What is love? Love is worth the preparation.

I’m a big fan of spontaneity y’all. My two tattoos, two dogs, and multiple hair colors certainly remind me of that haha. But marriage was different.

Even though we dated for four years before we got married, I knew I had to schedule a time to prepare for the most important commitment of my life.

So, we signed up for premarital counseling. I cannot stress enough how amazing it was for the both of us.

In premarital counseling, the counselor guided us into discussions we didn’t even think to have or put in the ‘we should probably talk about this one day’ category.

We spend YEARS getting ready for our first job with internships, studying, tests, and interviews, so why wouldn’t we spend any time at all getting ready for our first (hopefully longer-lasting) marriage?

You talk past family dynamics, roles you expect to play/want the other person to play, expectations with children, and baggage that might creep into your marriage at a later time that might be deeply hidden away.

You talk about what the small/big things are to each other, dreams that might be incompatible, best ways to handle unbelievable grief/trials, each other’s glaring weaknesses/significant strengths, the timing for major milestones like children, moving and higher education, and so much more!

The pastor who married us is the one who walked us through counseling, but you can find pre-marital counseling in many other places too.

Marriage is not a “trendy” commitment. It’s not so that you can have a Pinterest wedding with your Pinterest cake and your Pinterest dress.

It is a life-long partnership; it is becoming one person! Strengthen that foundation y’all.

Perfection isn’t what we are aiming for, but preparation sure does help skip a few of those obstacles

Cheers,

Photography by Jared Lichtenberger.