journey from engagement to marriage

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By Gustavo Richards

By Gustavo Richards • November 13, 2023

15 Key Insights for a Fulfilling Marriage Engagement Journey

Understanding marriage engagement: a modern perspective.

Marriage engagement, a significant milestone in many people's lives, is more than just a romantic gesture. It's a commitment to a shared future and a step towards building a life together. In the modern context, engagements have evolved, embracing various cultural, personal, and societal nuances. This section delves into what contemporary marriage engagement entails, reflecting on how traditions have transformed and what these changes mean for couples today.

Today's engagements often involve thoughtful consideration of each partner's aspirations, beliefs, and values. It's a period for couples to discuss their visions of marriage, family, and life goals. Understanding each other's expectations, fears, and hopes during this phase lays a solid foundation for a robust marital relationship.

Another aspect of modern engagements is the involvement of both partners in all decisions, from ring selection to announcing their commitment. This inclusive approach fosters equality and mutual respect, key pillars of a successful marriage.

Lastly, with the rise of social media, engagements are now often shared experiences with friends, family, and even the public. This openness can add a layer of excitement but also requires couples to navigate the balance between their private life and what they choose to share publicly.

Key Takeaways:

Modern marriage engagements blend tradition with contemporary values, emphasizing mutual decision-making and personalization.
Engagement is a crucial time for couples to align their life goals and expectations for their future together.
Inclusivity and equality in decision-making processes strengthen the relationship foundation.
Managing the interplay between private life and public sharing on social media is a unique aspect of modern engagements.

The Emotional Journey of Getting Engaged

Engagement is not just a singular event but a journey filled with a spectrum of emotions. It's a transition from dating to a deeper commitment, often accompanied by excitement, anticipation, and sometimes, anxiety. The moment of proposing or being proposed to can evoke profound feelings of love, joy, and a sense of a shared future. It's a step that signifies the intention to navigate life's challenges and joys together.

Many couples experience a surge of happiness and a deepening of their relationship. Sharing the news with family and friends adds to the celebratory atmosphere, but it can also bring a sense of reality to the commitment being made. It's common for individuals to reflect on their personal and shared goals, considering how this step aligns with their life's trajectory.

For some, the engagement period can bring uncertainties or fears. Concerns about the future, the success of the marriage, or the dynamics of merged families are not uncommon. It's essential to communicate openly with your partner during this time, addressing any worries and reinforcing the foundation of trust and mutual understanding.

The engagement period is also an ideal time for personal growth. It encourages introspection about what each partner brings to the relationship and how they can support each other's dreams and aspirations. Embracing the emotional journey of engagement, with its highs and lows, is key to building a resilient and lasting partnership.

Choosing the Perfect Engagement Ring: Tips and Trends

Choosing an engagement ring is a significant part of the engagement process, symbolizing love and commitment. The decision should reflect the style and personality of your partner, as well as your budget. Recent trends lean towards personalized designs, with couples often opting for custom rings that tell their unique story.

Understanding your partner's preferences in jewelry style, metal type, and stone shape is crucial. Classic diamond solitaries remain popular, but there's a growing interest in alternative stones like sapphires, emeralds, and even non-traditional choices like opals or morganite. The ring's setting and metal – be it gold, platinum, or rose gold – also play a significant role in its overall look.

Sustainable and ethically sourced jewelry is increasingly important. Couples are more conscious of the origins of the stones and metals, opting for conflict-free diamonds and recycled materials. This ethical approach aligns with a broader social responsibility, adding deeper meaning to the ring choice.

Budgeting for the ring is another critical consideration. It's essential to set a realistic budget that aligns with your financial goals as a couple. Remember, the ring's value lies not in its price but in what it represents. Many jewelers offer financing options or customizable choices to fit various budgets.

Technology has also transformed ring shopping. Online retailers provide extensive selections and the convenience of browsing from home. Virtual try-on options and 3D previews help in visualizing how different styles look on the hand, making the selection process easier and more interactive.

Lastly, consider the future wearability of the ring. It should be comfortable, durable, and suitable for everyday wear. Some couples choose designs that can be easily paired with wedding bands or other jewelry, ensuring the ring remains a timeless and cherished piece.

Whether you opt for a traditional diamond or a unique gemstone, the perfect engagement ring is one that resonates with your love story and symbolizes your journey together. Taking the time to choose thoughtfully will result in a treasured symbol of your commitment.

Planning for the Proposal: Creative Ideas and Strategies

The marriage proposal is a momentous occasion in the journey of engagement, often remembered for a lifetime. Planning this event requires thoughtfulness, creativity, and an understanding of what would make it special for your partner. Whether you prefer a grand public gesture or an intimate private moment, the key is to personalize the experience.

One approach is to incorporate elements significant to your relationship. This could be revisiting the place where you first met, involving a cherished hobby, or including a favorite song. Such personalized touches make the proposal more meaningful and memorable.

Surprise proposals continue to be popular, but it's important to gauge your partner's comfort with public attention. If they prefer privacy, consider a quiet, romantic setting. For those who love a grand display, a flash mob or a surprise party might be the perfect choice.

Collaborating with friends and family can add a layer of excitement and support. They can help in logistics, capturing the moment on camera, or even participating in the proposal. Just be sure not to lose the personal touch in the process.

Seasonal or themed proposals also offer unique opportunities. A beach proposal in summer, a cozy winter setting, or a holiday-themed proposal can add a special twist to your engagement story.

With technology, there are innovative ways to propose as well. Think of a video compilation of your journey together, a virtual reality setup, or even a custom website. Such tech-savvy proposals can be both fun and deeply personal.

Remember, the perfect proposal isn't about extravagance but about showcasing your love and understanding of your partner. It's about creating a moment that both of you will cherish forever.

Navigating Family Dynamics During Engagement

Engagement is not just a union of two individuals but often a coming together of families. Navigating family dynamics during this period can be challenging, but it's essential for a harmonious journey to marriage. Open communication and understanding are key to managing these dynamics.

Firstly, it's important to discuss and align on the level of family involvement both partners are comfortable with. This includes decisions about the wedding, financial contributions, and even cultural or religious practices to be incorporated.

Families can offer support and guidance, but they can also have differing opinions and expectations. It's crucial to find a balance between respecting family views and making decisions that align with the couple's values and wishes.

Involving families in the planning process can foster a sense of inclusion and harmony. It's a chance to build relationships and understand each other's backgrounds and traditions. However, setting boundaries is equally important to ensure the couple's voice remains central.

Lastly, if conflicts arise, addressing them calmly and constructively is essential. Seeking the help of a neutral mediator or counselor can be beneficial in resolving issues and maintaining healthy family relationships.

Financial Planning for Your Future Together

Engagement is an ideal time to start discussing and planning your financial future together. Open and honest conversations about finances are crucial for building a strong foundation for your married life. It's about understanding each other's spending habits, savings goals, and financial responsibilities.

Begin by creating a joint budget for your upcoming wedding and married life. Consider your income, debts, savings, and investments. This exercise helps in aligning your financial goals, whether it's buying a house, saving for retirement, or planning for family expansion.

Discussing how to manage joint expenses is also important. Some couples opt for a joint bank account for shared expenses, while others prefer maintaining individual accounts. It's about finding a system that works best for both of you, fostering trust and cooperation.

Finally, consider seeking the advice of a financial planner. They can provide valuable insights on managing finances, tax benefits, insurance, and investment strategies tailored to your joint needs. Remember, effective financial planning is about teamwork and a shared vision for your future together.

The Role of Pre-Engagement Counseling

Pre-engagement counseling, an often-overlooked aspect of preparing for marriage, can play a pivotal role in building a strong, healthy relationship. It's a space for couples to discuss expectations, address potential issues, and develop communication skills.

The counseling sessions offer a safe environment to discuss topics like finances, career aspirations, family planning, and personal values. It helps in uncovering any misalignments or assumptions that could become issues in the future.

Communication is the cornerstone of any relationship. Pre-engagement counseling focuses on enhancing communication skills, teaching couples how to effectively express their thoughts, feelings, and concerns.

Another crucial aspect is conflict resolution. The sessions guide couples in understanding how to handle disagreements constructively, without damaging the relationship. Learning these skills early on can prevent many potential conflicts in married life.

Counseling also helps in setting realistic expectations for marriage. It dispels myths and misconceptions, providing a clearer picture of what a committed relationship entails.

Lastly, pre-engagement counseling can be a proactive step in acknowledging and addressing individual issues, such as past traumas or personal challenges, that could impact the relationship. It's about ensuring that both partners enter marriage with a clear, healthy mindset.

Celebrating Your Engagement: Party Planning Tips

An engagement party is a wonderful way to celebrate your new status as a betrothed couple with friends and family. The key to a successful engagement party lies in planning an event that reflects your personalities and love story. Start by setting a budget to guide all your decisions, from venue to guest list.

When selecting a venue, consider places that are meaningful to your relationship. This could be a favorite restaurant, a picturesque outdoor location, or even a cozy gathering at home. The setting should provide a comfortable and inviting atmosphere for your guests.

The guest list for your engagement party can set the tone for your wedding. It's often advisable to invite those who will also be attending the wedding. This gathering can also serve as a way to introduce key family members and friends to each other before the big day.

Decide on a theme or style for your party. Whether it's a casual barbecue, a formal dinner, or a themed event, your party should reflect your tastes as a couple. Personal touches, like custom decorations or a playlist of songs significant to your relationship, add a special element to the celebration.

Food and drinks are essential components of any party. Whether you opt for a catered affair, a potluck, or homemade treats, ensure there's a variety to cater to different tastes. Don't forget to include a signature cocktail or a special toast to mark the occasion.

Lastly, remember to capture the moments. Hiring a photographer or setting up a photo booth can create lasting memories of your engagement celebration. Above all, the focus should be on enjoying this special time with your loved ones.

Managing Stress and Expectations in Engagement

Engagement, while a joyous occasion, can also bring its share of stress and high expectations. It's essential to manage these pressures to enjoy this special time fully. Begin by acknowledging that it's normal to feel overwhelmed with the planning and decision-making.

