This morning in the break room at work several of us gals got caught up in a conversation with a newly engaged male co-worker.  He was laughing at the planning board that his soon-to-be-bride is working on and the binders and binders of ideas she has put together as she plans their wedding day (and the festivities leading up to it).  We all looked at him very seriously and scolded him to not make fun of the planning board.

His wedding is over a year away and he was clearly annoyed at how much work was going in to planning for the wedding.  I wanted to say – “Good luck, buddy.  It gets worse before it gets better.”  But I held my tongue.  He’ll learn that one on his own.

And I walked back to my desk, quietly giggling to myself.  Once again I was grateful for our quietly planned elopement… which we later surprised our family and friends with.

But in all seriousness, I have a question for you… my 3 faithful readers.

Did you plan more for your day-long wedding and festivities than you did for your lifelong marriage?

Most people do.  In fact, when you do a Google search on “planning for a marriage” Google suggests that planning for a WEDDING is what you’re really out to find.  So it comes back with wedding planning tips instead…

Planning for a marriage SHOULD take even more time and effort.  Newly married brides are probably laughing at me right now because they know how much work they put into their weddings… how could ANYTHING take up more time?

But it’s true.  Planning for a lifelong commitment takes more time and, believe it or not, more moxie.  And yet so many of us spend so little time doing that.  We fall in love with the idea of falling in love and it feels right so we jump in with both feet before we even have our first “lovers’ quarrel”.  And then we’re afraid of having our first fight so we bite our tongues, biting harder than we’ve EVER bitten our tongues.  And then we might even start resenting the other person for not knowing that we’re biting our tongues… and blaming them for not queuing in to the silence.  And… the list goes on.  But that’s another topic for another blog post.

Planning for a lifelong marriage commitment is serious business.  But good news… it probably won’t be as expensive as planning a wedding and reception!   But it will take some time, dedication and resilience.  And it will require 100% commitment from both parties.

You know what’s really sad?  I’ll leave you with this.  The same Google search about planning a marriage also includes search results for divorce.  As if Google is suggesting it was over before it even began.  Granted, in some cases it may have been.