. Little did I know that this choice would lead to an experience that would challenge my preconceptions and offer unexpected insights into my faith journey.
Growing up in a conservative Christian community, I viewed the world through a narrow lens. Anything outside the church was labeled as evil or wicked. Our church was quick to denounce any belief system that didn’t align with our interpretation of Christianity as a “cult.” This rigid black-and-white worldview fostered an us-versus-them mentality, dividing the world into the saved and the unsaved. In this simplistic paradigm, there was no middle ground: you were either in or out.
If I had told my childhood minister about my plans to attend a Church of Scientology wedding, the reaction would have been swift and severe. He would have organized an emergency prayer meeting at my parent’s home, bringing a significant portion of the Deacon board. My parents would have faced criticism, my faith would have come under attack, and it’s possible I would have found myself unwelcome at church.
Thankfully, I no longer lived at home when I received the wedding invitation, sparing my childhood minister from learning about my salacious California lifestyle, which included wearing shorts and T-shirts to church. My life outside the Bible Belt presented newfound independence to explore beyond the boundaries of my upbringing, though not without some lingering apprehension.
On the big day, my newfound boldness wavered. I sat in my truck for a solid 20 minutes, playing the should-I-or-shouldn’t-I-go-to-the-wedding game. Finally, I gathered my courage and decided to attend, but with a contingency plan: if things got super weird, I’d sprint for my truck and dial 9–1–1.
As I arrived at the outdoor wedding, the scene was a typical Southern California affair: sunshine, tasteful decorations, and well-dressed couples. I felt equal parts thankful and disappointed — there was nothing dangerous or cultish taking place. Despite the overall vanilla tone, two unusual aspects of this wedding could not be ignored. First, the wedding party consisted entirely of identical twins. At the altar stood four sets of identical twins, each pair a couple. This created a surreal, mirror-like effect that was simultaneously fascinating, disorienting, and unsettling. While I have no aversion to identical twins, the sight of four pairs marrying each other was enough to make me wonder if I’d stumbled into some bizarre social experiment.
Perhaps even more alarming than the mass collection of twins was the chain-smoking. The wedding crowd was puffing away like the 1920s, with cigarettes as plentiful as mosquitoes on a hot summer night. Remarkably, over half of the 200 wedding guests were popping cigarettes like breath mints during the ceremony. I thought we would need to break out fire extinguishers before the toast.
The Scientologist officiant (though I’m sure that’s not their official title) delivered a ceremony so mundane it could have put Xenu himself to sleep. I hoped for at least a telepathic exchange of vows or a dramatic E-meter reading of the couple’s compatibility. Instead, the officiant droned on from a leather-bound notebook that looked suspiciously like it came from Barnes & Noble rather than a distant galaxy. Contrary to my wild expectations of strange rituals or surprise alien appearances, the most otherworldly aspects of this wedding were the astronomical number of doppelgangers and the guests’ apparent immunity to lung cancer.
After the ceremony, I mingled at the reception, curious to learn more about Scientology and its followers. I was introduced to an ice carving of a triangle known as the ARC, which I later learned stood for Affinity, Reality, and Communication — core concepts in Scientology. To my surprise, beyond this unfamiliar ice sculpture, the Scientologists engaged in perfectly ordinary small talk, discussing their jobs, complaining about traffic, and even commenting on the weather while eating plain chocolate wedding cake. The mundane celebration continued as I danced to “YMCA” by the Village People and “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot.
As I drove home that afternoon, the words “cult” and “weird” kept bubbling to the surface. Who gets to decide what’s evil or what constitutes a cult? I couldn’t help but draw parallels to the origins of my faith. Christianity started as a small, misunderstood offshoot of Judaism. First-century followers of Jesus lived in fear, facing skeptical glances and raised eyebrows that I had been so quick to direct at Scientology. This realization was unsettling and humbling. It challenged me to consider how others might view my beliefs through a similar lens of suspicion.
In retrospect, I’m grateful for the opportunity to attend this unique wedding with all its identical twins and chain-smoking guests. I emerged with my Christian faith intact, and the experience served as a catalyst for growth, pushing me beyond an “us versus them” mentality. While it didn’t lead to a Scientology conversion, it did transform my approach to understanding different belief systems. I realized that my faith isn’t threatened by exposure to different beliefs but can be strengthened through such encounters. The experience taught me that the borders between “us” and “them” are more flexible than we often assume and that faith, in all its forms, is a deeply personal and complex journey.
As I continue exploring my faith, I carry valuable lessons from this unexpected adventure: approach the unfamiliar with curiosity rather than judgment, seek understanding rather than reinforcing divisions, and recognize that profound growth often happens when we step outside our comfort zones. Ultimately, it took a wedding filled with doppelgangers and tobacco haze to show me that sometimes, the most valuable insights about faith, tolerance, and our shared humanity come from the most unlikely places.