Communication with your partner is crucial in managing engagement stress. Share your concerns, support each other, and make decisions together. This can significantly reduce anxiety and strengthen your bond during this phase.

Setting realistic expectations is key. Not every detail will be perfect, and that's okay. Focus on what truly matters – your commitment to each other. Avoid getting caught up in the pursuit of an 'ideal' engagement or wedding, as portrayed by social media or other influences.

Remember to take care of yourself. Regular exercise, a healthy diet , and enough sleep are vital. Taking breaks from engagement planning to relax and enjoy simple pleasures together can be incredibly rejuvenating.

Lastly, if the stress becomes overwhelming, don't hesitate to seek support. Whether it's from family, friends, or a professional, getting help can provide a fresh perspective and practical solutions to manage the challenges of engagement.

Long-Distance Engagements: Keeping the Connection Strong

Long-distance engagements present unique challenges, but with commitment and creativity, couples can maintain a strong and loving connection . The first step is establishing regular communication routines. Whether it's daily calls, video chats, or texts, consistent contact keeps the emotional bond alive.

Technology plays a crucial role in long-distance relationships . Utilize video calls for more intimate conversations and consider online activities you can do together, like watching a movie or playing a game. These shared experiences help in bridging the physical gap.

Planning visits is another vital aspect. Prioritize spending quality time together whenever possible. These visits can be an opportunity to involve your partner in wedding planning or to simply enjoy each other's company.

Setting goals and having a clear plan for the future is essential. Discuss your plans for eventually living together and how you will navigate the time until then. Having a timeline provides a sense of security and something to look forward to.

Trust and honesty are the backbones of any relationship, more so in a long-distance one. Be open about your feelings, fears, and expectations. This transparency strengthens trust and understanding between partners.

Surprises can keep the romance alive. Sending gifts, letters, or even planning a surprise visit can add excitement and show your partner that they are constantly in your thoughts.

Lastly, seeking support from friends, family, or a counselor can be beneficial. They can offer perspective, advice, and emotional support to navigate the challenges of a long-distance engagement.

Integrating Cultural Traditions in Your Engagement

Engagements are a perfect time to honor and integrate cultural traditions, celebrating the rich heritage each partner brings to the relationship. Start by discussing each other's cultural backgrounds and what aspects are important to include in your engagement and wedding.

Incorporating cultural elements can take many forms, from engagement rituals to attire, cuisine, and decor. Researching and understanding the significance behind these traditions can be a bonding experience for the couple and an educational journey for families and guests.

Multicultural engagements may require balancing different traditions. Communication and compromise are key. It's about creating a blend that respects both cultures while reflecting the couple's unique identity.

Consulting with family members who are knowledgeable about cultural traditions can be insightful. They can provide guidance on how to authentically incorporate these elements into your celebration.

Lastly, be open to adapting traditions to suit your personal style and the context of your engagement. Modern interpretations of cultural customs can add a personal touch while still honoring your heritage.

FAQs About Marriage Engagement

Engagements often come with a host of questions as couples navigate this new phase in their relationship. One common query is about the ideal length of an engagement. There's no one-size-fits-all answer, as it depends on individual circumstances, but it's typically a period long enough to plan a wedding and prepare for married life.

Another frequent question concerns how to announce an engagement. Many opt for a personal touch by telling close family and friends in person, followed by a broader announcement on social media or traditional cards. The key is to share this joyous news in a way that feels right for you as a couple.

Couples also inquire about the necessity of an engagement party. While not a requirement, it's a lovely way to celebrate the commitment and can serve as an initial step in the wedding planning process. The scale and formality of the party are entirely up to the couple's preference.

Last, many are curious about how to integrate family and cultural traditions into the engagement. Open discussions with your partner and families about what traditions are meaningful and how to incorporate them respectfully are crucial for a harmonious engagement and wedding planning experience.

Post-Engagement: Steps Towards a Happy Marriage

After the excitement of the engagement, it's important to focus on laying the groundwork for a happy marriage. One of the first steps is to continue building strong communication skills. Open, honest, and respectful dialogue is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship.

Setting shared goals and expectations for your married life is also vital. Discussing topics like career aspirations, family planning, finances, and lifestyle choices helps in aligning your vision for the future and ensures you're both on the same page.

Spending quality time together is key. While wedding planning can be consuming, make sure to prioritize your relationship. Engage in activities that strengthen your bond and allow you to enjoy each other's company.

Consider premarital counseling or workshops. These can provide valuable tools and insights for navigating married life, addressing potential challenges, and reinforcing your relationship's strengths.

Engaging in financial planning together for your future is crucial. Understanding each other's financial habits, setting a budget, and planning for long-term goals like home ownership or retirement are fundamental steps in building a secure future together.

Respecting each other's individuality and supporting personal growth is essential. Encourage each other's hobbies, friendships, and career aspirations. A successful marriage is one where both partners can thrive individually and together.

Lastly, remember to express gratitude and appreciation for each other regularly. Small acts of kindness and acknowledgment can nurture love and build a lasting, happy marriage .

Engagement Etiquette: Do's and Don'ts

Engagement etiquette can vary greatly depending on cultural norms and personal preferences, but some general guidelines can help navigate this special time. One of the primary do's is to personally inform close family and friends before making a public announcement. It's a respectful gesture that acknowledges their importance in your life.

When it comes to the engagement ring, it's essential to focus on the sentiment rather than the size or cost. The ring should symbolize your commitment and be chosen with love and care, respecting your budget.

Regarding engagement parties, it's a do to keep them intimate and personal. Inviting those who are also expected to be at the wedding is a considerate approach. As for gifts, it's polite to provide guidance if asked, but not mandatory to expect or demand them.

A major don't is to overwhelm social media with constant updates about your engagement or wedding planning. While it's natural to want to share your excitement, moderation is key to maintaining a balance and respecting your guests' and followers' perspectives.

Lastly, avoid putting too much pressure on yourself to have a 'perfect' engagement or wedding. Embracing the journey with its ups and downs, focusing on the love and commitment at the heart of your engagement, is what truly matters.

The Evolution of Marriage Engagement Over Time

The concept of marriage engagement has evolved significantly over time, reflecting changes in social norms, cultural values, and personal expectations. In ancient times, engagements were often arranged by families as alliances, with little say from the couple themselves.

As societies progressed, the notion of romantic love began to influence engagements. The 19th century saw a shift towards more personal choice and romantic involvement in the engagement process, though family approval remained important.

In the 20th century, especially post-World War II, engagements became more about the couple's love and commitment to each other. The diamond engagement ring grew in popularity during this era, symbolizing both love and financial stability.

The late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen further shifts, with a focus on equality and partnership in the relationship. Couples now often share the cost of the ring and are more involved in the proposal planning.

Technology has also played a role in modern engagements. Social media has become a platform for announcing engagements and sharing wedding planning journeys, while online dating has expanded the ways in which couples meet and fall in love.

Current trends show a move towards personalization and authenticity in engagements. Couples are choosing to infuse their personalities, stories, and values into their engagement rings, proposals, and parties, making each engagement unique.

As we look to the future, the evolution of marriage engagement will likely continue, shaped by changing societal norms, technological advancements, and the ever-evolving nature of love and relationships.

Recommended Resources

The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God , Timothy Keller and Kathy Keller, Penguin Books, 2013
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts , Gary Chapman, Northfield Publishing, 1995
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert , John M. Gottman and Nan Silver, Harmony, 1999
Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs , Emerson Eggerichs, Thomas Nelson, 2004
=marriage engagement
engagement planning
engagement rings
pre-marriage counseling

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12 Blessing Prayers for Engaged Couples’ New Journey

Explore 12 heartfelt blessing prayers for engaged couples embarking on their new journey together. find inspiration and guidance for strengthening your bond and inviting love, joy, and divine grace into your life as you prepare for marriage., last updated:, may 24, 2024, article summary.

The Importance of Prayer: This blog post emphasizes the powerful role of prayer in nurturing and strengthening a relationship as couples start their new journey after engagement.
Blessings for Harmony: The post highlights various blessing prayers focused on promoting unity, understanding, and mutual respect between engaged couples, setting the foundation for a harmonious life together.
Faith and Love: The blog demonstrates how faith-based prayers can foster love and commitment, acting as a guiding beacon for couples as they navigate their path towards marriage.

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Prayer for god's blessing to dwell in their future home..

Encourages a spiritual foundation for the new chapter in the couple’s life.
Invokes divine presence, protection, and guidance within the home.
Strengthens the couple’s faith as they embark on their journey together.
May inadvertently imply that material blessings or a physical home are the most important aspects of marriage.
Could be perceived as less inclusive of those facing financial or housing instability.

Engagement is a season of joyful anticipation, not just for the wedding day, but for the lifetime journey that follows. As two souls prepare to intertwine, the sanctity of their future home becomes a vessel for their love and faith. It is within these walls that prayers are whispered, dreams shared, and unconditional love flourishes. In the Christian faith, blessing a home is more than a tradition; it's inviting God to be the cornerstone of the new life being built together.

Heavenly Father, In Your infinite grace, look kindly upon this engaged couple as they stand on the threshold of their new life together. As they seek Your blessings for their future home, may Your love be the light that fills each room, guiding them through days of joy and challenge alike. Lord, bless their home with peace that surpasses understanding, so that in the quiet moments and the bustling ones, they feel Your presence. Let it be a refuge of hope, a sanctuary of faith, and a haven of love. May its walls echo with laughter, its rooms hold stories of Your greatness, and every door open to opportunities for growth and grace. Grant them the wisdom to build their lives on the solid ground of Your Word, ensuring that though storms may come, their bond will remain unbreakable. May their love for each other reflect Your love for them — endless, pure, and unfailing. We ask that their home be filled with Your Spirit, nourishing their souls and those of all who enter. Through every season, let their love be a testament to Your eternal blessings. Amen.

In entrusting their future home to God's care, the engaged couple sets the foundation of their life together on spiritual bedrock. Such a prayer is not just a request for a happy home but a vow to keep God at the center of their marriage. As they venture into this new chapter, their faith serves as both anchor and compass, ensuring that their shared journey is marked by love, guided by wisdom, and blessed by the divine. True home is where God's heart dwells, making every space a holy ground on which their love can boldly grow.

