For over twenty years, I’ve kept this painting of me from the bridal photo shoot from my first marriage. That marriage ended amicably when I transitioned, but since then, and with lots of therapy, I’ve realized how unhealthy and unequal that relationship was. My ex and I moved to a “communicate in a need-to-know-only basis” in early 2022 when our child was 19.
How the divorce worked out, I ended up with the shared storage unit and everything in it, including this painting and the wedding photos. I’ve never displayed the painting, but always hid it away in storage. I wrote about it in an article for Another Jane Pratt Thing, wondering what on earth I should do with this 30-by-24-inch painting.
Now and then, I’d pull The Bride out to show a friend and laugh about it. Even before transition, I was never a girly-girl, always a feminist, and the image of me in this symbol of virtuous womanhood, bowing down to delicate flowers was just too much.
I considered offering it back to the artist, but I searched and searched and couldn’t find her. I almost donated it to a yard sale fundraiser. Should I paint over it? Burn it? I’ve considered donating it to Goodwill, and never knowing its fate but imagining that it would have had a future life being painted over, or as a prop in a play. Even decided I was ready to do that.
But still, it sat there, against the wall in my office, just out of sight.
My former mother-in-law, V, commissioned the painting as a favor to the artist, a friend of hers from college. V envisioned an 8-by-11 or so painted replica of the original photo, but the artist wanted to put her artist flair on the painting. Although V gifted it to me, she never particularly liked it herself and was a little embarrassed.
When my mother-in-law saw it, she thought the face didn’t look enough like me, so she asked if I would sit for it while the artist redid it. I ended up spending several hours over multiple weeks sitting in this artist’s living room.
Besides changes to the face, I also pointed out to her that the sky looked gloomy, even like gray clouds of a looming thunderstorm. Not liking that mood for a wedding homage, I asked her to change it to what it is now. Knowing what I know now about that marriage, I could have left it gloomy, stormy.
Original photo & painting
That article about what to do with the painting is a year old now, and I still did nothing with the painting until recently. A few weeks ago, I pulled it out and onto my craft table, and pondered. I arranged photos and quotes, printed onto white paper, onto it. I searched online about what media would be best to affix the additions to the oil painting without damaging it.
Some part of me was squeamish about harming or permanently altering the painting—even had a full therapy session about it—and while I didn’t totally understand that reluctance, I honored it. From Michael’s, I got removable glue dots and clear gel media (glue) and experimented with using vellum to give everything a cloudy look. I decided on transparent paper rather than white or vellum, and bought the right kind of pens to write on it.
When removing the vellum, one of the glue dots pulled a little bit of the oil paint off with it, somewhere in the dress or veil. An internal flip switched, and I let go of the fear of damaging it further. I went ahead and glued (with gel media) the additions.
It’s become personal reclamation art, emotionally processing my experiences in that Mormon temple marriage at age nineteen, in the wrong gender, into a mediocre, inequitable partnership.
Explanations below.
The words LAWS CONSECRATION SACRIFICE CHASTITY OBEDIENCE in white ink refer to the four “laws” temple-goers promise to keep. As of 2025, the ceremony was updated to list the laws up front, along with a fifth, the Law of the Gospel of Jesus. However, in 1999 through 2004, when I participated in LDS temple ceremonies, there was no mention of the laws at the beginning. Instead, you get threatened that Satan will have power over you if you do not uphold the promises that you will make (without knowing what those promises are). The Law of Obedience is the first law.
I digitized my bridal and wedding photos, then burned most. I kept some of the hard copies for art, slicing them up to represent my fractured self, and specifically, how the temple ceremonies including marriage (“sealing” in LDS terms) were a moment of serious psychological rupture. With each slice, the top of my head floats up and further away.
The words from the marriage/sealing ceremony, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” which honestly, I prefer to “man and wife,” and “FOR TIME AND ALL ETERNITY.” In this ritual, “for time” means the same as “‘til death do us part” but Mormons believe marriage lasts beyond death and is eternal. So if a spouse dies or they divorce, they are still married “for all eternity,” but a spouse can marry again in the temple “for time.” To end the “eternity” part takes extra effort, and is sometime denied. This creates all sorts of havoc with your/mine/ours families, divorces, adoptions, etc. But since my ex and I officially left the LDS church in 2007, that “broke” our sealing and all other religious ordinances and rites.
My ex and I stand in front of the Mount Timpanogos Temple in Utah, where we married. With some of my wedding photos, I cut my ex-husband out, leaving a ghostly figure. When married to him, and for years afterward, I was enmeshed with him, codependent. I spoke in terms of “we/us” instead of “I/me.” Cutting him out serves two emotional purposes. One, of breaking that codependent tie. Two, separating my emotional journey of the marriage and being a bride from the emotional journey of being initiated into the temple and the psychological impact of that.
