"Mirror, Mirror...On The Wall..."

What I have discovered after 30 years of marriage is that, unlike a single person, being married is like holding up a mirror to my imperfections. Being married has forced me to face myself honestly and consider my character flaws, selfishness, and stinky attitudes, while being challenged to grow and mature in my character and my love for my wife.

Kathleen and Thomas Hart wrote, “Sometimes what is hard to take in the first years of marriage is not what we find out about our partner, but what we find out about ourselves. As one young woman who had been married about a year said, ‘I always thought of myself as a patient and forgiving person. Then I began to wonder if that was just because I had never before gotten close to anyone. In marriage, when John and I began…dealing with differences, I saw how small and unforgiving I could be. I discovered a hardness in me I had never experienced before.’”

I have always thought of myself as reasonably patient and charitable – that is, until I got married and discovered how passionately annoyed I can become at pulling out empty ice cube trays. I grew up in a family that taught: If you take out an ice cube, you refill the tray before you put it back into the freezer. Now I’ll pull out a tray and find nothing more than half an ice cube – which I call an ice chip.

It was amazing how much such a small detail irritated me. I asked my wife, “How much do you love me?” “More than all the world,” she professed. “I don’t need you to love me that much,” I said. “I just want you to love me for seven seconds.” “What on earth are you talking about?” she asked. “Well, I timed how long it takes to fill an ice cube tray and discovered that it’s just seven seconds.”

It finally dawned on me that if it takes my wife just seven seconds to fill an ice cube tray, that’s all it takes me as well. Was I really so selfish that I was willing to let seven seconds’ worth of inconvenience become a serous issue in my marriage? Was my capacity to show charity towards my wife really that limited?

Indeed it was!

Being married is like constantly looking into a mirror and having revealed to you those flaws in your life that you never knew you had…but everyone else did! 

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Wedding Day Emergencies!

During most the weddings that I have officiated, there has always been something that didn’t go quite according to plan.  Mostly they aren’t big things…just minor issues, but many of those minor issues could have been headed off with if a small “Wedding Emergency Kit” was packed.

Anyone can put this kit together, but with all the pressure that the bride is already going through in planning her special day, I would suggest it be someone else with a little more time on their hands.  This could be the responsibility of the of the Bride’s mother, one of the bride’s maids, little sister…anyone who can be trusted to get it all together.

Once the “Wedding Emergency Kit” is assembled, then make sure that whoever is responsible for the kit not only brings it to the ceremony, but also to the reception. It may be necessary for pictures after the ceremony and during the reception.

Here is a list of items you might want to consider putting into your “Wedding Emergency Kit”:

1. Mini sewing kit
2. Tooth Brush and toothpaste
3. Aspirin (any other legally prescribed medication)
4. Bottle of water (for washing down that aspirin)
5. Straws (to hydrate without smudging lipstick)
6. Band-Aids and/or Styptic Pencil (blood on a white wedding dress – not good)
7. Tweezers
8. Tissues (someone is going to start crying)
9. Matching make-up (for touch ups)
10. Spot Remover (“Tide To Go Instant Stain Remover” works GREAT!)
11. Floss (don’t want to “Photoshop” the debris out from between your teeth!)
12. Hair spray
13. Clear nail polish (to keep stockings from running – hair spray works, too)
14. Hairpins, elastic and safety pins
15. Black book of phone numbers (to contact a supplier or an usher at the last moment.)
16. Hem tape (in case no one knows how to sew)
17. Breathe mints (“You may now kiss your smelly-breathed Bride!”)
18. Superglue (for a quick fix! Note: WD-40, duct tape and bailing wire are optional)
19. Food (keep your energy up!)
20. Extra cash (you might want a burger or a Starbucks)

Of course, you can add or delete any of these suggested items, but I promise you, you won’t regret having this “Wedding Emergency Kit”. More than likely, you will need something in it!

"We Can Work Things Out On Our Own!"

