Last night I sat at dinner next to a bride who has actually planned out her wedding ceremony (and her wedding is still months away! Go, grrl!) Her minister was pleased but taken aback. Who plans ahead for this? Who has input to offer their celebrant?
Youtube is great. But it’s not necessarily what weddings should be about.
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!
Once you get engaged, it seems all the focus goes on the wedding. Brides and grooms bustle about getting this and that in order for the big party.
What they don’t do enough of is be engaged in the relationship. This is a time period best used to work out issues, establish patterns and deepen your relationship.
Planning a party is fun. Planning your wedding ceremony is important. But planning a path for your love to grow? It’s essential. And it’s the goal.
Tip: What were the most important moments of your engagement period? How did your relationship deepen over this time? (other than the financial ties you built when you took out a second mortgage to pay for your wedding?)
Patty Potter Fichett, wise woman, wrote these words from Stephen Sondheim on her FB page yesterday:
It struck me as useful advice — advice you don’t want to postpone following. These things don’t only make marriage a joy, they make it a marriage. Togetherness is the goal of your marriage.
That’s why it’s really dangerous to have only one person doing all the wedding planning. Plan your wedding and your marriage together. Wedding planning is a great crucible for forging a working partnership. A wedding isn’t the “bride’s special day,” it’s the event that moves you from engaged to married and celebrates that transition with your friends.
Tip: Want to build the best marriage possible? Start working together at the very beginning… and then share the laughter and the tears that accrue through a lifetime of living into that sharing!
If you’re going to get support from your community, it’s really helpful to acknowledge that you understand that marriage is challenging as well as wonderful. Too many weddings focus only on the pleasure and not on the work of marriage. Too many people split up because they underestimate the work involved in making a live with someone else. And making it look magical and wonderful — that’s an exponential increase in effort. Most people will tell you it’s well worth your while, but it is hard work.
Tip: You want to let your community know that you admire the ways in which they have made their relationships flourish and that you will be needing their support so that you can thrive. You’re going to need them to listen to you and turn you around and shove you back towards home when times are tough. They’ve always supported you and that’s why you’re going to keep looking to them for guidance.