Building a Marriage That Will Last a Lifetime Authors Greg and Erin Smalley open their hearts and share their lives in Before You Plan Your Wedding...Plan Your Marriage so that you can know not only how to build a marriage that will last, but also how to have the kind of marriage where you and your spouse feel safe and honored and valued. When you feel safe, your heart will be open -- and open hearts make for fulfilling, powerful relationships. Find out about the "fear dance" and how to stop dancing it. Discover the two biggest issues that threaten every marriage and how to stop them before they start. Learn what's more important than finding your soul mate and the significance of happiness in your union. As wonderful as a wedding is, it lasts only for a brief time -- yet marriage is meant to last a lifetime. This important book will show you how to plan your marriage before you plan your wedding.

Today, marriages have a 50 percent chance of lasting. Longing to improve those odds, pastor Clayton King, author of the popular Dying to Live, and his wife, Sharie, reveal a revolutionary biblical perspective—at the heart of a godly union is a heart of service. Love is more about understanding one’s spouse than being understood. Offering wisdom from God’s Word and beneficial advice from their decade of marriage, the Kings present 12 relationship-building questions for couples to ask before they wed. They guide and encourage couples to discuss their: religious backgrounds past relationships desires for family and future financial habits and goals vocational aspirations These questions reveal expectations and concerns and help each person understand the needs and hopes of their loved one. A great resource for churches, counselors, dating couples, and young men and women who dream of a forever marriage.

OVER 500,000 COPIES SOLD! “Most people spend far more time in preparation for their vocation than they do in preparation for marriage.” With more than 45 years of experience counseling couples, Gary has found that most marriages suffer due to a lack of preparation and a failure to learn to work together as intimate teammates. So he put together this practical little book, packed with wisdom and tips that will help many develop the loving, supportive, and mutually beneficial marriage they envision, such as: What the adequate foundation for a successful marriage truly is What to expect about the roles and influence of extended family How to solve disagreements without arguing How to talk through issues like money, sex, chores, and more Why couples must learn how to apologize and forgive Ideal for newly married couples and those considering marriage, the material lends itself to heart-felt, revealing, and critical conversations for relational success. Read this bookand you’ll be prepared for—not surprised by—the challenges of marriage. - Bonus features include: Book suggestions and an interactive websites to enhance the couples’ experience “Talking it Over” questions and suggestions to jumpstart conversations over each chapter Appendix on healthy dating relationships and an accompanying learning exercise

Building a Marriage That Will Last a Lifetime Authors Greg and Erin Smalley open their hearts and share their lives in Before You Plan Your Wedding...Plan Your Marriage so that you can know not only how to build a marriage that will last, but also how to have the kind of marriage where you and your spouse feel safe and honored and valued. When you feel safe, your heart will be open -- and open hearts make for fulfilling, powerful relationships. Find out about the "fear dance" and how to stop dancing it. Discover the two biggest issues that threaten every marriage and how to stop them before they start. Learn what's more important than finding your soul mate and the significance of happiness in your union. As wonderful as a wedding is, it lasts only for a brief time -- yet marriage is meant to last a lifetime. This important book will show you how to plan your marriage before you plan your wedding.

A companion to the popular website APracticalWedding.com and A Practical Wedding Planner, A Practical Wedding helps you sort through the basics to create the wedding you want -- without going broke or crazy in the process. After all, what really matters on your wedding day is not so much how it looked as how it felt. In this refreshing guide, expert Meg Keene shares her secrets to planning a beautiful celebration that reflects your taste and your relationship. You'll discover: The real purpose of engagement (hint: it's not just about the planning) How to pinpoint what matters most to you and your partner DIY-ing your wedding: brilliant or crazy? How to communicate decisions to your family Why that color-coded spreadsheet is actually worth it Wedding Zen can be yours. Meg walks you through everything from choosing a venue to writing vows, complete with stories and advice from women who have been in the trenches: the Team Practical brides. So here's to the joyful wedding, the sensible wedding, the unbelievably fun wedding! A Practical Wedding is your complete guide to getting married with grace.

The author of A Practical Wedding offers a no-nonsense wedding planner, with all the tools, tips, and strategies to get the celebration you want, on a budget you can actually afford Whether you're newly engaged or haven't quite made anything official yet, but you know you want to spend your lives together, you're going to need help planning your wedding. When you're ready to take a deep breath and start, this is the book you want--need--to have. From figuring out what you really want--as opposed to what everyone else thinks you should want--to helping you keep an eye on the ceremony itself and the vows, Meg Keene, founder of apracticalwedding.com, covers all the essentials. With checklists (such as flowers, food, final venue walk-through) and key spreadsheets (guest list and seating chart, budget, venue search, and more), A Practical Wedding Planner helps you: Set a budget--and stick to it Choose a venue: traditional, non-traditional, and everything in between Hire good vendors and keep your friendors (and tells you why DIY doesn't always save money) Figure out catering, rentals, and everything else Pinterest forgot to tell you Reality-check wedding dér Create and write a ceremony that really represents both of you Get everyone to show up...and have a good time

Seven essays celebrating the beauty of the imperfect marriage. We hear plenty about whether or not to get married, but much less about what it takes to stay married. Clichés around marriage—eternal bliss, domestic harmony, soul mates—leave out the real stuff. After marriage you may still want to sleep with other people. Sometimes your partner will bore the hell out of you. And when stuck paying for your spouse’s mistakes, you might miss being single. In Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, Ada Calhoun presents an unflinching but also loving portrait of her own marriage, opening a long-overdue conversation about the institution as it truly is: not the happy ending of a love story or a relic doomed by high divorce rates, but the beginning of a challenging new chapter of which “the first twenty years are the hardest.” Calhoun’s funny, poignant personal essays explore the bedrooms of modern coupledom for a nuanced discussion of infidelity, existential anxiety, and the many other obstacles to staying together. Both realistic and openhearted, Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give offers a refreshing new way to think about marriage as a brave, tough, creative decision to stay with another person for the rest of your life. “What a burden,” Calhoun calls marriage, “and what a gift.”