To The Newly Engaged: Don’t Lose the Marriage in the Wedding

 

Key Verse

“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
— Mark 10:9

Daniel and Karla, congratulations! 

There is something deeply joyful about watching two people reach the point where they can look at one another and say, "I choose you. I want to build my life with you". As your family, we are excited for you both. We are excited about the wedding, the plans, the celebration, and all the memories that will come with this season. But even more than that, we are excited about the life you are choosing to build together.

Marriage Is A Wonderful Gift

It is not perfect, and it is not always easy, but there is something incredibly meaningful about having one person who becomes your partner through all of it—the celebrations, the disappointments, the ordinary days, the unexpected turns, and the years you cannot yet imagine.

So, enjoy this season - Take pictures. Laugh together. Dream together. Talk about the future. Enjoy being engaged. But somewhere between choosing a venue and deciding who sits where at the reception, remember something much more important:

The wedding is not the prize - The marriage is.

A wedding may last a few hours, but the marriage is supposed to last a lifetime. Sometimes, strangely enough, the process of preparing for the wedding can cause a couple to temporarily lose sight of the very relationship they are celebrating. Planning a wedding has a way of putting pressure on places that were never under much pressure before:

• Money becomes real.
• Expectations become real.
• Family dynamics become real.
• One person may care deeply about something the other person considers insignificant.
• One may want a large celebration while the other would happily disappear to a quiet beach with ten people and a pastor.
• Parents may have opinions.
• Grandparents may have expectations.
• Friends may offer advice.
• Someone may feel left out.
• Someone may feel overlooked.
• Someone will almost certainly say, “You have to do it this way.”

And before long, two people who were excited about spending the rest of their lives together can find themselves arguing over centerpieces, invitations, budgets, or whether a cousin they have not spoken to in seven years needs to be invited.

That is when perspective becomes important, because wedding-planning disagreements are rarely only about the thing being discussed. Sometimes the argument about money is really about security and the disagreement about the guest list may actually be about family loyalty. The frustration over how much one person seems to care about the details may really be a fear that the other person does not value what matters to them.

And under enough stress, even a very good relationship can experience moments when one or both people quietly wonder:

Why are we fighting this much?

Do they really understand me?

Do I really want to deal with this forever?

Maybe even:

Do I really love them enough to do this?

Those thoughts can be frightening when you are engaged but a difficult week of wedding planning is not necessarily a revelation that you chose the wrong person. Sometimes it simply reveals that you are two human beings learning how to make decisions together and that lesson will continue long after the wedding.

You will make decisions about:

• Jobs.
• Homes.
• Children.
• Money.
• Vacations.
• Parents.
• Holidays.
• Health.
• Retirement.
• Responsibilities.

There will be seasons when one of you feels strongly about something the other barely cares about. There will be moments when you misunderstand one another. There will be times when you are tired, stressed, worried, or afraid and do not communicate particularly well. Marriage does not eliminate those moments; marriage teaches you how to walk through them together. That is why engagement is about much more than preparing for a ceremony. because you are already beginning to learn how to become husband and wife.

Protect the Relationship While You Plan the Celebration

One of the most important things an engaged couple can learn is that not every disagreement needs a winner. Sometimes the healthiest question is not:

Who is right?

It is:

What protects us?

You are not opponents negotiating against one another, you are becoming a team. If winning an argument leaves the person you love feeling unheard, dismissed, or defeated, you may have won the decision and harmed the relationship. There will be times when one of you needs to say, “This matters more to you than it does to me, so let’s do it your way.” There will also be moments when you need to stop talking about the wedding altogether - 

Go to dinner.

Take a walk.

Watch a movie.

Laugh.

Hold hands.

Remember why you are getting married in the first place, not every conversation needs to involve a checklist. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your future marriage is to spend an evening remembering that you actually enjoy being together.

Your Families Love You—But This Is Your Marriage

Parents can be an enormous blessing during an engagement, they can help, they can encourage, they can offer wisdom and they may contribute financially. They may simply be excited that their son or daughter has found someone they love. Most parental involvement comes from a good place, but good intentions do not always prevent unnecessary pressure.

Parents can accidentally begin treating the wedding as though it belongs to them. Traditions may suddenly become non-negotiable, expectations may appear that the couple never knew existed, one family may do things very differently from the other and sometimes an engaged couple discovers that saying “no” to someone they love is harder than expected.

This is part of preparing for marriage too.