Have you thought about pre-marriage counseling? The question may put you off, but before you move on to the next blog, why not take a moment and read what I am about to share with you and see if maybe you might not see the wisdom in considering such an idea. I do find it interesting that people will seek all kinds of advice and counseling when it comes to financial, career, and educational planning, but when it comes to receiving advice for relationship development, there seems to be so much resistance. 

So what keeps many couples from pursuing pre-marriage counseling?  Well, there are a couple of primary reasons, fears, excuses…or whatever you want to call them.

First, many couples believe that living with each other is enough to determine whether or not they are compatible enough to enter into the commitment of marriage. However, statistics show that divorces are actually higher among people who marry after having a de-facto relationship with each other. There is something about marriage that distinguishes from simply living together – which means that pre-marriage counseling is incredibly important to couples who have been cohabitating. Pre-marital counseling is a way of learning how to successfully make the transition from one kind of relationship to another.

Secondly, another big issue or fear is: “What if the issues brought up in counseling cause us to reconsider getting married?” You may get some surprises! It is possible that, even though you have lived together, some of your partner’s attitudes towards certain things that matter to the relationship (such as communication, gender roles, and children) have escaped your notice. Pre-marriage counseling will help you see differences that have an impact – not to discourage you from getting married, but to help you plan ways of overcoming or resolving them. Marriage is an art, and you will be honing your partner by developing relationship skills to increase the chances of a successful marriage.

Lastly, yes…there may be things that may come up that give reason for you or both of you to decide to postpone your wedding until they are resolved. Don’t be afraid to face these issues before you walk down the aisle. It is easier to work through some issues before the event, than when you are married and the stakes are far higher.

You must understand that your wedding is one day in your life, but your marriage is all the rest of the days that come after it. No other relationship comes close in terms of the challenges and triumphs of marriage. It is the most intimate relationship that you will ever choose to be a part of that is humanly possible.

If you are open to considering pre-marital counseling to help prepare you for marriage, then your chances for a great marriage increases. Being willing to look honestly and receive advice requires humility, and humility is one quality that creates success in life. Another name for humility is "teach-ability". If you and your partner are ready to learn new things about your relationship and how to make it the best it can be, then the world is your oyster.

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Traditional Wedding Alternatives

While many people prefer to have a traditional wedding, you might want to do something particularly unusual…something, which you will find more memorable, and perhaps something that your guests will find particularly impressive as well. 



If you want to do something unique, there are plenty of options available to you and the only limit is really your imagination. You might even be interested in trying some extreme wedding scenarios, such as having your wedding performed underwater, in a hot air balloon, skydiving, roller coasters, etc.



There is nothing that says that you have to have your wedding ceremony performed in a church or chapel building. But even if you do desire a traditional wedding, you can still add your personal touches to your wedding ceremony and your wedding officiant should be willing to accommodate you.




You could also go for something with a more of a modern flavor to it, or something that emphasizes refinement and elegance. The ceremony itself can be a more involved with lots of music, special readings, unity ceremonies, blended family ceremonies, cultural traditions and more! Just a word of caution here…be sensitive to your guests, especially if they are sitting outside. You want them to enjoy your wedding…not endure it.




Finding the right setting for your wedding ceremony is important. You may want to consider wedding venues such as nice hotels, resorts, club houses, cruise ships, beaches, forests, parks, old missions, amusement parks…the locations are only limited by your imagination. 

Regardless of whether you want a traditional, unique or extreme wedding, the first rule is: Don't let anyone talk you into doing something you don't want to do! Follow your heart and the only person you need to make sure is comfortable with your ideas is your fiancé.

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“To Struggle, Or Not To Struggle…That Is The Question!”

One of the vows that a couple chose for their wedding ceremony included the lines: "I will laugh with you in the good times
 and struggle with you in the bad."



When it came time for the groom to repeat his vows, he successfully repeated the first half of the line correctly, "I will laugh with you in the good times…"

However, the nervous groom was not so exact in reciting the second half when he said, "…and struggle with you in the bed."