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Zoom in to look closely at the white ink on the white veil. Here, I wrote in lines from my essays about my experience in the temple that capture my dissociation and rupture. I used white to emphasize the ethereal disconnect and how hidden this rupture has been most of my life. I’ve only begun to process it.
This is what Heavenly Father wants.
Something pulls me backward, far, far away.
I retreat further into the Silent Place.
My body is their puppet.
In gold ink, I wrote several phrases from the temple ceremonies that indicate the conditional nature of all the marvelous promises the church claims its faithfulmembers will receive (see 16.)
For God will not be mocked
If you are true and faithful
Inasmuch as you do not defile it
Depends on your faithfulness
This is a cutout (of a reprint) of a painting I created in 2020. At the time, I was emotionally processing the grief from my divorce, which felt like a huge rejection of who I am fundamentally as a person. I was reading a lot of self-help and pop psychology books at the time, including The Body Keeps the Score. That book inspired the anatomical heart. The fiery colors expressed my moods, and evoked the phoenix rising again from the ashes. The little boy in the center in his black hoodie represents my inner child. It’s interesting to me that I painted him back in 2020, but didn’t actually begin deliberate “inner child work” until 2022 and 2023, and even now, 2026, I am revisiting that boy, the Invisible Child, who’s been huddling alone in a dark cave (The Silent Place) all these years. I like that the colors of the painting don’t blend well with the rest of the painting, because it emphasizes the disconnect of the nineteen-year-old bride/young woman I was playing and the true me hiding inside.
This is two of my bridal photos, sliced thin vertically, and interlaced to represent my fracturization. Notice throughout the bridal photos my distinct lack of smile in most of them. The contrast to my full-face smile and full-body joy in my wedding photos with Josh is astounding.
In gold ink, the words “a queen and priestess unto my husband” come from the LDS temple initiatory/anointing ceremony. Men are promised to be kings and priests unto God, while women are queens and priestesses only unto their husbands. The sexism inherent in this shocked and dismayed me. I was heartbroken. I remember thinking, “Wait, women ARE inferior in the gospel?!?” This didn’t not sit well with me, of course, and contradicted what my parents taught of equal partnership (even if it was “different but equal”).
Another wedding photo with my ex cut out. Though I was never into “girly” things, I got into the wedding spirit and we joked around with traditional acts, like the groom carrying the bride over the threshold. With him cut out, though, I imagine the ghostly male figure is the real me, holding up the woman disguise until I’m ready.
In silver, the words Principalities, Dominions, and Eternal Lives are all promised blessings—conditional on following the rules, of course.
In gold on the dress, the words “Replenish the earth” and “BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY” come from the marriage/sealing ceremony, with the LDS emphasis on procreation and big families. The LDS church teaches that we all exist as spirits before we are born on earth, and that faithful LDS families should have as many babies as they can to ensure the maximum number of spirit babies end up with the privilege of being born in and raised in the Church. When I married, I thought I’d have four or five kids. I ended up having one.
Among the photos I digitized and burned, I found this one from my engagement photo shoot. The photographer had suggested one of just me, and I’m glad he did. I planned to slice this photo up too, but decided to keep it intact. I like how I look in this photo, and I like who I was then. At 19, I was still fundamentally me, thoughtful, smart, empathetic, hardworking, kind. I kept the photo whole to show the Self that has always been there.
In black ink, the words “Brother, receive her unto yourself” and “Sister, give yourself to him” are from the marriage/sealing ceremony. The sexist difference in language bothered me even back then. It leaves open the possibility for the man to receive multiple wives (the practice of polygamy is still in the LDS doctrine, if not currently practiced by the mainstream church in this life—but it still occurs in the afterlife). The idea of multiple spouses or partners, i.e., polyamory, doesn’t bother me. It’s the sexism in it, where polygyny (multiple wives) is allowed but not polyandry (multiple husbands) or poly-enby. And, of course, when girls (under 18) and coercion are involved, I have a huge problem. The church’s history and doctrine of polygamy were a huge thorn in my side from an early age.
Another wedding photo with my ex removed, with “be fruitful and multiply” in his stead. The Mormon cultures and churches emphasize heterosexual marriage and having children as The Way, and the only way to achieve the highest level of heaven. For people who don’t marry or don’t want or can’t have children, the pressure is huge, forcing them to live as second class citizens, never good enough. When I was childless, I was constantly asked when I would have a kid. When I had one, I was constantly asked when the next would be coming along.
In black ink, more promises from temple ceremonies: “thrones, exaltations, kingdoms, glory, immortality, powers,” and “power to come forth in the first resurrection.” All conditional, of course, not on being a good human, but on certain behaviors: pay 10% tithing, attend church weekly, abstain for alcohol, tea, coffee, and tobacco, marry heterosexually, read scriptures, knowing the right codewords and handshakes, etc. etc.
Another wedding picture with my ex cut out. A friend gave me an interpretation I had not considered but like a lot: that ghostly figure in the background is me, the man who will come out in the future.
He was there all along. Waiting.
Through it all, I am always me.
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