Scripture gives us a picture that appears all the way back in Genesis:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
— Genesis 2:24

That does not mean abandoning your families, it means something new is being formed - a new family.

Your marriage must eventually become the primary earthly relationship in your lives. Parents should be honored, advice should be considered, wisdom should be welcomed, but the two people getting married must learn how to stand together.

A healthy sentence for engaged couples to learn is:

“Thank you. We’ll talk about it together.”

Not, “My mom says…”

Not, “Your dad thinks…”

Not, “Everybody agrees with me…”

Just:

“We’ll talk about it together.”

That small sentence begins building something important, unity.

Pay Attention to How You Handle the Hard Moments

Engagement is a good time to notice patterns, not with suspicion but with wisdom. When you disagree:

- Can you still be respectful? 

- Can you apologize? 

- Can you say, “I was wrong”? 

- Can you listen without immediately preparing your defense? 

- Can you talk about money honestly? 

- Can you discuss family boundaries?

- Can you talk about faith?

What about:

- Children?

- Careers?

- Where do you want to live?

- What marriage means to each of you?

These conversations are much more important than choosing the perfect wedding colors. Do not be afraid of serious conversations because you worry they will ruin the happiness of being engaged. Healthy couples do not avoid difficult subjects; they learn how to talk about them. If something concerns you, talk about it, if something hurts, say so, if you do not understand one another, keep talking until you do and if you find an area where you genuinely need help, there is wisdom—not embarrassment—in talking with a pastor, mentor, counselor, or experienced married couple before the wedding.

The goal is not simply to arrive at the altar; the goal is to build something capable of carrying you far beyond it.

Remember What You Are Actually Choosing

On your wedding day, you are not promising that every season will be easy, you are not promising that neither of you will ever change, you are not promising that you will always feel exactly the way you feel during your engagement. You are promising faithfulness and you are choosing one another. Marriage will give you moments of extraordinary joy:

• There will be inside jokes that no one else understands.
• Trips you will remember forever.
• Quiet evenings that somehow become precious.
• Children may come.
• Homes may change.
• Careers will rise and fall.

You will watch one another grow older, you will celebrate victories together and sometimes hold each other through losses you never imagined when you stood at the altar and, if you stay faithful through all of it, something beautiful begins to happen - you build a shared life. It is not a perfect one, but it is a shared one. History accumulates between you:

• Stories.
• Sacrifices.
• Mistakes.
• Forgiveness.
• Traditions.
• Memories.

Years later, you may look across a room at the person you married and realize that the greatest thing you created together was never the wedding, it was the life that followed.

Living This Out

During your engagement, make one commitment to each other:

We will not sacrifice our relationship for our wedding.

When planning becomes stressful, remember that the person sitting across from you matters more than the decision on the table. When families have opinions, listen respectfully—but decide together. When disagreements happen, fight for understanding rather than victory. Every once in a while, intentionally spend time together where discussing the wedding is off limits, just be the two people who fell in love.

One day the decorations will come down, the flowers will fade, the photographs will be stored away, the dress will go into a closet, the guests will go home, and the two of you will wake up together and begin the real adventure.

Marriage.

A Final Thought

Daniel and Karla, my prayer for you both is not simply that you have a beautiful wedding day, I truly hope you do. I hope the day is filled with joy, laughter, family, good memories, and all the little moments you will talk about years later, but my prayer for you goes far beyond that day.

My prayer is that you build a marriage where you never stop choosing one anothe, that when life becomes busy, you remember to make time for each other. That when you disagree, you learn to fight for the relationship instead of fighting to win. That when one of you is tired, discouraged, or struggling, the other becomes a safe place to land. That you learn how to forgive quickly, laugh often, speak honestly, and extend grace freely.

I pray that you protect your marriage when outside voices become loud, that you seek wisdom without surrendering the responsibility God has given the two of you to build your own home together, and that your faith becomes something you share rather than something you simply practice beside one another.

I pray that the two of you experience all the wonderful things marriage can become—not because every season will be easy, but because you continue walking through every season together.

And someday, many years from now, when the wedding photographs have faded a little and the details of the reception are harder to remember, I pray you can look at each other and know that the greatest decision you made during this season was not the venue, the flowers, the guest list, or any other part of the wedding.

It was choosing each other and continuing to choose each other every day after.

Congratulations, Daniel and Karla.

We love you both, we are excited for what lies ahead, and we are praying for the marriage that begins when the wedding ends.