Completely unaware of what he just said, the groom innocently looked out at the wedding guest's who were laughing hysterically...which only made everybody laugh all the harder.

An instant officiant decision had to be made to either have the groom repeat the line or just let it go. By the time the laughter subsided; it was best to just let it go. Why embarrass him any further at suc a crucial point in the ceremony? Besides, a life-long promis to "struggle" with one's spouse in bed can indeed be a worthwhile vow!!  

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“You Want How Much!?…For 20 Minutes!?”

Because of the expense and budget concerns in planning a wedding, I hear brides often lamenting over the cost of hiring a wedding officiant.  One bride even calculated that an officiant who charges $350.00 for 20 minutes of work makes $1,050.00 an hour!  Trust me…if that were true, I wouldn’t be here writing a blog! 

Unfortunately, inherent to the job of a wedding officiant is that people only see the end results (20-30 minutes worth) of his or her work on the day of the wedding.  On top of that, if your officiant is good, he/she can make what they do look very easy and effortless…making one wonder, “What was so hard about that that I had to pay $350.00?”

So allow me to pull up my iCal and let you take a peek at my typical schedule in preparing for one custom wedding ceremony…from booking the date to driving home after my duties are completed at the wedding ceremony.

        -  Initial inquiry and setting of an appointment to meet the couple: 15 min.

        -  Travel to meet with couple: Round trip – 30 min. to 1 hr.

        -  Initial Meeting time: 1 – 2 hours.

        -  Email and phone correspondence: 1 hour

        -  Writing of ceremony: 3 hours

        -  Ceremony revisions: 1 – 2 hours

        -  Travel to rehearsal: Round trip – 30 min. to 1 hr.

        -  Rehearsal: 1.5 hr.

        -  Travel on wedding day: Round trip 30 min. to 1 hr.

        -  WEDDING DAY: (early arrival, ceremony, photos, reception) 2 - 4 hours

        -  Travel home from reception: Round trip – 30 min. to 1 hr.

Now when you look at the 12 to 18 hours spent and divide that by the $350.00 fee, it actually works out to be $19.00 to $32.00 an hour.

In addition, when you hire a professional wedding officiant, you are hiring someone who will also be flexible enough to adjust, add or delete items from the ceremony as late as the rehearsal day.  Your professional wedding officiant will be handling the signing and mailing of your marriage license, dealing with surprises (both man-made and natural) during the ceremony, offering last minute vender referrals due to unexpected vendor cancellations or changes, and making those very uncomfortable “on the spot” announcements to the guests if the bride and/or groom decide not to go through with the marriage on the day of the wedding.

So, there you have it. Not bad for someone you absolutely need at your wedding in order to get married! How many other vendors at your wedding will you be paying less than $32.00 an hour, or less?

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Creatively Announce Your Engagement!

Would you like to announce your engagement in a way that is probably a lot more fun and interesting to your friends than announcing it on Facebook?  I found this on Huffington and thought it might offer a few creative ideas for those of you who aren’t into the “ordinary”.

1. The Funny Video


Who can resist opening up a video link from a friend with a description like "Penguins laughing!" or "Is this puppy drunk?" But when your pals click, they'll instead see a video of you simply saying, "He proposed." Video over. I know I'd crack up if a friend punked me like that. OK, if you want to extend the clip, you can tell the story of how the proposal happened and show off your new sparkler.

2. The Karaoke Song


This one takes some chutzpah (or a few drinks): Gather the girls and plan a karaoke night. Put in your song request, but don't share which tune you've chosen with your friends. Then, with your left hand in your pocket, take the stage to sing something wedding-themed, like "Going to the Chapel" or "White Wedding." For your big finish, take your hand out of your pocket so everyone can see your engagement ring.

3. The Pictogram


These are puzzles that use pictures to send a message. So instead of e-mailing "I'm Engaged," open up Microsoft Paint, slap on a picture of an eye + a picture of a man, + a picture of a car gas gauge (corny alert! Put the needle on full, since you'll be so full of love, aww...) + the letter D, and attach it to an e-mail to all your far-flung friends. Instruct them to sound out what they see--Eye Man Gauge D--and they'll eventually come to the right conclusion.

