Children, Mother PB is SCANDALIZED by this display of bad taste and Festival of Inappropriate Sharing.
Listen ta THIS!
Help! I just saw a friend from seminary post a photo where she was officiating a wedding. Lovely bride and groom in what looks to be an outdoor wedding. But what your eyes are immediately drawn to is the clergywoman’s cleavage! That’s right, she’s wearing a low-cut black dress and a white stole framing her busty bust. Sigh….I’m not close enough to lovingly talk to her. Perhaps you could address this…or maybe you have already….or maybe I’m just Rev. Prude.
OH NO, you aren’t! That outfit is BEYOND tacky and that clergywoman needs to be shown this posting pronto. There is NO EXCUSE for this tastelessness: NONE. It doesn’t matter if she’s a young woman who is “proud of her curves/femininity.” PeaceBang is proud of her own curves and femininity, too, as are many women, but if she hears this phrase invoked one. more. time. to justify sartorial sins, she is going to BARF.
Keep your bloody bust covered, women. Bad taste, tacky, distracting, and if I was the bride I’d send you upstairs with a handkerchief and a safety pin and say, “Stop trying to compete with me, Reverend. Today is not about your womanly charms.”
It is also NO EXCUSE WHATSOEVER (you see how this sort of thing makes PeaceBang YELL? She doesn’t like to YELL!) if the couple are personal friends of the officiant and the officiant intends to party down like it’s 1999 at the reception. If you are there as a clergywoman, you dress appropriately to your position and with some bloody dignity. That also extends to your behavior at the reception, where it is not okay to dance the hootchie-kootchie, pick up the bartender (unless you do so discreetly and keep your mouth shut about it), or fling your lady bits about for public scrutiny. It means that you stay relatively sober, respectful and decently dressed.
IF YOU WANT TO ATTEND YOUR FRIEND’S WEDDING AS A PARTY-GOING GUEST, BEG OFF FROM OFFICIATING AT THE CEREMONY AND LET SOMEONE ELSE BE THE PROFESSIONAL FOR THE DAY.
Thank you, O Alert Reader, for tattling on this naughty, naughty webbis. She really needs to be taken to task for her indiscretion and informed that her breasts should not be the central memory people take away from any service of holy matrimony. OY vey.
PeaceBang managing to not make her own bodaciousness a visual distraction at the nuptials of Jessica and Will. Gimme a break, ladies!
GUEST at a wedding this past weekend, with low-cut dress…
MINISTER at a casual outdoor wedding in 2007, leaving the party clothes to the partiers and understanding my role:
SUPER casual outdoor wedding on very windy beach. Note that I STILL manage to find a modest casual top to preside in.
Summer preacher in very informal setting with no stole. I could wear something like this for a summer wedding. PUT AWAY THE SEXY PARTY DRESSES WHEN YOU’RE WORKING, MINISTERS.
Ha! I clicked on over to your blog and burst out laughing at the title of this post.
One of my favorite of my own wedding photos is one of my husband and I kissing, and the pastor’s unintentionally Very Serious face framed under our chins. Her then five-year-old daughter also found this picture hilarious.
If the pastor’s boobs had been framed in that photo instead of her face, it would not have been a keeper. Oy vey is right!
Amen. Friends teased me (sweetly) when I packed my full vestments for one friend’s wedding- the party dress came out at the reception afterwards (where I did behave myself). But now, looking back, people have commented on how nicely the wedding pictures came out and how lovely the ceremony was. There’s nothing like classic vestments.
That is really terrible. It puts the couple about to be married in a lousy position, too. I mean, who wants to tell the Professional Religious Person to practice modesty? Of all the things to have to deal with on a wedding day, that shouldn’t be one.
Falling over laughing. PB, you stand alone. LYMI!
Yes yes yes, PB, those are all very nice pictures of you looking lovely and professional with your bachongas where they should be, but WHERE’S THE FESTIVAL OF INAPPROPRIATE SHARING? I want to see the Bad Colleague! [PLEASE! I know! But she’s probably in the Witness Protection Program by now. – PB]
I don’t want to see anyone’s cleavage on a wedding day. The minister, the bride, the bridesmaids, the teenager (or “sexy 60 something”)wedding guests…don’t get me started. It’s like a boobie epidemic these days. I had a mother of the bride in a strapless gown last year. And no shrug or shawl to cover herself up with during worship. WTH?
