Your Wedding

I have now ruined 4 pans in the last 5 months! Mind you, I have been cooking since I was about 10 or 11 and have never ruined even one pan in all the years I have been cooking.  And now in the last 5 months I have ruined 4 pans.  What is going on?  My husband thinks I am just trying to get him to buy me a new set of pots and pans.  I am really not.

While your wedding day is super important, don’t let all the planning become a dangerous distraction from your life outside the wedding.

Picture of a report card

Yesterday I confessed to my sad lack of self-control.  Now it is your turn.  In what areas are you failing to control yourself?

Physical:

• How often do you exercise?
• Are you trying to lose weight using unhealthy means such as deprivation diets or over-exercising?
• Are you eating nutritionally sound meals and the right number of them?

Spiritual:

• Are you spending quality time daily with God or letting your wedding planning take over?
• Are you reading up on what it means to be a godly wife?
• Have you started skipping church because there is just too much to be done to get ready for your wedding?

Relational:

• How long has it been since you asked your friends about their lives instead of updating them on your wedding plans?
• When was the last time you spent an evening alone with your mom and dad just chatting with them?
• Are you asking your fiancé about his plans for the future or just telling him how you want things to be?

Bridal:

• Have you been listening to suggestions from others about your wedding ceremony or insisting on having things all your own way?
• Are you planning a wedding that will strain your budget and that of your parents for years to come, or are you looking for ways to save money?
• Are people already tired of hearing about your wedding day?

Financial:

• Have you gone overboard buying things for your new house?
• Are you borrowing money you don’t have to pay for your wedding or your house furnishings?
• Have you set a budget for your wedding or are you just buying things as you see them?

Please take some time to reflect on those areas.  Which ones are troublesome for you?  Where are you most tempted to demonstrate a lack of self-control?  Paul told Titus in Titus 2:4 that younger women should be trained to be self-controlled.  Make it a point today to start training yourself to be in control.

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I was looking at my engagement ring yesterday.  As I was scrubbing it, I was thinking about how beautiful it is when it shines.  I realized that it would not be nearly as stunning if it didn’t have all those faces on it.  A diamond with only a few faces would not be nearly as spectacular as one with many faces.  How about you?  Are you a one- dimensional bride?  According to the dictionary, one-dimensional means lacking depth.  Do you lack depth?  When I was preparing for my wedding, I know I had a serious lack of depth.  All I could think about was the wedding.  All I could talk about was the wedding.  All I could do was plan for the wedding.  That one-dimensional focus made me pretty hard to be around.  Even the people who loved me most got tired of hearing about this and that about my wedding.

I don’t want you to make the same mistake.  Don’t focus on your wedding planning and neglect to take care of the rest of you.  Exercise.  Study your Bible. Spend time with friends (and not talk about the wedding).  Go for walks with your fiancé (and don’t bring along a magazine with hundreds of pictures of wedding cakes for him to choose from).  Be the many-dimensional person you are.  You will find yourself less stressed and better prepared for the wedding day and beyond.

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Getting engaged is the beginning of one of the most exciting times in your life, but it is unquestionably one of the most stressful too.  There is so much to plan and prepare for that a young bride can find herself overwhelmed and grouchy.  You have probably heard the term “bridezilla” referring to a bride who is bossy, rude, and extremely hard to deal with.  No one expects to turn into a bridezilla, but feeling overwhelmed and out of control can turn even the sweetest of people into a monster.  With our Diamond Marriage Planner, I can take out some of the stress of planning for your big day and beyond.

Most brides are eager to start making preparations for their wedding and get so engrossed in the details that they forget that the wedding is just one day (albeit a very important day), but the marriage is for a lifetime.  I will help you prepare for both the big day and also for the future.  To help your preparations go smoothly what you need is a plan (or a couple of clones, but until that technology is perfected you will have to settle for a plan).  You need to get organized, and that is what the Diamond Marriage Planner will do for you.  I will walk you through the tasks you need to accomplish week by week.  Although I can’t promise all your pre-wedding stress will be gone, I can promise that it will be greatly reduced.  If you follow my week-by-week guide, you will be making preparations in 5 important areas.

• Physical:  You will be doing workouts so you will look and feel your best for your big day.  The exercises are designed to burn calories, tone your body, and give you the extra energy that will be necessary for you to complete all the pre-wedding tasks.  After these workouts, you will be confident enough to wear that bikini or lingerie on your honeymoon!
• Financial:  This is the area most couples overlook in their planning, which is a huge mistake.  Nothing can sink a tender marriage faster than arguing over finances.  In our financial preparation section, we will walk you through determining your spending habits, setting financial goals for your marriage, deciding on things like debt and overtime work and setting up a checking account.  This is one topic you won’t want to skip!
• Bridal:  This section will most likely be the most fun for you to complete.  Here you will get to decide on a wedding dress, pick out a location for your reception, and complete all those other details that will make your wedding day extremely special.  Even here you will need the planner to help you organize what needs to be planned first and what can wait a few weeks.  You will have a checklist so you don’t realize two days before the wedding that you forgot something that needed to be done weeks ago.  You will still get to make all the fun choices, but you will have a guide along the way.
• Relational:  Unless you have lived as a hermit on a deserted island for the last 20 years, getting married will affect your relationship with your family and friends.  You will want to make this transition from daughter/sister/friend to wife without totally alienating those people who have loved and supported you all these years.  With week by week relational tasks, you will get the opportunity to spend quality time with your family and your friends even as you prepare to separate from them to marry the man of your dreams.  With concrete ideas for getting your support system involved in your marriage plans, you can show them that your relationship with them will change, but they will always be an integral part of your life.
• Spiritual:  Will I be a good wife?  What does God say about marriage?  How can I encourage my new husband after we are married?  If you have ever wondered those things, you will be eager to complete our spiritual preparation component.  With a new Bible study each week, you will take a guided tour of what it means to be a good wife using Biblical wives and women as our examples.  You will not only learn how the Biblical woman demonstrated or neglected her role as a good wife, but you will have lots of opportunities for reflection where you think about how her story relates specifically to you and your spouse to be.  You will be recording your thoughts about your upcoming marriage and stories of your engagement that you will want to remember and look back on when you two are old and gray and rocking away on your front porch.  Acknowledging God’s plan for your life and marriage will be the most essential part of creating a marriage that is rock-solid.

Besides including all of this wonderful planning material, the Diamond Marriage Planner is completely customizable!  Whether you are getting married in 3 weeks or 6 months, the planner will fit your marriage schedule.  Although it is laid out in a week-by-week format, if your wedding is being held sooner than the 16 weeks of the course format, you can just do the tasks for two or three weeks in one week.  If you aren’t getting married for a few months, you can spread out some of the weekly tasks and give yourself some breathing room for things that might take a little longer than you expected.  You can also pick and choose the portions of the course that interest you most and purchase them separately.  Although I recommend the complete package because each section contains valuable information, if you only want one or two sections, you are welcome to purchase only those sections.   It is up to you.

By following the week-by-week tasks in each of these 5 areas, you will be a more organized, more efficient, and well-rounded bride.  You will be prepared not only for the big day, but for each and every day that follows.

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