4. The Little Kid Who Can't Keep a Secret


Got a small child in your extended family? Of course you do. Whisper in her ear that you and your guy are getting married, and tell her it's a secret. Odds are, she won't be able to keep that info to herself and she'll start spreading the news in whispers. If she really is a good secret-keeper, try a different tactic: Tell her that it's her job to make sure everyone knows your good news by the end of the night. Don't be surprised if she spontaneously screams it out!

5. The Message T-Shirt


If you're changing your name, you can get a tank or T-shirt printed with "The Future Mrs. [your man's last name]." Show up to meet your friends wearing that but with a layer over it. At the right time, complain that you're warm and remove your outer layer. They'll figure it out fast.

6. The Facebook Photo Tease


Maybe you love the idea of posting a pic of your engagement ring on Facebook. Fine, fine. I aim to please, so here's a twist on that: Take a photo of your engagement ring, black out all but a tiny piece of it in Paint or Photoshop, and post that picture instead. Tag yourself. The next day, post the same pic of your ring with a different part of the ring visible and the rest of it obscured. Tag yourself again. Do this three more times, once a day. If no one else tags you in any photos during that period, those five pictures will show up in a row at the top of your profile. It'll be fun for your friends to literally put the pieces together.

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Getting Through that First Year of Marriage - Part 2

One issue that is so often misunderstood is the concept of loving your spouse unconditionally. Every couple enters into their marriage commitment wanting and willing to give 100% to their relationship.  With that commitment comes the desire to love each other unconditionally. But because many couples enters into “unconditional love” with one or two faulty views, loving unconditionally in their married relationship actually becomes destructive to their relationship. Those two faulty and unhealthy views are:

1.    Unconditionally love the your spouse by doing whatever you can to make your spouse happy and avoid anything that makes your spouse unhappy (even if it makes you unhappy).

OR…

2.    Unconditionally love for yourself by doing whatever you can to make yourself happy and avoid anything that makes yourself unhappy (even if it makes your spouse unhappy).

The first misconception is wrong because it does not take your own feelings into account, and the second misconception is wrong because it does not take your spouse's feelings into account.

The healthier approach to loving your spouse unconditionally is for both of you to take the feelings of each other into account simultaneously. The more productive approach in loving unconditionally within a married relationship would be to: Do whatever you can to make you and your spouse happy at the same time, and avoid anything that will make either you or your spouse unhappy.

This is a healthy compromise between the two unhealthier approaches because it recognizes that the feelings of both spouses are important and should be accommodated simultaneously in marriage.

Incidentally, the problem you may be having with scheduling time together for dates, as discussed in “Getting Through that First Year of Marriage – Part 1”, may be a reflection of the fact that you are not following the healthier understanding of loving unconditionally. Right now, as you are scheduling regular date time with each other, you may be discovering that when one of you wants to do something badly enough, the other simply allows it to happen without any objection.

If this continues on a regular basis, you will find out very quickly that this only leads to a slow and subtle drifting apart!  Eventually you both will wake up and discover that you are strangers living under the same roof, living separate lives and doing your own thing…and those scheduled dates have virtually stopped!

Don't let that happen!  Develop as a couple a healthy understanding of what it means to love your spouse unconditionally, and keep following it for the rest of your married lives.  If you do, you will be more in love with each other in your Golden Years than you are right now!

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Getting Through that First Year of Marriage - Part 1

The first year of marriage can be so painful that divorce seems like the only escape. That's why more people divorce in the first year of marriage than any other. But the first year can also be a couples' best year of marriage. From my perspective, this is also a tragedy because it means the remaining years are not as good.

One of the most important things that a couple must do from throughout their marriage is to continue to date each other!  Unless you take time to "date" after marriage, you will probably not be able to meet the needs that were met before your were married. If your emotional needs are affection, conversation, and recreational companionship, which were among those that you met for each other before marriage, those needs will stop being met if you don’t make dedicated time in your schedule to be with each other.