Prayer for Fertility and the Blessing of Children in their Family.

Strengthens faith and trust in God’s plan for the couple’s life together.
Encourages a spirit of hope and positivity towards building a family.
Fosters a deeper bond and mutual understanding between partners about their desires for children.
May lead to disappointment if expectations are not met in the timing or manner hoped for.
Can be sensitive for those facing fertility challenges, requiring careful and compassionate consideration.

Fertility and the blessing of children hold a special place in the heart of many engaged couples, symbolizing the growth of love and the continuation of family. Just as a garden requires time, patience, and care to bloom, so does the journey towards parenthood. This prayer seeks divine guidance and blessings for this sacred and hopeful path.

Heavenly Father, We come before You with hearts full of dreams and desires to expand our family. We humbly ask for Your blessing on this loving union, that it may be fertile ground for the seeds of life You wish to plant. Grant us the grace to embrace Your will with open hearts, trusting in Your perfect timing and providence. Lord, bless them with the joy of children, that their home may echo with laughter and their lives be enriched with the lessons and love only a child can bring. Just like the first blooms of spring that signal new beginnings, let their journey into parenthood be a testament to Your endless grace and generosity. We pray for health and strength for them and their future children, that they may grow in a home filled with love, faith, and devotion. Guide them through the challenges and joys of raising a family, always reminding them of the infinite love You have for each of Your children. Amen.

Praying for fertility and the blessing of children is a deep expression of faith and hope for engaged couples. It's a journey of trust, entrusting their desires and dreams into God’s loving hands, knowing He understands their hearts better than they understand themselves. This prayer encapsulates the hope, joy, and faith entwined in the sacred desire to create a family under God’s grace.

Prayer for their Engagement to be a Foundation of Love, Trust, and Respect.

Reinforces the importance of core values in a relationship.
Encourages spiritual growth and guidance.
Provides a shared vision for the couple's future.
May create expectations that are difficult to meet at all times.
Can be seen as overly idealistic in challenging situations.

Engagement marks the beginning of a beautiful journey towards marriage. It's a time filled with hope, excitement, and dreams for the future. At the core of this new chapter, love, trust, and respect serve as the foundation upon which a resilient, enduring relationship is built. Like a house that withstands storms because of its strong base, an engagement rooted in these values promises a lasting, fulfilling partnership. As we engage in this prayer, let's invite divine wisdom and grace into the hearts of the engaged couple, guiding them to nurture these essential qualities in their journey together.

Heavenly Father, In Your wisdom, You have brought two hearts together, embarking on a sacred journey of engagement. We pray that their bond may be firmly grounded in love, rich in trust, and unwavering in mutual respect. May their love for each other reflect Your love for us—patient, kind, and enduring. Guide them, Lord, to build their relationship on the solid rock of faith, where trust is their compass and respect their shelter. In moments of doubt or challenge, remind them of this foundation, strengthening their confidence in each other and in Your divine plan. Bless their engagement as a season of growth, where they learn to love deeply, trust wholeheartedly, and respect powerfully. Let their journey illuminate the path to a marriage that glorifies You in every word and deed. Amen.

Engagement is more than just a step towards marriage; it's the nurturing ground for the values that will sustain a relationship through life's ups and downs. Love, trust, and respect are not merely ideals but the very essence of a strong partnership. This prayer is a humble request for divine guidance, ensuring the engaged couple treasures and cultivates these virtues as they prepare for their lifelong commitment. With a foundation this solid, their love is set to flourish in abundance and grace, echoing the infinite love God has for each of us.

Prayer for Blessing their Journey towards Becoming One in Spirit.

Encourages unity and spiritual growth as a couple.
Invokes divine guidance and blessings for their mutual journey.
Strengthens their bond and commitment to each other.
May inadvertently emphasize spiritual unity over practical aspects of marriage preparation.
Could be perceived as exclusive if not inclusive of various interpretations of spirituality within Christian contexts.

In the wonderful journey of life, an engaged couple embarks on a sacred path towards becoming one in spirit. This unique journey is adorned with hopes, dreams, and the promise of a unified future. As they weave their spirits together under God’s watchful eyes, it’s essential to seek His blessings and guidance to fortify their bond through faith, love, and mutual respect.

Heavenly Father, We come before You today to ask for Your unending blessings on this loving couple as they prepare to unite their lives. In the landscape of creation, You have masterfully designed the union of two souls to reflect Your glory and love. As they embark on this sacred journey towards becoming one in spirit, shower them with Your grace. Guide them with Your wisdom, that they may walk hand in hand with hearts aflame with love and understanding. Let their spirits intertwine with strength and gentleness, patience, and passion, embodying the unity of Christ with His Church. May their love for each other mirror Your love for us—endless, forgiving, and renewing. Bless their path with light, removing obstacles that may divert their gaze from You. Teach them to lean on You and each other during trials, and to rejoice with You in their triumphs. In Your loving kindness, mold their hearts to be reflections of Your divine love, so that through their union, the world may see the beauty of Your eternal promise of love and companionship. Amen.

This prayer celebrates the spiritual journey of becoming one in spirit for engaged couples. It’s a beautiful reminder of the divine essence of marriage, emphasizing that through God’s grace, love, and guidance, two people can beautifully mirror the unity and love of Christ. By inviting God into their relationship, engaged couples set a strong foundation for a loving, enduring marriage that stands as a testament to divine love in our world.

Prayer for Health, Prosperity, and Joy in their Life Together.

Encourages a focus on holistic well-being.
Inspires hope and positive expectations for the future.
Invites divine guidance and blessings into their union.
May create unrealistic expectations if not coupled with practical efforts.
Risks disappointment if outcomes differ from what is prayed for.

Engaged couples embark on a journey not just of love, but of shared dreams, challenges, and triumphs. A prayer for health, prosperity, and joy recognizes the sophisticated nature of a life built together. It is a comprehensive blessing that covers the physical, material, and emotional aspects essential for a harmonious and fulfilling life partnership.

Dear Lord, We come before You today to lift up this engaged couple embarking on their new journey together. May their path be blessed with robust health, allowing them to enjoy each day to its fullest and overcome any challenge with strength and grace. Shower them, O Lord, with Your prosperity. Let their hands find the work that fulfills and enriches, not just materially but in spirit and purpose. Guide them to manage their resources wisely, to be generous, and to remember that every good gift comes from You. Fill their lives with joy unspeakable. In moments of happiness, let their joy be a beacon of Your love and faithfulness. In times of trial, remind them that joy comes not from circumstances but from a deep, abiding trust in You. Bless their union, Father, with the richness of Your love. May their love for each other reflect Your love for them—a love that is patient, kind, and endures all things. Amen.

This prayer encompasses the hope for a life together filled with health, prosperity, and joy—essential ingredients for a strong and lasting relationship. By seeking God's blessing, an engaged couple lays a foundation based on faith and trust, poised to weather life's storms and celebrate its beauties together. The journey of marriage, underpinned by such prayer, promises not just survival but a thriving partnership illuminated by divine grace.

Prayer for God's Presence in their Life and Future Marriage.

Invites divine guidance and a sense of peace into the relationship.
Encourages spiritual growth and unity between partners.
Provides a strong foundation based on shared faith and values.
May create expectations that challenges won’t arise, leading to potential disappointment if difficulties are encountered.
Different interpretations of what it means to invite God into a relationship could cause misunderstandings between partners.

Embarking on the journey of engagement brings with it the promise of new beginnings and shared dreams. As two hearts pledge to become one, the importance of laying a foundation rooted in faith cannot be overstated. A prayer for God’s presence in their life and future marriage is akin to setting a compass to true north—guiding the couple through the seas of life, anchored by divine love and wisdom.

Heavenly Father, In Your boundless grace, we come before You today, lifting up this engaged couple embarking on life’s most beautiful journey together. Lord, as they intertwine their hearts and dreams, may Your presence be the cornerstone of their relationship and future marriage. Like a lighthouse guiding ships through stormy seas, let Your light illuminate their path, guiding them in love, patience, and understanding. Bless them with the wisdom to recognize Your guidance in every decision they make and the courage to follow where You lead. Encircle them with Your protection, keeping their bond strong against the winds of adversity. May their love for each other be a reflection of Your endless love for them, growing deeper with each day that passes. Grant them the grace to nurture a relationship that brings glory to Your name—a testament to the power of faith, hope, and love. Let their life together be a beacon of Your eternal love, inspiring all who know them. Amen.

The prayer for God's presence in their life and future marriage not only seeks divine blessing but also acknowledges the need for spiritual nourishment and guidance. It is a reminder that the journey they are about to embark upon is not just a union of two hearts but a covenant under God. Inviting God into their relationship means walking a path where love is patient, kind, and reflects the very essence of the Divine. As this couple steps forward into their future, may they carry with them the assurance that they are never alone, for God walks with them, blessing each step of their united journey.

Prayer for Strength and Understanding during Tough Times in their Marriage.

Helps couples feel supported spiritually during challenging periods.
Encourages communication and empathy between partners.
Strengthens faith as a foundational pillar in the marriage.
May lead some to overly rely on divine intervention without taking practical steps to resolve issues.
Could be misinterpreted as a suggestion that faith alone will solve all marital problems, ignoring the importance of professional counseling or advice.

The journey of marriage, like any great voyage, is marked by both sunshine and storms. It's in the tempests, however, that our anchors are truly tested. Invoking strength and understanding during these trials becomes essential, not just for weathering them but for emerging stronger together. This prayer seeks the divine assistance needed during these times, ensuring that love is the compass guiding every step.

Heavenly Father, In the sacred garden of marriage, where love is sown and hope blooms, we seek Your grace. As this couple walks hand in hand, may they find Your strength woven into the fabric of their unity, especially when shadows lengthen and the path grows uncertain. Grant them the lamp of understanding to illuminate misunderstandings and fears, turning obstacles into stepping stones. Clothe them in patience, that they may endure the storms, and in wisdom, to discern the lessons hidden within trials. Let their love be a testament to the power of faith, growing deeper roots in times of drought. In moments of weakness, be their fortress; in times of division, be their bridge. May their joint journey reflect the resilience of Your love, teaching them that every challenge overcome together adds a new chapter of grace to their story. Amen.

