Well, You! or at least I’m hoping.

The two of you want to be working on the wedding ceremony. Planning your ceremony is (or should be) planning your marriage. What do you want to say to one another? How would you like your community to support you in your marriage?

Tip: Your wedding ceremony isn’t something you want to be leaving to chance. It’s going to shape your marriage for a long time to come. So why not have some input into that?

Create a kissing tour! Plan a day or an evening around sweet places to kiss. Carry a pocketful of candy hearts. Offer one (and your own great loving heart) at each place. Every place in the world has wonderful places to kiss. And let’s face it , a great kiss can make almost every place in the world wonderful. (yes, that’s a challenge!)

Tip: Think ahead, plan for smooches and get kissing!

Immortalize your kisses and your favorite kissing spots!

Why not use this week to set some new ways of running your relationship? Why not try things that will kick start the romance and the fun!

Consider this: Call your beloved for a date to do some silly thing together.

Yes, I know you see him/her every day. But act as if this relationship is important enough to make a formal request to spend time in one another’s company. And then plan a walk in the snow, or making a snow person or two (if you live along the Atlantic Seaboard, you’re likely to have some snow to play in!

Tip: Start out, or get back to the way you would like to go on! Bring back the romance!: :

So this is a perfect time to get married! (says the woman married on February 2!)

And what better way to celebrate that coming into being than decorating your table with small pots of flowers in differing stages of blooming. Pastel blooms peaking out of green leaves signify the promise to come. An occasional paperwhite burst into full scent foretells what’s to come. Is this sounding like marriage yet?

Tip: Bulbs are a beautiful (and dare I say it, cost effective) way of celebrating your wedding in this season of promise!

Now, doesn’t this image say blooming marriage?

Yes, actually, you can finish up early. You don’t need to be shopping for (fill-in-the-blanks) on Wednesday when you’re getting married on Saturday. Seems to be a little known secret that they sell stockings on weeks other than the one you’re getting married, and if you were planning on wearing hose, they won’t disintegrate if you get them early.

All this running around adds stress. And stress makes for distance between you and your sweetiebeloved. And you are getting married. Distance between you and your sweetiebeloved is not a helpful ingredient for your wedding day.

Tip: It’s important that you sleep right, eat right, and hang out with the wonderful friends who are arriving from around the globe to wish you well. If you’re absolutely hell-bent on your week of stress, go ahead and plan it a month before your wedding. Then you can use this time to hang out with your soon-to-be spouse.

In the run up to the day, as you’re taking care of those last minute somethings, in stores where other brides and grooms are shopping, it’s easy to look across the aisle at something that isn’t on your list and think wow… wouldn’t that be a nice addition to what we’ve got going on.

Resist!

1. It’s not in your budget. And those last minute adds are the budget breakers, even $30 at a time!
2. It’s not in your plan. You very carefully considered what was going to make  your wedding wonderful. You’ve got the elements. No need to gild the lily!
3. It’s just stuff. Stuff you’re going to have to take home. Stuff you’re going to have to dispose of or recycle. Stuff isn’t going to make your wedding sing, the love you share with your community: your love for one another and your love for them is what’s going to make your wedding remarkable.

Antidote: Call a partner and make a date for romance. Go out, share a drink and stare into one another’s eyes. Go home and practice your kiss and see where that leads. Either or both of these are a lot more fun than stress shopping. (And cheaper!)

You’ve got work to do at your wedding. You’re getting married. That’s actually where you want your focus to be on your wedding day, not on whether or not you’re going to nail the over-the-shoulder-flip (in your poofy dress!) during the reception.

Learn a lovely fox trot. If you’re already dancers, you can spice it up a skootch. But really, what you want to be focused on while you’re dancing is how much you love one another, rather than remembering a routine.

Tip: Just be your lovely, wonderful, in-love selves. That will be a marvelous thing to see!

Did the two of you meet at Starbucks through on-line dating? Share a cuppa coffee at your ceremony?

Do you ride bikes together as part of your exercise program? Then come down the aisle on a pedicab — probably the one with the big poofy white dress should ride, but it’ll get a giggle if you go the other way. (I’d practice first, however!)

Don’t over emphasize it, just make it a moment, but acknowledging your life is a good way to help people understand why you’re compatible!

Tip: remember! you want to have a good time at your wedding even as you’re taking it very seriously.

You want to go off to wedding fairs prepared to take notes rather than purchase (unless you already know exactly what you’re looking for!)

These events are filled with lavish excess and that’s a ball to experience. They are not, however, necessarily filled with things you need for your wedding. And they’re built to get you to buy. So be careful. Don’t blow the budget!

Enjoy them, sample all the pastries and rub wonderful creams on your hands. And then go home and make some sound decisions about what you want at your wedding and what realistically, given that your future happiness is still interlinked with your financial groundedness, you can afford!

But it’s January, and time for putting into motion all the plans and dreams from before the holiday madness intervened. So, look here for more helpful hints and thoughts about your relationship, your wedding and your marriage. You’ll want to check in occasionally on the writing I do for Examiner.com and Over at Ezine articles (check out the right-hand side of the page.) and this week, no really, I promise!, you’ll get a glimpse of my new monthly newsletter (called, what else? The Wedding Priestess!) with all sorts of reflections about gettin’ hitched from me and from some of my most beloved wedding colleagues!

It’s going to be a great year. After all, you’re getting married! Or you’re woroking on a really wonderful relationship! Let’s celebrate together!

Believing in you and in your love,

Ann