Next Stop, Marriage!

Next Stop, Marriage!

So now you’re engaged, and the whirlwind of wedding planning has begun. To keep your relationship intact and on course during this busy time, remember that, although your wedding is one of the most important days of your life, it’s just a day — whereas a marriage is a lifetime. If all engaged couples would spend as much energy on planning their marriage as they do on planning their wedding, the divorce rate would be lower.

Get Help

If both you and your fiancé work full-time, you are bound to become overwhelmed with all of the details that wedding planning can demand if you try to do it all yourself. It doesn’t matter if you choose to hire a professional wedding planner or ask for help from your family and friends; the important thing is to realize that the burden does not have to fall entirely on your shoulders.

Don’t Expect Perfection

Your relationship will surely be strained during these planning months if you expect everything to go perfectly. Sure, you want it to all turn out exactly as you’ve dreamed, but in reality things sometimes don’t go as planned. Focus on the purpose of your celebration — to share the joy of your love with your favorite people. Your guests will still have a good time at your wedding and reception even if something goes “wrong.” Chances are they won’t even realize that something about the flowers, decorations, music, or food was not as you had planned. Psychic Agnes ext. 5400 reflects on her bumpy road to marriage: “I’m fortunate that my race to marriage had an almost perfect, but mostly imperfect storybook ending.”

Plan Alone Time

While you’ve got your schedule out, be sure to write in some time to be alone with your beloved, away from home and distractions. Use your retreat to relax together and plan your marriage, not your wedding. The website “For Your Marriage” offers resources for you to get to know your fiancé better and to strategize your future life together, such as the “Personality Audit” by Susan Vogt and the “Family of Origin Exercise.” Consider some less formal ways to learn about each other, too, such as playing along with episodes of “The Newlywed Game” on GSN!

Use Your Wedding Planning as Practice

Pay attention to what disagreements or stressors arise during your wedding planning, because they could be indicators of what problems might come up in your marriage later. Whether the issue is money, dealing with relatives, or something else, stop and talk about it now. Discuss openly with your fiancé how you’re feeling and what you think must happen to resolve the issue. You should each be willing to compromise in some ways, but one person shouldn’t completely surrender to the other either. Work as a team toward a common goal. Psychic Jacqueline ext. 9472, whose parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2010, says, “The hardest part of a marriage is sticking with it, compromising, and being understanding as well as compassionate.” Now is the time to begin practicing the qualities that will enrich your lifetime of marriage.

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