Concluding a prayer for strength and understanding recognizes that the fabric of a strong marriage includes threads of perseverance, faith, and mutual support. In seeking divine guidance, couples are reminded that they are not navigating their challenges alone. This prayer serves as a beacon of hope, a reminder that with God's grace, every trial can forge a stronger bond, transforming the very trials that threatened to divide into the ties that more deeply unite.

Prayer for Protection against any Challenges that might test their Bond.

Strengthens unity: This prayer topic emphasizes the couple’s commitment to facing challenges together, strengthening their bond.
Invokes divine guidance: It seeks God’s protection, acknowledging that divine help can navigate the couple through tough times.
Prepares for reality: Acknowledges that challenges are part of life, preparing the couple mentally and spiritually for future obstacles.
May induce anxiety: Focusing on potential challenges might cause unnecessary worry about future hardships.
Could be perceived as negative: Concentrating on obstacles may overshadow the joy and excitement of engagement.

Engagement is a journey of unity, love, and shared visions. Yet, like any voyage, it can encounter storms. A Prayer for Protection against Challenges that might test their Bond is like setting sails with awareness of possible storms but trust in divine guidance to navigate them. This prayer does not dwell on the fear of encountering challenges but emphasizes the strength found in faith and unity to overcome them.

Heavenly Father, We come before You today, united in love and purpose, embarking on this sacred journey towards marriage. We humbly ask for Your protective embrace around us, shielding our bond from the tempests that may seek to test us. In the face of trials, grant us the grace to anchor our relationship in You, turning challenges into stepping stones that strengthen our unity rather than fragments that drift us apart. Lord, imbue us with wisdom to perceive obstacles as opportunities to grow closer and fortify our commitment. May our love, rooted in Your divine example, be a beacon of light guiding us through dark moments. Let patience, understanding, and unwavering support be the pillars of our bond, ensuring no hardship can sway our dedication to one another. Amen.

Prayer, especially in anticipation of marriage, is like threading a landscape of love, resilience, and faith. By seeking divine protection and guidance through challenges, a couple weaves a stronger bond, capable of withstanding the tests of time. This Prayer for Protection emphasizes not the looming shadows of potential difficulties but the light of divine presence and mutual support that makes every challenge surmountable. It is a declaration of faith in love’s power and God’s guidance to carry them through all seasons of their journey together.

Prayer for Selfless Love and Commitment toward Each Other.

Encourages couples to prioritize each other's needs, strengthening their bond.
Inspires a foundation of mutual respect and understanding, essential for a lasting relationship.
Reinforces the importance of commitment, crucial in overcoming life's challenges together.
May inadvertently pressure couples to neglect personal needs or boundaries in pursuit of selflessness.
Overemphasis on selflessness could potentially overshadow the need for individual growth and autonomy within the relationship.

When embarking on a life together, the virtues of selfless love and unwavering commitment become the bedrock upon which engaged couples build their future. Like trees that intertwine their roots to stand stronger against the storm, so must partners weave their lives together, anchored in the soil of selflessness and dedication. This prayer seeks divine guidance to cultivate such virtues, ensuring a love not just proclaimed, but lived.

Heavenly Father, In Your infinite wisdom, You created love as a mirror of Your boundless, self-giving nature. As these two hearts prepare to unite in a sacred journey, we ask for Your blessing to instill in them a love that reflects Your own: selfless, enduring, and ever-giving. Grant them eyes that truly see each other, beyond the surface, to appreciate the powerful beauty of selfless love. May their commitment be as steadfast as the mountains—unshaken by the winds of trial, and as deep as the oceans—endlessly renewing itself in grace and forgiveness. Bless their path with the light of understanding and patience, teaching them to put each other first, to listen more than they speak, and to love without keeping score. In moments of challenge, remind them of this sacred promise to walk hand in hand, not led by self-interest, but guided by mutual sacrifice and devotion. Through the intercession of all the saints who have gone before us in love, we place this prayer before You, confident in Your mercy and love. Amen.

The journey of marriage is one paved with lessons of love and moments of self-discovery. Through a prayer for selfless love and unwavering commitment, engaged couples invite God into their relationship, seeking His guidance to cultivate a love that is genuine and giving. Such a prayer is not just words spoken but a daily commitment to action, a testament to the belief that true love is a reflection of divine love—selfless, steadfast, and utterly transformative.

Prayer for Wisdom and Guidance in their Joint Decisions.

Encourages couples to seek divine guidance, fostering a spiritual foundation in their relationship.
Helps in developing mutual understanding and respect by considering each other’s perspectives under God’s wisdom.
Can reduce potential conflicts by aligning decisions with spiritual values.
May lead to over-reliance on divine intervention, overlooking practical decision-making processes.
Could cause frustration if expectations for clear, divine answers are not met.

Engagement is a beautiful prelude to the lifelong symphony of marriage. As two souls prepare to embark on this divine journey together, they stand at the crossroads of numerous decisions that will shape their shared future. Praying for wisdom and guidance in their joint decisions is like asking for a map and compass from God, ensuring every step taken is in harmony with His will.

Heavenly Father, In Your infinite wisdom, You have brought these two hearts together, embarking on a journey of unity, love, and commitment. As they stand on the precipice of this new chapter in their lives, we humbly ask You to bless them with the gift of Your divine wisdom and guidance. Illuminate their path, O Lord, with the light of Your truth, so that every decision they make may be infused with Your grace. Grant them the clarity to discern your will, the courage to follow it, and the strength to withstand any storm. May their choices reflect not just their desires, but Your eternal love and wisdom. In moments of uncertainty, remind them that You are their steadfast guide. Let their hearts be attuned to Your whisper, turning to You as their ultimate source of direction and peace. Together, may they build a life that glorifies Your name, hand in hand, with You leading the way. Amen.

Embarking on the journey of engagement and towards marriage is a testament to hope and faith in God's plan for love. Praying for wisdom and guidance in joint decisions not only fortifies a couple's bond but also integrates God's voice into the very fabric of their relationship. It's a beautiful blend of divine providence and human commitment, setting a strong foundation for a future together under God's watchful eye. This prayer is a beacon, guiding engaged couples through the seas of life, with God's wisdom as their North Star.

Prayer for Peace, Unity, and Harmony in their Family Life.

Pros and Cons of Praying for Peace, Unity, and Harmony in Family Life

Strengthens family bonds and fosters a loving environment.
Encourages patience, understanding, and mutual respect among family members.
Reduces stress and conflict, leading to a more peaceful home atmosphere.
Aligns the family’s values and goals with Christian teachings of love and unity.
Overemphasis on harmony might discourage addressing necessary but difficult issues.
May create unrealistic expectations of constant peace without acknowledging natural family dynamics.

Engagement is a journey that begins with two hearts uniting, with dreams of building a life together. As two families blend into one, the quest for peace, unity, and harmony in their new shared life becomes paramount. Like a river that flows effortlessly, weaving through the landscape, so should the lives of engaged couples merge, navigating challenges with grace and love. This prayer seeks divine guidance and blessings for engaged couples, that their union may be a testament to the power of love, unity, and peace within their family life.

Heavenly Father, In Your boundless wisdom and grace, You have brought two souls together, embarking on a sacred journey of love and commitment. We pray for Your blessing upon their engagement, that it may be the foundation of a family life filled with peace, unity, and harmony. Let their home be a sanctuary of love, where patience flourishes and understanding blooms. Lord, guide them through the complexities of life with a steady hand and a compassionate heart. May they navigate the waters of disagreement with the anchor of respect and the sails of forgiveness. Bless their families, merging them with bonds of love and mutual respect, as threads in a beautiful landscape, distinct yet part of a grander design. Encourage them, O God, to nurture a family rooted in the teachings of Christ, where love is the language spoken in abundance and peace the air they breathe. May their union inspire those around them, shining as a beacon of Your divine love and unity. We ask this in Your Holy Name, Amen.

The prayer for peace, unity, and harmony within the life of an engaged couple is a powerful reminder of the strength found in love and commitment under God’s guidance. Just as a garden thrives with care, so too does family life blossom with the nurturing of these virtues. This prayer seeks not only to secure divine blessings for the couple but also to inspire continued growth and devotion in their shared journey. Through the grace of God, may their lives together be a harmonious symphony of love’s enduring power.

Prayer of Thanksgiving for their Love and Union.

Reinforces the spiritual bond between the couple.
Acknowledges God's role and blessings in their union.
Cultivates a culture of gratitude within their relationship.
Can be perceived as exclusive if not inclusive of all beliefs within the couple.
May overlook specific challenges or requests the couple is facing.

Embarking on a journey of love and lifelong commitment, engaged couples find themselves at the threshold of a new chapter. This significant transition is not only a testament to their love but also a reflection of divine grace and unity. In acknowledging this blessed union, a prayer of thanksgiving becomes a beacon of light, guiding them with hope and gratitude.

Dear Heavenly Father, We approach Your throne of grace with hearts brimming with gratitude. Today, we celebrate the gift of love and union You have bestowed upon this beloved couple. Like rivers merging into a single course, their paths have been divinely guided to intertwine, crafting a landscape of companionship that mirrors Your love for us. We thank You, Lord, for being their foundation, for every moment of laughter and even the tears from which they draw closer, building their fortress of faith. May their love for each other continue to flourish, rooted in the soil of Your unwavering love and nurtured by the sunshine of Your blessings. Bless them, O God, with patience to weather storms, wisdom to cherish peace, and an abundance of grace to forgive and forge forward. May their union glorify You, as they grow together in love, reflecting Your grace and kindness to the world. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.

The prayer of thanksgiving for love and union serves as a humble acknowledgment of God's hand in nurturing and sustaining the love between engaged couples. It is a reminder that their journey together is not just a testament to their love for one another but also a reflection of divine guidance and blessing. As they embark on this new chapter, their thanks-giving heart sets a solid foundation for a future built on faith, love, and unwavering support.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are blessing prayers important for engaged couples.

