Maybe you’ve recently become engaged and you’re now in the throes of enthusiastically planning your wedding day? This will probably be the greatest day of your lives and you will make every effort to make this a wonderful family celebration. You will perhaps have no shortage of advisers and family wedding planners to help you realise your perfect day? You are possibly also conscious that weddings are very expensive undertakings in which enormous attention to detail is required to see you through this wonderful day? And unless, within the crucial areas, couples are united in mind and spirit of agreement, wedding preparations can be sometimes become stressful and contentious.

So perhaps the key question you are both now encountering is whatkind of wedding do you want? Do you want your special day to be a small intimate family gathering or do you want a larger more inclusive wedding? Have you agreed on the date? Have you decided together if you want a civil ceremony or a church wedding? Do you have a religious dimension to your lives and do you wish your special day to be blessed by God within the sacrament of marriage? Have you decided on the hotel and the wedding menu? And, perhaps most essentially, have you made financial provision for your wedding?

Do you have a wedding budget? How do you propose to finance yourwedding? Will you borrow from the bank or the credit union? Can you afford to borrow for your wedding day? Is this what you both want? Is your wedding being financed partly by parents or family members, and if so will this come with requirements of meeting their needs within your special day? Will these requirements impact adversely on what you both want? If this is the reality, how might you feel about your own plans being diluted or compromised?

Are you planning your wedding together or has one of you delegated the detail of planning and preparation to the other? Are you comfortable with this arrangement, or would you like more active involvement from your partner? Have either of you unilaterally taken over the preparations and make important decisions without consulting the other? In this scenario, how do you think you might feel if the roles were reversed? Are your wedding preparations really inclusive of what you both want? Is it inclusive of both families and the loved ones who really matter to you? Essentially has it become my wedding, or is it our wedding?

Wedding preparations entail a lot of responsibility and choices, real choices. And at times the choices you make are not easy because of the huge weight of preparations on your shoulders; they can possibly upset loved ones who themselves have particular expectations of your special day, perhaps unreal expectations. But the most important aspect for couples preparing for marriage lies in owning your wedding together within a culture of love and sharing. After all, this is your special day.

Exercise:

Discuss with you partner the five most important things that each of you want for your wedding! Discuss together and agree what it is you do not want for your wedding day! Discuss how each of you can help the other in the areas of responsibility that you hold!

For Your Information:

The Accord marriage preparation course, “Marriage – A Journey Not aDestination” offers an extensive series of activities around issues relating to the preparation for marriage. For further information visit:

www.accord.ie