Hi everyone. I realize this thread is kind of old but I just stumbled across it and have things to share that may be helpful to some people.
First, I want to emphasize that having a wedding or getting married =/= visiting the inside of a church. I realize that since these forums are in English, and many primarily English-speaking countries have a Christian hegemony, forum users may be disproportionately (in relation to the wider world) part of the Christian faith or have grown up in a culture where the term "religion" had the connotation of only referring to Christianity. However, people from anywhere can learn English as a second language (and it's encouraged in many places as a lingua franca for science/politics/business/etc.). Plus, many people who are less fluent in English could just be lurkers, still reading, still voting in polls, but not willing to comment. We must remember that the English-language forums are only a microcosm of The Sims community, and what we read here cannot represent every single player's beliefs and opinions. (Also, there are obviously Christians in places where the dominant language isn't English, such as Ethiopia, India, Palestine, and Venezuela. While I acknowledge this fact, the world historical background of it is sort of outside the scope of my post.)
My larger point here is that, anthropologically speaking, being married is a economic, familial, and sociopolitical status in every society that exists or has existed in the past, whether the ritual providing that status (called a wedding in English) is religious or not. When it is religious, it is sometimes Christian and sometimes not. I will use examples from Judaism, since that is my religion. I usually play Sims who are Jewish, and in cases where I want some of them to get married, I download a synagogue/shul/temple from the Gallery and aside from performing the actual ceremony under the arch and fulfilling certain actions if I choose a goaled event, I have complete control over how I want the party/reception to go. Sidenote: I download from the Gallery because I am not very skilled at building my own lots (haha!) and I prefer to focus on the social aspects of The Sims 4 rather than building. For those who do like to build and share their own created lots and want to see more Jewish content in the game, please upload synagogues/shuls/temples! This also goes for anyone else who wants to see content from different religions or secular cultures: please upload more of your Buddhist temples, Muslim mosques, Shinto shrines, Wiccan nature sanctuaries, and secular restaurant/museum/bar/park/etc. wedding venues! I'm sure they would be highly appreciated by many other players.
Similar things can be said for observing mourning rituals and holidays. Although it may be hard to hold memorials for deceased Sims in the game, you can put large stones on any public lot and call it a graveyard, or you can create a building for storing urns that represents a tomb. Graveyards and tombs aren't inherently Christian places. You can also build an ancestral shrine around a deceased Sim's urn on their family's or friends' residential lot. I also really love that the Seasons pack has given us options to create our own holidays. Soon, I plan to start a new save of a Jewish family where I will make an effort to celebrate a larger variety of Jewish holidays than I usually do in The Sims, and I can make a new thread listing the traditions I picked for certain holidays if people are interested in seeing that.
Lastly, I want to say my main advice here is to be creative! Yes, The Sims 4 has restrictions that can be hard to tailor toward certain religious or secular practices, but there's still a lot of flexibility within the mechanics. The examples I used here don't even begin to address the wide range of options from mods and custom content. It is certainly also fair to tell EA that you would like to see specific things officially added to the game. I'm not dismissing that. I just wanted to help people generate ideas to satisfy their gameplay style in the meantime! Overall, I wish everyone has a great day and stays safe in these scary times!