Blessing prayers are vital for engaged couples because they are not just words but a divine intervention that invokes God's favor upon the couple’s life. These prayers express our faith in God's promises for their future and provide spiritual support to face any challenges that may come along their journey.

How can engaged couples incorporate these blessing prayers in their lives?

Engaged couples can integrate blessing prayers into their daily lives by setting aside specific times each day to pray together. This shared spiritual experience fosters unity, builds trust, and keeps their relationship centered on God.

Can others, like family and friends, also offer blessing prayers for engaged couples?

Yes, absolutely! Family members and friends are encouraged to offer blessing prayers for engaged couples. These prayers create a network of spiritual support that uplifts the couple, contributing to their strength and perseverance in their journey together.

Do these prayers need to be formalized or said in a particular way?

No, blessing prayers do not need to be formal or said in a specific manner. The prayer's sincerity is what matters most. It could be a heartfelt spontaneous prayer, a prayer using Scriptural blessings, or a traditional prayer – all are pleasing in God's eyes.

What if we're feeling unsure or overwhelmed, can these prayers help?

Certainly! God is our greatest source of strength and comfort. When you feel overwhelmed, these prayers serve as a reminder of His unfailing love, His promise to guide you through your journey, and His power to overcome any obstacles you may face.

Do blessing prayers guarantee a smooth journey for the engaged couple?

While blessing prayers are a powerful tool of faith, they do not necessarily guarantee a journey devoid of trials. However, they do assure the constant presence and help of God. It's important to remember that challenges often serve to strengthen us and our relationships, aligning us more closely with God's will for our lives.

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How to Get Engaged: Step-by-Step Plan to Start Your Journey to Forever

Navigating how to get engaged might feel overwhelming in the moment, but we'll walk you through it so you feel confident popping the question.

Adrienne has multiple years of experience in freelance writing and a bachelor's degree in English. She has written several online publications on various topics.

Learn about our Editorial Policy .

Deciding that you want to pop the question to your partner is a huge moment and the first in many steps to getting engaged. Learning about the engagement process can help you find ways to make the proposal extra special and even make early wedding planning go more smoothly. Find out what every couple should know about how to get engaged before saying, "I do."

Planning an Engagement

When people fall in love and know they've met the one , it's natural to start dreaming about a future together. Yet before couples get engaged, they should ensure they're both ready for marriage and have compatible life goals. The right timing can make all the difference in planning a happy engagement.

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What does it mean to be engaged? It means that you've both decided you want to get married and are committed to each other, but you're not married yet.

1. Determine if You're Both Ready for Marriage

Before proposing, it's important to discuss marriage with your partner to find out if you're both ready for it. Marriage readiness is about love, commitment, and a decision to merge two lives into one family. A couple can be very in love and committed to a life together, but one person could prefer to wait to get engaged until the future, like when they've finished school or are more financially stable.

2. Discuss Future Life and Family Goals

Couples who are considering a lifelong commitment should discuss their individual future goals and expectations of marriage. This information can help each partner determine if the other is ready for a marriage proposal. Discussions about the expectations of married life can also help couples determine how to merge their individual goals into family goals. Married life discussions should cover topics including:

Career aspirations
Whether either wants children
Parenting styles
Lifestyle expectations
100+ Questions You Should Ask Your Partner Before Marriage

3. Plan the Marriage Proposal

Once the timing feels right, you're ready to start planning the marriage proposal. Whether this is something you want to do as a surprise or an event that you plan together, the key is that you're both on the same page. There are dozens of unique and special proposal ideas you can consider.

Engagement Poems: Propose with poetry. Include a classic love poem or a modern engagement poem in the proposal, or write an engagement poem for the love of your life.
Family Proposals: Ask for your partner's hand in marriage during a family gathering as a way to welcome them into their future family. This can be particularly special when both families are present.
Holiday Proposals: Propose during a holiday such as Christmas , Valentine's Day, New Year's Eve , or a birthday.
Creative Proposals: If the traditional proposal methods don't seem right, research creative proposals . There are tons of creative ways to propose that range from skywriting to spelling out the proposal in flower petals.

Traditionally, a person would ask their partner's parents for their hand in marriage before proposing. You certainly don't have to do this, but a lot of people still choose to as a way to honor traditions.

4. Consider the Ring

You can choose to buy an engagement ring prior to the proposal or wait to shop for a ring with your fiancée instead. There's really no right or wrong way to approach this. It's all about what feels best for you.

A lot of people will wait so they can feel confident knowing that their partner is getting the ring style and size they truly want. On the other hand, designing or picking out a special ring is a gesture your love might appreciate. Family heirloom rings are another meaningful option.

Not into the symbolism of an engagement ring? Try a modern engagement ring alternative to show your commitment.

5. Pop the Big Question

One of the last steps in getting engaged is the actual marriage proposal . When the proposal is accepted, the happy couple is officially engaged, and it's time to announce it to family, friends, and the public.

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6. Announce the Engagement

The final engagement step is announcing the engagement . Traditionally, the couple tells both sets of parents first, then grandparents, siblings, extended family, and friends, but there are no hard and fast rules today. Tell whoever you're closest to whenever it feels right. It's also perfectly fine to enjoy the news as a couple for as long as you'd like before telling anyone else.

After verbally telling their loved ones about the engagement, a lot of couples choose to announce the engagement to extended family and friends through a number of methods. Announcement methods include:

Announcing the engagement at a party
Posting the news on social media
Sending out formal announcements
Telling people by FaceTime or email
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Enjoy the Journey of Getting Engaged

Understanding the steps in getting engaged can help couples figure out how to plan their engagement. Yes, modern couples can get engaged in any way they want, but engagement steps can still serve as helpful roadmaps depending on what you'd like your engagement to include. However you choose to go about it, make sure you take in the joy of the occasion.

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12 Practical Tips for Aiding Your Marriage Journey

In This Article

Marriage is often called a “journey,” but marriage is far more important than the honeymoon trip you might take after you say, “I Do” in front of family and friends.

When you choose to share your life with someone and make it legal through marriage, the “journey” becomes your path together. Someone once said, “Marriage is, and will always be, the most important journey of discovery that a man could ever do.”

That someone was the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard , and hopefully, your marriage journey is for life. Let’s talk about marriage as a journey and how to overcome the bumps in the road and make tough choices along the way—as if we’re talking about a roadmap.

The hills and valleys of marriage

There is a general belief that marriage officially starts after your wedding ceremony, so your journey is more than a one-day event and a marriage certificate. A Met Church wedding ceremony celebrates the beginning of your journey together.

In the first few months after your wedding, you may begin to experience the newlywed hills and valleys of marriage.

Newly married couples feel the excitement of new shared experiences, but living together can also mean a period of significant adjustment, and you may find the journey challenging if you have different opinions or do things differently.

So, to help you understand what “marriage is a journey” signifies, we have tips you can use in the roadmap of your marriage journey as newlyweds!

12 helpful ways to aid your marriage journey

In a marriage, every day presents an opportunity to strengthen your bond and deepen your connection with your partner. Here are 12 valuable ways to support and enrich your marriage journey:

1. Be clear in the direction you want to take together

A successful journey requires clear directions, and in your marriage, healthy communication is vital in making your marriage a success.

Here are some directions to help you:

Use kindness and respect with each other when you communicate
Express your feelings honestly but not harshly
Listen to each other and understand what each other wants and needs
Talk often to keep your line of communication open.

Communication can mean discussing household issues like bills or children’s activities. Still, it’s even more important for a married couple to keep sharing their private thoughts and feelings from the very beginning of their journey.

2. Take a break and tell your spouse you’re thankful for them

When you take a moment to appreciate your spouse, it can make a sometimes difficult journey easier. There are many parts of your life to appreciate, especially when every day becomes hectic.

If one partner makes dinner, the other might go grocery shopping or help kids with their homework. It goes a long way when you tell your partner how thankful you are for them and grateful for the roles they take on that make your family life work even better.

3. Plan time for the two of you

Your life together might become too busy to plan getaways constantly, but keeping your romance alive is still important.

You can plan a date night, and you don’t even have to leave home! If you have kids, ask a relative or a sitter to take them—that way, you can go out for dinner or stay in, relax, and enjoy each other in privacy.

4. Put yourself first sometimes

In the journey of marriage, it’s a good idea to put some of your focus on your personal growth and interests.

Finding “alone time” can become more difficult in a busy life, especially if you have children, but when you take time for yourself or your friends, enroll in a class, or do volunteer work, you can build your self-esteem and bring a better you to your marriage.

5. You might disagree on which way to go

There can be more than one way to reach a destination, and you and your spouse might disagree on the road to take during your wedding journey.

Disagreements are a normal part of life, and when you approach conflict fairly and respectfully, you will get through any bumps in the road.

Here are things to remember:

Listen to your spouse, and ask them to listen to you
If you feel frustrated or angry, walk away from the problem until you both calm down
When you feel better, discuss the issue again
Finding a compromise where you both “give a little” often solves the disagreement in the most satisfactory way.

Other “bumps in the road” during a marriage journey include heavy criticism or feelings of defensiveness and contempt. In the worst case, these destructive tendencies can cause a couple to separate or divorce.

Your commitment to your spouse, family, and the life you’re building together is essential on your marriage journey. Any relationship should grow and change positively over the years. When you support each other emotionally, you’ll be even more successful.

6. Take the path of responsibility

Researchers have studied how couples can effectively disagree without becoming hostile. When two people take responsibility for their words and behavior, they are more likely to make up after a fight and quickly mend any temporary damage to their relationship

7. Bring forgiveness on your journey

It can help you both to remember that we all make mistakes! Your spouse might say something that upsets you or makes you angry, and you might hurt their feelings in other ways.

The most important thing to keep with you on your marriage journey is forgiveness—the ability to let go of hurt or anger and move on. Reliving the past can only make things worse.

