One of the first things I remember was that it was dark out, but it still had the feel of being early evening, sort of like how it gets dark early during the winter, but it wasn't cold. I was in a small, unfamiliar town, and I had just gone inside of a building that reminded me of the old Mercedes warehouse in Texas. It wasn't full of stuff, but rather the aisles were very wide and tall, and in the "walls" of the aisles were doorways into various rooms. It was mostly dark in the warehouse, with only a few areas dimly lit by lights way above.
As I entered one of the lit areas, there was a room on my right that I knew I was supposed to go into, and as I went in, I knew I was there to meet someone. I was feeling some hesitation about it because something about it didn't feel right to me, and quickly I realized I was there because I was supposed to be marrying a young woman that I barely knew, or didn't know at all and had only heard of, and I had the feeling that the whole thing was mostly arranged by her parents. What I didn't know was how I was the one that that got chosen for her to marry. The young woman was in her early 20s, maybe around 5' or 5' 1", had blonde shoulder length hair, and was on the thin side.
For the most part, I was there just in time for the wedding to begin, but I wasn't going where I needed to go so that it could get started. After entering the initial room, it turned more of an antechamber into a meeting hall or something for this small town, almost like a narthex to a sanctuary at church. I knew that most of the people were already in the sanctuary type room, and once I went in, the wedding would begin, so I was putting off going in so that it wouldn't begin yet.
There was some stuff going on that I don't really remember, but during that general time I found out a few things. First, the whole town, as small as it was, was very close knit, and very religious. They almost struck me as being Mormon, or something very similar. Also, this arranged marriage setup was part of their religion, and not going through with it held consequences of ostracism for both of us. I wasn't concerned for myself because I didn't really know these people, but these were the young woman's friends and family, and they meant a great deal to her. Her parents seemed to be especially stern about the whole thing, as they also risked losing face should the marriage not go through. And finally, thinking about it now, I never found out the young woman's name. Or if I did at some point, I've now forgotten it.
I don't remember exactly how or when we met, but I think I found out at least some of this from talking with the young woman, and other parts from observing people in and around the narthex. When I was talking with the young woman, I got the impression that in spite of the marriage being arranged, she wanted to be happy about it, partially because she knew she was supposed to be happy about it, so she tried her best to convince herself that she was happy. She seemed very unsure of herself overall, as if her whole reason for existing was to make those around her happy by doing the things she was "supposed" to do. As I realized this, I felt bad for her, and I wanted her to be truly happy by doing what she wanted. I wanted to tell her this, to tell her to stand up for what she wanted, but at the same time, I felt like she had convinced herself that this wasn't the case, and to tell her so would actually be quite a blow to her, and I didn't want to cause her grief.
During this time, I think I also found out that we had sort of met online or something. She talked about either putting something online or finding me online, and somehow that caused things to start where I became the one that was going to marry her, but that whole process seemed to happen without my involvement.
After a bit of hemming and hawing I finally decided it was time to get ready and go into the sanctuary for the wedding. I went in, and I could sense the relief not only from the young woman, but from her parents as well as the pastor. I went to the front, up onto the raised dais area, and into a little half-walled area that had a folding chair and sat down there. I don't remember the actual ceremony, but it seemed to mainly revolve around me answering questions and agreeing to marry the young woman as she and her parents sat in the front of the crowd and watched me. It was more like being in a court room and answering a judges questions from the stand rather than a normal marriage ceremony. Also, at this point it seemed to be daytime rather than night like the earlier part of the dream had been.
Eventually that all ended and we were supposed to be going to a reception or celebration, but there seemed to be a general feeling that the whole group of friends and family did not want me and the young woman to spend any alone time together in spite of now being married. Part of it seemed to give me the impression that they didn't want us being intimate, but another part of it seemed to be that they didn't want me to talk to her privately because they were sure I'd say something that would cause her to "wake up" from the spell they seemed to have her under. They were really quite the controlling group, and I didn't like it.
While we were waiting for the celebration to begin, I wound up sitting next to the young woman on some sort of bench or sofa while other people were milling around. I was on her right, and her parents were on her left, and people were going around to and fro getting things ready. She was holding my hand and eventually she scootched closer and put her head on my shoulder. She actually seemed to be genuinely happy to be there, but was hesitant to show it too much because she wasn't sure if I was actually happy. When I realized that she was actually happy and not just trying to convince her self that she was, it made me feel better and happier for her, and I leaned my head over onto hers and brought my right hand over to hold hers in both of mine. As we sat there, I actually started to feel more love for her and less pity for her. I realized that the marriage was actually going to give us time to get to know each other a little better and I would have time later to talk to her and help break her out of her shell.
Soon after this, we were ready to leave and head to the place where the reception was going to be. It was night time again, and we were riding in a SUV or something with a number of her friends. Her parents didn't seem to be there, or they were in a different vehicle, or they had left earlier and were already at the destination.
We finally got to this place that was kind of a rustic bar or restaurant or something, but when we got there, something was wrong. We got out of the vehicle, and people were outside, and some were trying to go into the main entrance, which was kind of to our left, and others were trying to get into a "back" entrance or service entrance on the right side. Each door had a single bulb light above it, and there was a little bit of dim light coming from the windows, almost like some lights at the far back or another room were on, but the room that the windows went to wasn't actually lit.
There was something wrong going on. Either something was broken down, locked up, or possibly even something darker like someone had been hurt or killed. This seemed to go on for "a while", like maybe a half an hour or so, and then eventually it got cleared up and we were able to go inside. The room where the reception was to be held was white, very tall, about 20 feet to the ceiling, and big enough for several hundred people to hang out in. As we were in there, things started to relax a bit, and the young woman seemed to be having more fun and feeling better. We were constantly at each others side.
At this point the dream started falling apart and fading out and I started waking up, but I was feeling happier and ready to see where this thing with the young woman went.
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