I agree!!! I had to read this as soon as I saw this posted on FB!!! Yes, I busted out laughing at the title as well! LOL Lawd have mercy! Come on now! This shouldn’t have even been a discussion! If you are a woman minister, you need to be presentable at ALL times- whether you are officiating a wedding, or attending one. However, this one right here? This makes no sense whatsoever. If she’s even to the point of being an officiant, she should know how to dress. Period. Whether you’re small in size, or plus-sized, it’s all about presenting yourself correctly in front of the congregation, and most of all, in front of the God that you serve. Amen? Amen. [Okay, one of you needs to secretly get this photo to me. Someone needs to lovingly confront this chica. – PB]
Hey PB, what if I am well-covered DURING the service (in alb, stole, etc) but then take off the alb and have a black cocktail dress underneath for the reception. At a FRIENDS wedding, not parishioners. Is this okay? [Yea, but you can’t be the buttoned-up pastor and then, like, BUST OUT with the super-sexy hotcha mama thing just to provoke Sexy Librarian Fantasies. Oh wait, this is Jen Hughes. In that case, you can’t help it, you’re hot in full priest regalia. But really, hon, you always dress so well. You don’t have a tacky bone in your fine bod. Also I miss you something fierce. – PB]
PB, I love the headband and necklace you are wearing with your low cut black dress – you look lovely!
Amen Mama! Show us how it’s done! This summer has been a banner year for weddings and even in the hotter-than-the-hubs-of-hell July non-air-conditioned venues, I always wore a clergy shirt and Roman collar. Warm, yes. Modest, yes. For the 3 weddings that I chose to attend the wedding, I changed at home into an appropriate summery dress, but never stay long. With weddings usually on a Saturday, I need my beauty sleep for work Sunday morning.
There is definitely something to be said for modesty and appropriate attire…seriously…
Clergy shirt and a stole are MINIMUM acceptable. Festival of Inappropriate Sharing, while humorous for the rest of us, must have been quite embarrassing to the happy couple AND their family.
Keep up the good work PB!
Oops…mea culpa…should say for the 3 weddings I chose to attend the reception…yeesh.
Ok, PB – here is one I need some help with. My son is being married and I am the officiant at the wedding as well as the mother of the groom. I will wear alb and stole for the ceremony, but I want to be the mother of the bride at the reception. What should be under the alb. Thoughts?
PB, you are an inspiration and one of my heroes!
I don’t think the bride’s tatas should be completely on display for all the world to see either. Especially at a church wedding.
I officiated at a friend’s wedding last year and really, there is NO time that cleavage is okay for the rev. This was a very good friend and it was a wedding in a BAR, but I still found a nice dress with a matching scarf (like a stole, yet not quite a stole…it was a BAR) and no boobage. I’m so afraid for this sister pastor that the pic is going to show up on some awful website somewhere!
You are hands down fabulous!!!! Love your posts!!!
Could you tell us more about those beautiful pieces of fabric hanging behind you in the last picture? Are they banners? I wish my sanctuary had some.
P.S. I totally agree with you about the clergy cleavage catastrophe.
I wish there was a blog like this for the ladies who do your hair. Do you know how many times I’ve had women cut my hair and lean over me with a low cut shirt with their bosoms practically in my face?
Hear, hear, Peacebang! I nearly passed out wearing a robe to officiate at a wedding in an 89 degree sanctuary while pregnant this summer. Once I got in there an hour before the wedding and felt how blazingly hot it was, I actually decided that it would be more professional to be appropriately dressed and possibly faint than to be inappropriately dressed and look unprofessional. I kept a glass of cool water near me and a fan in my pocket, and I got through the ceremony just fine. But I will SERIOUSLY ward off anyone who wants a ceremony in our sanctuary in July ever again!
I have had the honour of officiating and attending weddings of friends and family and I find it very helpful to change between the wedding and the reception. I don’t always wear an alb, depending on the weather and the formality of the occasion, but always a suit. The party dress is in keeping with what my mom and sister call my “over developed sense of modesty”. I find changing outfits can help me transition out of work mode into appropriately fun mode.
My nephew’s wedding will be this afternoon. For the ceremony, I will officiate in clerical collar, alb and stole as usual. Normally if I attend a reception as clergy I stay in collar and pair it with a nice suit. However, because this is a family event where I have a role in addition to priest I’ve chosen a lovely dress with a flattering v-neck that still provides adequate coverage.
In any case, at no time will there be inappropriate sharing because a) the day is not about me at any point; and b) even if it were, that’s more than The Public needs to know.