8. Don’t be afraid of challenges on your journey

In some marriages, a mistake can be incredibly hard to forgive. It can put a lot of pressure on your relationship, and sometimes, the only cure is time and open, honest communication.

If you or your spouse ever feel like you’re being punished for a crime committed long ago, it might cause another feeling of being disconnected from your marriage. This can lead to bitterness and a sensation that “all hope is lost,” which can seem like a losing battle.

These hard challenges can test the strongest of marriages. So before you raise the white flag and give up on your relationship, call on your faith and work hard to find joy in your marriage because it is still there most of the time.

9. Intimacy is more than a destination

You may or may not be in sync with your spouse when it comes to physical intimacy. Still, you can always be attentive to your spouse’s desires and needs and maintain a healthy, satisfying connection that goes beyond sex as the “final destination” in intimacy.

Open communication is vital throughout your marriage journey, and acknowledging the little things can help create a long-lasting and fulfilling partnership.

Intimacy is not just a destination; it’s the small ways we connect through our emotions and vulnerability. When we trust our spouses with our deepest desires and needs, we experience more satisfaction and genuine connection in our relationship.

It can help to remember that your partner probably isn’t a mind reader, and people can and do approach their physical intimacy in different ways. Your marriage can only benefit when you talk openly and privately about this important subject.

10. Have fun on your marriage journey

A great sense of humor is one of the best things to take on your marriage journey. When a couple loves to laugh and have fun together, it can create lasting happiness for the whole family.

You don’t always have to take yourselves too seriously, and when you can find joy in the simple moments, it can ease those bumps in the road and bring you even closer.

Remind your spouse about a funny memory or share a light-hearted moment during your day. These little things can strengthen your bond even more.

11. Don’t stop dating

Try not to put a stop sign on the fun you had earlier on in your relationship. In order to keep your marriage exciting, couples can follow the “never stop dating” idea.

Yes, your marriage will grow and evolve over time, but your love gets stronger when you keep the excitement of “date night” alive.

Watch this video where Apollonia Ponti, a dating & relationship coach, shares her ideas on how you can keep your relationship interesting:

12. You will go through changes

As you and your spouse evolve and change over time, you will journey together through these changes. While you might be able to return home physically, the changes you will experience during your marriage might be permanent and should be embraced.

A marriage might not succeed when partners try to remain the same or even turn back time. When love begins, you might feel “butterflies.” As love changes and grows, it evolves into mutual respect and appreciation of each other’s strengths.

There is a roadmap to marriage

Understand that your marriage journey won’t always be easy. When partners dedicate themselves to marriage and make an effort and commitment, you will enjoy a long-lasting relationship that grows stronger throughout your lifetime.

While it may have ups and downs, this path is rich with opportunities for personal and mutual growth. By facing challenges together and choosing each other every day, you can build a foundation of trust, understanding, and deep affection.

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Maria is a writer, wife, and mother of three. Her writing journey is new, and she’s exploring it enthusiastically. Her life, full of love and everyday adventures with her family, feeds into her stories, making them relatable and real. Inspired by the little moments of beauty around her, Maria Read more writes to share, connect, and capture the simple joys of life. Read less

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113 Engagement Quotes for You and Your Future Spouse

We rounded up sweet and romantic messages that will help you express your love.

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In This Article

Getting engaged is a momentous occasion in a person's life: It’s the start of a new chapter, and it’s a time full of promise and possibilities. Of course, once the question has been popped , the first thing you’ll want to do is share (or shout!) your new relationship status from the rooftops. Luckily, there are far more efficient ways to get the word out. A fabulous social media post or an announcement card mailed to important family members and friends are two popular ways to make the announcement. Whichever one you choose, you’ll need to find the right words for your message.

How do you come up to with something to say that capture's the magnitude? We understand it can be daunting, so we went ahead and rounded up 113 love quotes that are particularly apt for newly-engaged duos. Whether you want to draw inspiration from your favorite television show or movie, a famous author, or a beloved song, you'll find tons of incredible options here.

Brides / Mehroz Kapadia

Romantic Engagement Quotes

"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other." — Audrey Hepburn
"True love stories never have endings." — Richard Bach
"Marriages, like a garden, take time to grow. But the harvest is rich unto those who patiently and tenderly care for the ground." — Darlene Schach
"It’s amazing how one day someone walks into your life, and suddenly, you can’t remember how you lived without them." — Anurag Prakash Ray
"Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years." — Simone Signoret
"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person." — Mignon McLaughlin
"You don’t marry the person you can live with, you marry the person you can’t live without." — Unknown
"The best time to love with your whole heart is always now, in this moment, because no breath beyond the current is promised." — Fawn Weaver
"Engagement marks the end of a whirlwind romance and beginning of an eternal love story." — Rajeev Ranjan
“We must have been soulmates in the past for we just clicked so easily to be engaged so fast.” — Anonymous
“Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.”— Phyllis Diller
"My whole heart for my whole life." — French Proverb
"I have found the one my soul loves." — Song of Songs 3:4
“A man without a wife is like a vase without flowers.” — African Proverb
"You see, there is not much that I want to share with you but my love that is true." ― Anonymous
"Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile." – Franklin P. Jones
"I couldn’t have dreamed you into existence because I didn’t even know I needed you. You must have been sent to me." — Kamand Kojouri
"To love and to be loved is to feel the sun from both sides." — David Viscott
“I would bend my knee a million times to stand by you.” — Jordan Kimball
“We have the greatest pre-nuptial agreement in the world. It’s called love.” — Gene Perret

Engagement Quotes from Famous Poets and Authors

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close." — Pablo Neruda
"People are weird. When we find someone with weirdness that is compatible with ours, we team up and call it love." — Dr. Seuss
"I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone." — J. R. R. Tolkien
"Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end." — Rumi
"Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it be rather a moving sea between the shores of your souls." — Kahlil Gibran
"Love who you want to love. Life is too short to do anything else." – R.M. Drake
"If I had a flower for every time thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever." — Alfred Lord Tennyson
”Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.” – Elinor Glyn
"I love her and it is the beginning of everything." – F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind I was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along." — Rumi
"If I know what love is, it is because of you." – Hermann Hesse
"I love you not only for what you are but for what I am when I am with you." — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always." — Dante Alighieri
"How beautiful it is to know they love you. To feel it everyday without asking how they feel." – R.M. Drake
“Ever since time began, people have recognized their true love by the light in their eyes.” – Paulo Coelho

Engagement Quotes from Historical Figures

"When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love , it is impossible to stand again." — Albert Einstein
"Every heart sings a song, incomplete until another heart whispers back." — Plato
"Where there is love there is life." — Mahatma Gandhi
"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love." — Sophocles
“My mother says I didn’t open my eyes for eight days after I was born, but when I did, the first thing I saw was an engagement ring. I was hooked.” — Elizabeth Taylor
“Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.” — Robert Browning
"For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed , but my soul." — Judy Garland

Engagement Quotes from Literature

"In all the world , there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine." — Soul Shattering Poetry by Maya Angelou
"I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul." — A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
"I wish I had done everything on Earth with you.” — The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips." — Prometheus Unbound by Percy Bysshe Shelley
"And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you." — The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White
"You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought." — The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle
"Yours is the light by which my spirit’s born: you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars." — You Are My Sun, My Moon, And All My Stars by E.E. Cummings
“Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.” — The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you." — Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
"Wherever you are is my home, my only home." — Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
"Loving you never was an option. It was a necessity." — Unrequited by Truth Devour
"My heart is, and always will be, yours." — Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
"You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on." — Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
"You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever." — Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
“He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.” — Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
"So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard, and we're gonna have to work at this every day. But I wanna do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever. You and me. Every day." — The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
"No measure of time with you will be long enough, but we'll start with forever." — Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
"Don't ever think I fell for you or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it." — Jazz by Toni Morrison
“Give a man a finger; he’ll put a wedding ring on it!” — The New Land by Ljupka Cvetanova
“If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.” — Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
"Here's to all the places we went. And all the places we'll go. And here's to me, whispering again and again and again and again: I love you." — An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
"We loved with a love that was more than a love." — Annabelle Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
“If I were to live a thousand years, I would belong to you for all of them. If we were to live a thousand lives, I would want to make you mine in each one.” — The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
"You are sunlight through a window, which I stand in, warmed. My darling." — The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Engagement Quotes from Television and Films

"You are, and always have been, my dream." — The Notebook
“The only thing that matters is that you make me happier than I ever thought I could be. And if you let me, I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel the same way." — Chandler Bing, Friends
"I love you, in a really really big, pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window, unfortunate way that makes me hate you, love you." — Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy
"If soulmates do exist, they’re not found. They’re made." — Michael , The Good Place
“I love you and I like you.” — Leslie Knope, Parks and Recreation
"Some people are worth melting for." — Olaf, Frozen
"I’m looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.” — Carrie Bradshaw , Sex and the City
“One thing that will make you give up on everything you thought you know, every instinct, ever rational calculation. Love.” — Jim Halpert, The Office
" Today I become accountable to someone other than myself. Today I become accountable to you, to our future, to all the possibilities that our marriage has to offer. Together, no matter what happens, I'll be ready for anything, for everything to take on life, to take on love, to take on possibility and responsibility. Today, our life together begins, and I, for one, can't wait." — Alex Karev, Grey's Anatomy
“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” — When Harry Met Sally
“Let me share this whole new world with you.” — Aladdin
"You're what I love," Andy Dwyer, Parks and Recreation
" You're everything. I love you, and I'm not going to stop loving you. I can't live without you. I don't want to live without you, and I'm going to do everything in my power to prove it." — Derek Shepherd, Grey's Anatomy
“I thought this was going to be the most difficult thing I was ever going to have to do, but when I saw you walking down that aisle I realized how simple it is. I love you. Any surprise that comes along the way is okay because I will always love you.” — Chandler Bing, Friends
“That moment when you kiss someone, and everything around you becomes hazy, and the only thing in focus is you and this person, and you realize that that person is the only person that you’re supposed to kiss for the rest of your life.” — Never Been Kissed
“When you’re a kid, you assume your parents are soulmates. My kids are gonna be right about that.” — Pam Beesly, The Office
"You complete me." — Jerry Maguire
"If this I am sure: you are my partner, my lover, my very best friend, my heart. My heart beats for you. And on this day, the day of our wedding, I promise you this: I promise you to lay my heart in the palm of your hands; I promise you me." — Preston Burke, Grey's Anatomy
“This is the miracle that I’ve been dreaming of. So, this is love.” — Cinderella
"If you don't believe in love, what's the point of living?" — Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation
"I wanna make you smile whenever you're sad. Carry you around when your arthritis is bad. All I wanna do is grow old with you." — The Wedding Singer