Many women consider affection and conversation as emotional foreplay for sexual fulfillment. If you do not spend much time talking to each other, and being affectionate, it is almost a guarantee you that your sexual relationship will suffer, too.

A date should be the time you set aside to meet each other's important emotional needs. Be enthusiastic about what you have planned to do together. If either of you think the time together is a waste of time, more than likely you are not meeting each other's needs.

When you dated before marriage, what you did on dates caused you to fall in love with each other. You need to continue to do the same thing now, or you will lose the feeling of love that contributes to you believing that your love is unconditional.

Your dates don't need to be exactly what you did before marriage. In fact, you may be able to meet each other's needs without actually "going out." But if you stay home, be careful that your time home together doesn’t turn into working on personal projects. Even if your children are married and out of the house, go out to give each other the attention you both need.

When you look at your schedules, you may find that there is no time for dates. Solution…put the dates in first, and then schedule everything else around them!  You will have solved your scheduling problem.

You may find that your dates don’t meet your needs the way it did before you were married. If you find yourself in this boat, then keep doing something different until your needs are met. You both are dynamic beings and you will constantly be changing.  What worked at one point in time may not always continue to work.
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How to Prevent Hiring That "Nut-Job" Officiant!

Hiring an officiant can be a very frustrating process, especially if you are looking for one online!  We all pretty much offer the same thing and make similar claims on our websites.  The only thing that seems to really differ are the officiant fees.  So how do you go about choosing the right officiant for you? The following steps in picking an officiant will be much easier and less stressful if you don't wait until the last minute to choose your officiant! "Huffpost Weddings" suggests eight steps you should take in deciding on an officiant...and I agree!

1. Be sure they're legit. Find out what your local laws require for an officiant to legally perform weddings.  Given the growth of the 'online officiant license' industry, it's best to get 100 percent OK from the township in order to avoid finding out you're not really married because the township doesn't recognize their license.

2. Ask your wedding experts for suggestions. A wedding coordinator will certainly have a list of credited, legal officiants for you to consider, and you'd get the benefit of your planner's experiences with that officiant. You'll have it on good authority that a certain officiant is wonderful and great to work with, or that a certain one is 'quirky.'

3. Don't just book an officiant based on what you see and read on a website. Always schedule an in-person interview, so that you can shake hands, assess the vibe between you, and ask lots of questions. "We rejected a few officiants who gave us the 'this is how I do it' routine, and booked the one who asked us what we wanted," says one recent bride. "We knew we wanted to customize our ceremony, and this officiant was willing to listen to us."

4. Check out the scripts. Most wedding officiants will be able to show you sample scripts of wedding ceremonies they've conducted, as well as lists of suggested readings and songs you might use in your ceremony. These might be in printed book form or as PDFs. Reviewing these gives you an idea of the officiant's style and range of ceremony content. Again, if you get a single script and a scowl, with a 'this is how I do it,' this is likely not the officiant for you.

5. Ask the officiant to read out loud. If the officiant has passed the first few tests, ask him or her to read out loud a small portion of a ceremony script. Some officiants are better public speakers than others. You want to book the officiant who speaks well, not one who delivers in monotone or stumbling, bumbling delivery.

6. Ask what the officiant will wear. Bright purple robes might make you run for the door, but most legitimate officiants will be happy to say, 'a dark suit,' or 'white robes' or show you photos of the ceremonial robe and sash you could expect.

7. Ask if you can customize the ceremony. Some officiants are quite strict about what they will and won't allow -- and some houses of worship require you to choose from their approved song list. So it's not always the officiant's personal fault that a rigid list of what's allowed is in front of you. But still, you want to make sure you can co-create a ceremony you love.

8. Check your gut. Does this officiant make you smile? Do you feel comfortable with this person? Or does he remind you of a scary professor? When you find The One, you just know...

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