Weddings Are Not Just the Woman's Day

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My wife and I have often heard that a wedding is "The Woman's Day," and therefore, she makes all the decisions. But, is this true? Here are five reasons why the wedding day is not just for the bride and why couples should work together to prepare for marriage:

1. Is she getting married alone? Doesn't it take two to have a wedding and a marriage? The answer usually comes, "Yes, but the woman has been dreaming about this day for a lot longer than he has." Okay, just because a woman may have thought about her wedding since she was 10, doesn't mean that her husband doesn't care about the wedding day too. Are his desires superfluous and unimportant?

This kind of reasoning may be understandable when we are children, but as adults, it's crucial that we remove all selfishness from our relationships and realize that we are embarking on a life-long journey together. After all, I know women who have controlled every last detail of their big day and ended up divorced within a year because they didn't understand what the day was about or what it took to make a marriage work.

2. What you do before marriage matters. Many men are happy to take a back seat and let the woman plan everything while they do little to nothing. Many women are happy to accept that responsibility. However, this will only hurt your marriage from the beginning, and it could be the sign of deeper problems to come. Why?

Because what you do before marriage sets the tone for what you do in marriage. It's no wonder that many women suffer in their marriages, complaining that they have to "do everything" while the husband "does nothing." It might be fun to get everything you want on that big day, but eventually, ladies begin to resent a man who always has to be called upon to take part in the marriage.

Comfort, sloth, control, and selfishness, are things that destroy a marriage like the plague. Marital love is the opposite of both selfishness and sloth. Therefore, it is important that both man and woman get outside their comfort zones and work together.

3. Discover unclaimed baggage. Planning a wedding together allows you to really get to know each other in a necessary way. It will help you to learn the way each other thinks and makes decisions, how your significant other communicates and handles conflict, whether they are controlling or abusive, if they can problem solve and work through difficulties, what annoys them, pleases them, and so much more. There will be many surprising things emerging during this time, and that is good.

My wife never really disagreed much until engagement. Then, some of our baggage began to rear its ugly head. Moreover, we didn't always see eye to eye on what our marriage day would look like. So, we had to learn to work through these problems and differences of opinion. This caused us to have to practice healthy conflict resolution, self-sacrifice, and joint compromise based on selfless love. We learned to recognize the way the other needed to be loved, not the way we felt like loving.

4. Learn how to communicate. We also learned how to effectively communicate with each other and learned what communication aspects needed work. We learned what to say and what not to say, what set each other off, how to respectfully discuss differences of opinion, and much more. The best thing is that we grew so much closer to each other through it all. These lessons are indispensable for a successful marriage and for the rest of our lives. Great marriages don't just happen--they are made!

5. Find out the truth before it is too late. For some, problems may escalate in engagement to a point of exploding. A couple may find that they cannot work through their problems, or serious issues arise in a person that were not seen before. As difficult as this may be, isn't it more important to find this all out before it's too late?

The virtues that form our character and the important skills that every couple needs during marriage do not magically appear when you say, "I Do," they are formed and developed long before that. They should be cultivated during the engagement time.

Engagement is very important. It is not a time to discern whether this particular person is supposed to be your spouse. That should have already been discerned before you asked them. Engagement is a springtime of growing together in love, of cultivating that love, of planning the rest of your life together, and building a solid foundation on which to build happily-ever-after. Take that time seriously and enjoy all of your moments together!

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