Engagement Quotes from Songs

"I've been all around the world/Marching to the beat of a different drum/But just lately I have realized/Baby, the best is yet to come" — "Someone Like You" by Van Morrison
"You are the best thing that's ever been mine" — "Mine" by Taylor Swift
"'Cause we were just kids when we fell in love" — "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran
"You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess/It's a love story, baby, just say, 'Yes'"— "Love Story" by Taylor Swift
“And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times/It's you, it's you, you make me sing/You're every line, you're every word, you're everything" — "Everything" by Michael Bublé
"I could make you happy, make your dreams come true/Nothing that I wouldn't do/Go to the ends of the Earth for you/To make you feel my love." — "To Make You Feel My Love" by Bob Dylan
"You're my end and my beginning" — "All of Me" by John Legend
“I feel like this is the beginning, though I’ve loved you for a million years” — "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" by Stevie Wonder
“Your kisses taste the sweetest with mine/And I'll be right here with ya 'til the end of time” — "Peaches" by Justin Bieber
“Gee I really love you/And we're gonna get married/Going to the chapel of love” — "Going to the Chapel" by The Dixie Cups
"Wherever you stray/I follow/I'm begging for you to take my hand/Wreck my plans" — "Willow" by Taylor Swift
"A hundred and five is the number that comes to my head/When I think of all the years I wanna be with you/Wake up every morning with you in my bed/That's precisely what I plan to do" — "Marry Me" by Jason Derulo
“We should get married/Let's stop holding back on this and let's get carried away” — "Mine" by Beyoncé
“Forty days and forty nights/I waited for a girl like you to come and save my life" — "Out of My League" by Fitz and the Tantrums
"But as long as there are stars above you/You never need to doubt it/I'll make you so sure about it/God only knows what I'd be without you" — "God Only Knows" by John Legend and Cynthia Erivo
"Take my hand, take my whole life, too/For I can't help falling in love with you” — "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis Presley
“How do you do it, you got me losing every breath/What did you give me to make my heart beat out my chest?” — "Latch" by Disclosure
"Can we just feel this way together 'til the end of all time/Can I just spend my life with you" — "Spend My Life With You" by Tamia and Eric Benet
“Meet me in the altar in your white dress/We ain't getting no younger, we might as well do it” — "Let's Get Married" by Jagged Edge
“Looks like we made it/Look how far we've come, my baby/We mighta took the long way/We knew we'd get there someday" — "You're Still the One" by Shania Twain
“Is it the look in your eyes or is it this dancing juice/Who cares baby, I think I wanna marry you” — "Marry You" by Bruno Mars
"So I take your hand and ask you/Have you made plans for the rest of your life?" — "The Rest of Our Life" by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill
“We are not perfect/We learn from our mistakes/And as long as it takes/I will prove my love to you” — "I Choose You" by Sara Bareilles
“I'll take this chance, so call me blind/I've been waiting all my life/Please don't scar this young heart/Just take my hand" — "I Was Made for Loving You" by Tori Kelly
"I'm running out of ways to make you see/I want you to stay here beside me/I won't be ok and I won't pretend I am/So just tell me today and take my hand" — "Just Say Yes" by Snow Patrol
"I've got a ways to go on this ride/But I got a hand to hold that fits just right/You make me laugh, you make me high,/You make me wanna hold on tight/'Cause who I am with you is who I really wanna be" — "Who I Am With You" by Chris Young

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12 ways to prepare yourself for marriage before and during your engagement.

man and woman kissing after their wedding

Embarking on the journey of marriage is a significant life milestone, marked by the promise of lifelong companionship. While the prospect of sharing your life with someone is exciting, it's essential to recognize the responsibilities and adjustments that come with this commitment. In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into various key aspects to consider as you prepare for marriage, ensuring a solid foundation for a lasting and fulfilling union.

Self-Reflection

Before entering into marriage, enter into a journey of deep self-reflection. Take the time to understand not only your values, beliefs, and life goals but also your strengths and areas for personal growth. This self-awareness will not only contribute to your own well-being but will also enhance your ability to connect with and understand your future spouse. A good way for you and your spouse to reflect on yourself and your habits before marriage is to take some sort of relationship assessment tool. The Relate Assessment offers couples a chance to take a questionnaire independently and then come together to discuss their answers. This way, you and your future spouse can iron out some details that may need to be talked about; some of them might even appear below.

Communication Skills

Effective communication is the bedrock of a successful marriage. Beyond just expressing yourself, focus on active listening and understanding your partner's perspective. Work on refining your communication skills to ensure clarity, openness, and empathy. Being able to navigate both the simple joys and complex challenges through effective communication is vital for a healthy and enduring relationship.

Financial Preparedness

Financial stability is a key factor in marital happiness. Assess your current financial situation, discuss your financial goals, and create a plan for managing your finances as a team. Consider factors like budgeting, saving, and investing, and be transparent about your individual financial histories. This collaborative approach to finances will foster trust and provide a solid foundation for your future together.

Emotional Intelligence

Cultivate emotional intelligence as a crucial asset in your marriage. This involves understanding and managing your emotions effectively, as well as being attuned to your partner's feelings. Develop empathy, practice patience, and be willing to compromise when needed. A high level of emotional intelligence contributes to a deeper emotional bond and a more supportive and understanding connection.

Conflict Resolution Skills

Conflict is a natural part of any relationship, and learning how to navigate it constructively is paramount. Acquire and practice effective conflict resolution skills, such as staying calm, expressing your feelings without blame, and finding solutions collaboratively. The ability to manage conflicts positively will contribute significantly to the overall health of your marriage.

Pre-Marital Counseling

Consider engaging in pre-marital counseling as a proactive step towards building a strong foundation. A trained counselor can guide you and your partner through discussions on important topics such as communication styles, expectations, and individual and shared goals. The insights gained during counseling can be invaluable in navigating the complexities of marriage. The Utah Marriage Commission offers many resources available to couples, many of which are free or low-cost. Check out the ePREP program offered to enhance your relationship before you get married.

Establishing Shared Goals

Building a life together requires aligning your goals and aspirations. Engage in open and honest discussions about your short-term and long-term objectives as a couple. Whether it's career aspirations, family planning, or personal growth, having shared goals creates a sense of unity and purpose within the marriage.

Building a Support System

A robust support system outside of your marriage is invaluable. Cultivate friendships with other couples who share similar values and experiences. These connections can provide guidance, encouragement, and a sense of community, strengthening your marriage by offering diverse perspectives and shared experiences.

Maintaining Individuality

While building a life together, it's crucial to maintain a sense of individuality. Nurture your own interests, hobbies, and friendships. Respecting each other's autonomy contributes to a healthy balance within the marriage and ensures that personal growth continues alongside the growth of your relationship.

Continuous Learning

Approach marriage as a journey of continuous learning and growth. Be open to learning from your experiences, adapting to changes, and evolving as individuals and as a couple. Embrace the opportunities for personal and relational development that marriage presents. Attend workshops, read books, and seek guidance when needed to nurture a culture of growth within your marriage.

Intimacy and Connection

A thriving marriage requires emotional and physical intimacy. Cultivate a strong emotional connection by expressing affection, appreciation, and support regularly. Prioritize quality time together, fostering shared experiences and memories. Addressing and nurturing both emotional and physical intimacy is essential for a fulfilling and lasting marriage.

Resilience and Flexibility

Recognize that marriage is a dynamic journey with ups and downs. Develop resilience by facing challenges together and maintaining a positive outlook. Be flexible in adapting to life's uncertainties and changes. The ability to weather storms and adapt to different life phases will contribute to the longevity of your union.

Preparing for marriage is a transformative process that involves self-discovery, effective communication, financial planning, emotional intelligence, and a commitment to continuous learning and growth. By investing time and effort into these key areas, you lay the groundwork for a resilient and fulfilling partnership. Remember, a successful marriage is not about finding the perfect partner but about being the right partner. Embrace the adventure that marriage brings, and enjoy the lifelong journey of love, companionship, and shared dreams.

If you've found this blog helpful, we have a few more resources for you! Check out our blogs on how men can prepare for marriage and how women can prepare for marriage . If you're looking for even more resources, head over to our Pinterest page and scroll through our relationship boards. We're all about enhancing relationships and we want to make sure everyone can be happy and successful in their dating, marriage, parenting, and single lives. Give us a follow!

Thanks for reading and we'll see you on the next one!

200 Beautiful Wedding Wishes and Messages to Write in Their Card

For family, friends or colleagues — honor their day with these congratulatory words.

wedding wishes what to write in a wedding card

Funny Wedding Wishes

Wedding wishes based on bible verses, wedding wishes for a colleague, meaningful wedding wishes, wishes for a new family member, wedding wishes for a son or daughter.

That’s right, figuring out what to write inside a wedding card is an important part of gift-giving that should be taken seriously. After all, marriage is a major step in a person’s life and a commitment intended to last a lifetime — so crafting a special message for the loving pair will go a long way.

Stumped on what to write? Well, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve rounded up some of the best wedding messages and wishes to write inside a card . Whether you’re attending the wedding of your child, family member, close friend or co-worker, we have just the right words to help you wish them well. Keep in mind that tailoring your message to suit the relationship is key. For example, what you write for your favorite cousin may not resonate with a professional acquaintance or colleague. And remember, what you write in a bridal shower card should be different than what you pen in a wdding card! So, we’ve put the messages into simple categories to help you strike the right tone and find the one that will work the best for you.

