OK! You’re engaged. Yippee! You may want to just sit back and enjoy that for a while. Go out to eat, hold hands, gaze into one another’s eyes. This is a magical time. And you don’t want to miss it because there’s another task to be done.

But sooner or later, you’ll be ready to start planning! Wedding Priestess called Jen Thomas of Bud to Blossom Events in Philadelphia. To get us started, the first questions I asked were the first questions we all ask. “Jen, how do we get started? What do we need to do first?”

Jen’s very practical response included two clear cut assignments (how did you know she was going to say this?):

• Set a budget! A budget is going to help you determine where to look. It can cost $200 a person at a big venue. Your budget is going to help you figure out what makes sense – and Wedding Priestess certainly hopes you’re going to be sensible about your budget!
• Get a guestimate of guests! venues are number specific, can’t have 400 in an intimate inn! This means you need to think a little about what kind of wedding you want to have or how many relatives you want to invite! The most romantic venue in the world can be all wrong for you if the two of you are longing for a large family wedding.

Before you get final answers to these questions, you need to be clear who’s going to be setting the budget. Are you paying for your wedding? Are your parents helping or perhaps paying for everything? If your parents are paying, who’s making the decisions about the venue, size, etc? Remember, the greater percentage you spend, the more the decisions are yours to make.

Tip: It’s all about making choices. If you’re not a great decision maker, or you want some help figuring out what the options are, a wedding consultant is going to be wonderful support. Remember, most wedding consultants work on both an hourly or a project basis, so there are lots of ways you can get help!

On the twelfth Day of Christmas, My True Love gave to me
Twelve acts of peace
Eleven paths to friendship
Ten ways you love me
Nine hours of sleeping
Eight gifts of bounty
Seven days a-helping
Six stolen kisses
Five looks of Love
Four calling friends
Three snow strolls
Two nestling hearts
And a day free of expectations.

This is a Wedding Priestess Prejudice. Peace needs to be a value in your relationship. You need to live in peace with one another. You need to find a way to make peace with your differences and your (dare I say it?) eccentricities. The great thing about being a whole person is that you’re odd and individual. When you enter into relationship, you take all your oddities and all your individuality and rub it up against your partner’s. And that’s great. But you need to do that with respect and hope and plans for working things out.

And then you need to take that out into the world. Because whatever you believe about how you deal with what’s happened, it’s important to know that respect and hope will change things going forward. How you meet the world is often how you will be met. And a peaceful world is what you want to give your family.

Tip: Today marks the end (no really? Well, ok, it’s Three Kings Day tomorrow and in Sweden, you take advantage of Epiphany to dance the Christmas tree out of the house!) of the holiday season. Nothing big coming until groundhog day! Thank you for spending the season with me. Thank you for looking creatively at how to spend your holidays in a way that will enhance your wedding planning, your wedding and, most importantly, your happily, healthily ever-after marriage.

Now, go practice!

On the eleventh Day of Christmas, My Beloved gave to me
Eleven paths to friendship
Ten ways you love me
Nine hours of sleeping
Eight gifts of bounty
Seven days a-helping
Six stolen kisses
Five looks of Love
Four calling friends
Three snow strolls
Two nestling hearts
And a day free of expectations.

Too often when people fall in love, their interest in their long-term friends falls away. Now, this is somewhat understandable, after all, the species has survived because of the power of infatuation. Being swept away keeps us moving into marriage and family. But we are more than our hormones! And we need friends with whom to hang out, celebrate and commiserate.

As you get ready to choose your attendants, there are many ways to think through who will stand with you as you step forward into your life. It’s true your BFF from kindergarten probably needs to be there. But what are the qualities that you and your beloved truly value in friends.

• List 11 ways you are a good friend. If your list isn’t as long as you’d like it to be, there’s some work for the new year! Being a good friend is a fairly fundamental characteristic of being a good person, in the Wedding Priestess’ humble opinion.
• Then list 11 ways that friends support, challenge, stimulate and amuse you.
• What are the most important characteristics to you?
• Then consider your friends in light of those characteristics. Who among them have been really good friends?
• Are they the same people you were considering as attendants? Were there people missing from your attendant list?

Tip: It’s fine if you’ve already made your attendant choices and this list teaches you something different. You now have the opportunity to find other ways to weave these people into your lives. The success and health of your marriage is enhanced by being a member of a thriving, healthy community. So as the Girl Scout song says “Make new friends, but keep the old, One is silver and the other gold!)

On the tenth Day of Christmas, My Sweetpea gave to me
Ten ways you love me
Nine hours of sleeping
Eight gifts of bounty
Seven days a-helping
Six stolen kisses
Five looks of Love
Four calling friends
Three snow strolls
Two nestling hearts
And a day free of expectations.

What’s just as amazing as the love you have for your partner is the love he or she has for you. Tonight, I want you to sit down together. Light your advent candles if you still have them, or just light some candles! Bring 10 sheets of paper, or ten note cards apiece. Cuddle for a bit.

Then sit and list ten things about your that your partner loves and the ways he or she shows that love. Then read them aloud. Having trouble getting started? Write two. Read them aloud. Write 3 more. Read all five aloud. Write another 2. Read all seven. Another 2. Read nine. And then your last one. Read all ten. Each time you read, you reinforce the ways you are loved.

(if you really want to up the pleasure, before you start, write on a piece of paper ten ways you love your partner. Don’t read these until after you’ve done your own assessments. It’s a thing of beauty to hear how well you are loved!)

Carry these cards with you. If you’re having trouble during the wedding planning process. Stop and read them again. The more you know about how you are loved, the less easy it is to push it away. If it’s too hard to think of things, or it’s too hard to accept, then you may need to work through this. (If you really can’t think of ten ways your partner loves you and your partner can’t come up with ten ways, you may want to consider why you’re planning a wedding!) It is a blessing to have someone love you. Honor that gift by taking it seriously and cherishing your lover for his or her gifts of love.

On the tenth Day of Christmas, My Sweetpea gave to me
Ten ways you love me
Nine hours of sleeping
Eight gifts of bounty
Seven days a-helping
Six stolen kisses
Five looks of Love
Four calling friends
Three snow strolls
Two nestling hearts
And a day free of expectations.

What’s just as amazing as the love you have for your partner is the love he or she has for you. Tonight, I want you to sit down together. Light your advent candles if you still have them, or just light some candles! Bring 10 sheets of paper, or ten note cards apiece. Cuddle for a bit.

Then sit and list ten things about your that your partner loves and the ways he or she shows that love. Then read them aloud. Having trouble getting started? Write two. Read them aloud. Write 3 more. Read all five aloud. Write another 2. Read all seven. Another 2. Read nine. And then your last one. Read all ten. Each time you read, you reinforce the ways you are loved.

(if you really want to up the pleasure, before you start, write on a piece of paper ten ways you love your partner. Don’t read these until after you’ve done your own assessments. It’s a thing of beauty to hear how well you are loved!)

Carry these cards with you. If you’re having trouble during the wedding planning process. Stop and read them again. The more you know about how you are loved, the less easy it is to push it away. If it’s too hard to think of things, or it’s too hard to accept, then you may need to work through this. (If you really can’t think of ten ways your partner loves you and your partner can’t come up with ten ways, you may want to consider why you’re planning a wedding!) It is a blessing to have someone love you. Honor that gift by taking it seriously and cherishing your lover for his or her gifts of love.