From light-hearted and funny to formal and sentimental this round-up of wedding messages and wishes are sure to brighten the couple’s big day. Plus, if you’re unable to send a card or attend the wedding, you can always share them as Instagram captions to commemorate the couple’s official union.

So, now that you’ve nailed down what you plan to write, you can focus on other important details like finding the perfect dress to wear and purchasing a unique wedding present from their gift registry . Regardless of what you wear, buy, or write inside the wedding card, all that matters is that you send the newlyweds good vibes as they embark on this blissful new journey.

Formal Wedding Wishes

Wishing you a lifetime of wedded bliss.
May your special union bring unbelievable joy to your life.
May the years ahead be filled with lasting love and happiness.
May today be the beginning of a new tomorrow that you will cherish forever.
Wishing you nothing but a lifetime of love.
May this day be the start of forever for you two.
May your love burn brighter every day as you grow in love.
Wishing you a lifetime of love and happiness.
Always remember this special day and why you’re saying, “I do.”
Wishing you joy, love and happiness on your wedding day and as you begin your new life together.
Together, may you experience joy beyond your imaginations.
May this day mark the beginning of a lifetime together.
Wishing you both a happy and prosperous future.
As you grow older together, may your love for one another grow stronger.
Congratulations on your marriage and best wishes for a happy and fulfilling future.
Congratulations on your marriage. May it be fulfilling and everlasting.
Wishing you a beautiful wedding day and an enduring love.
With every hug and kiss, may your bond grow stronger.
Thanks for allowing me to be a part of your special day and witness your undying love.
Best wishes for a lifetime of happiness together.
Cheers to the happy couple. Congratulations!
May your love continue to thrive to infinity and beyond.
Wishing you nothing but endless love.
It’s a joy to watch your love blossom. Here’s to you!
There’s nothing like the celebration of true love!
Today is the beginning of forever. Happy wedding day!
May today be the start of a love that will never end.
Blessings on your nuptials.
Here’s to a joyous life together as you embark upon this love-filled journey.
May the two of you continue to love unconditionally. Congratulations!
Wishing you love, joy and happiness today and always!
Keep love in your heart and every day will feel like today. Happy wedding day!
Today is just the beginning of a lifetime of fun, love-filled adventures. Cheers!
So honored to witness your special day. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of it.
Your love is so bright that it radiates the room. Congratulations!
May your years ahead be filled with nothing but hugs and kisses.

Congratulations! You’re finally getting hitched!
Thanks for inviting me to the best party ever! Oops, I meant your wedding. Congratulations!
Remember, in order to have a successful marriage, you must fall in love many times and always with the same person.
Enjoy your special day because tomorrow the real hard work starts!
Your free booze was greatly appreciated. Wishing you a lifetime of wedded bliss!
Here’s the secret to a successful marriage…oh wait, no one has figured that out yet. Good luck!
Congratulations on signing away your freedom and privacy!
Never forget that this might be the happiest day of your life. It’s all downhill from here! Best wishes.
Best of luck to your new spouse. They don’t know what they’re getting into. Thankfully, they love you unconditionally!
Now you’ll both have someone to laugh at your corny jokes!
It’s good that you two found each other. You’re practically the same person in different bodies!
Eat, drink and be married!
Congratulations! Here’s a piece of advice: don’t build furniture together if you want it to last!
You two have just started your lives together, but you’re already starting to look alike!
Marriage is a bond between a person who never remembers anniversaries and another who never forgets them.
Don't mess this up! But in case you do, just know that you can keep my gift... Congrats!
Congratulations on your wedding, may you always be able to put up with each other!
It's a true blessing to know that, for the rest of your life, there's only one special person you want to annoy. Congratulations!
Marriage: Where “Yes Dear” are the magic words.
Getting married is like being in drama school. You get to practice everything from comedy to melodrama to tragedy. Congratulations.
Congratulations and best of luck on continuing to ignore the little annoying things.
And now you two have officially become one: one bed, one remote, one bathroom!
Congratulations! Thanks for officially taking [insert name] off my hands.
I just have one thing to say: finally!
“Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” –Ephesians 4:32
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." –1 Corinthians 13:13
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” –1 Corinthians 13:4-5
“Let all that you do be done in love.” –1 Corinthians 16:14
“I have found the one whom my soul loves.” –Song of Solomon 3:4
“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” –Romans 12:10
“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” –Mark 10:9
“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.” –Proverbs 3:3
"Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins." –1 Peter 4:8
"Serve one another through love." –Galatians 5:13
"I have found the one whom my soul loves." –Song of Solomon 3:4
"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is made complete in us." –1 John 4:12
"So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate." —Matthew 19:6
"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." —Ephesians 4:2-3
"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing." —1 Thessalonians 5:11
“Do everything in love.” 1 Corinthians 16:14
"Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other." —Psalm 85:10
"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." —1 Peter 4:8
"Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned." —Song of Solomon 8:7
"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for you I entrust my life." —Psalm 143:8
"He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord." —Proverbs 18:22
“The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness." —Jeremiah 3:13
"But Ruth replied, 'Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.’” —Ruth 1 16-17
"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law." —Romans 13:8

Congratulations on finding your soulmate!
Wishing you an everlasting union.
May your love burn brightly forever.
Best wishes!
Here's to many happy years together!
Congratulations on your nuptials.
All the best to you today and always.
Seeing you two together brings me so much joy. Best wishes!
Tons of love for you today and always.
Wishing you a long and healthy marriage.
It is a privilege to witness such pure love. Congratulations!
Following your heart always leads to a lifetime of love.
Here's to an exciting and loving future together.
I’m so glad to share this special day with you two!
Congratulations on your marriage. I wish you both the best.
Best wishes for today and beyond.
We are honored to celebrate your love and special day.
A lifetime of love begins today. Enjoy every minute!
I'm so honored to share this special day with you.
Well wishes!
I wish you both a long and happy marriage!
Well wishes to you and your partner!
If you’re as good of a partner as you are a co-worker, I know that your spouse is one lucky person!
I’m so happy for you. Congratulations!
Blessings on your union.
Tons of love for you today.
It’s such a joy to see you so happy. Continued blessings!
Your future as a bride/groom is exceptionally bright. Congratulations on finding your special someone.
Today is just the beginning of endless fun, laughter and of course, love!
Here’s to a lifetime of happiness.
It’s a blessing to find your soul mate. I’m so glad you found yours!
Married life is going to look so good on you!

As the days go by, hold onto the burning love that ignited your journey.
Don't let anything stand in the way of your love.
As you take this big step, know that you have my love and support today and always.
Be sure to always lean on your unconditional love even when things aren't easy.
As a couple, you are living proof that following your heart will always lead to true love.
Never forget what brought you two together. Stay focused on your love and you’ll never go wrong.
Keep your love close to your heart, it can conquer anything.
Respect your union and each other and the rest will always fall into place.
All that matters is your love for one another. Congratulations on making the commitment.
The connection you share is unbreakable. Cherish and honor your love.
Don't lose sight of your love, it can overcome anything.
Honor your spouse and you will be prepared for anything that comes your way.
Keep humor at the forefront of your marriage and you’ll have a lifetime of laughs.
Congratulations on your marriage. We want you to know that you can always call and count on us for anything.
Put your marriage first and watch it flourish.
Always remember to make time for each other no matter the circumstance.
Your sweetest dream has come true. Never forget what this feels like. Best wishes!
May this day stay in your heart forever.
True love trumps all. As you embark on this new journey, make it your guiding light.
Prioritize spending time together and you will have a long-lasting love.
Keeping your heart in the right place will always lead to true love, as you have shown with your union.
When things get tough, always remember what brought you two together: love.
Cherish every moment together because you guys were made for each other.
Never lose sight of what’s important. Keep the flame going by respecting and loving each other unconditionally.
Prayer will keep your marriage strong. Never hesitate to seek guidance. Congratulations!
There may be ups and downs down the road, but stay the course because love always prevails.
Marriage takes work, but if there’s anyone who can handle the challenges and keep the love flowing, it’s you. Here’s to a lifetime of wedded bliss!
You two are a prime example of what following your heart can bring: pure happiness!
Marriage is a commitment that comes with immeasurable benefits. Congratulations on taking this journey.
You two epitomize the meaning of soul mates. It’s an honor to witness your love.
You’re an inspiration for couples who want to take the next step. Thank you for leading with love.
Witnessing the love between you two is nothing short of amazing. Cheers to a lifetime together!
Lead with love and everything will always fall into place. Never lose sight of what sparked your union.
Keep each other first in your lives and watch how your marriage thrives.
Respect is paramount in successful marriages. Remember this and you’ll have a lifetime of happiness.
Keep all lines of communication open and your marriage will flourish until the end of time.
Remember to laugh a lot and never go to bed angry. These simple rules are cheat codes for a successful and happy marriage.
Joy is what I feel when I see your union. You’re an example of what true love looks like.
Keep love in your heart and every day will be blissful.
Surround yourself with people who respect your marriage. Never let outside forces cause chaos in your home. Congratulations on your nuptials!

Best wishes. Welcome to the family!
I am so blessed to have gained another loving family member.
Our family has gained a wonderful new member. We’re so happy to share in your love and special day.
I’m so happy to call you family. Here’s to a lifetime of making precious memories together.
Today we added another member to our family tree, and we are overjoyed. Here’s to more family gatherings.
We love you both so much. Thank you for inviting us to celebrate your union.
Nothing warms my heart more than seeing you two together. Welcome to our family.
You fit right into our family. We’re welcoming you with open arms. Congratulations.
Our family just got better because you joined it. Cheers!
This special day will go down as one of our family’s finest moments. We’re so happy to have you in our lives.
Since our first encounter, I knew you were destined to be in our family. Congratulations!
You bring such a joyful presence to our brood. Welcome to our big, wacky family.
You’ve always exuded such a calm and peaceful vibe that blends in perfectly with our family. I can’t wait to spend more time with you. Wishing you a lifetime of love.
We fell in love with you too! Thank you for loving him/her the way you do. Looking forward to more holidays together.
Your connection isn’t just with your spouse, you’re part of our family for life.
Congratulations! May your union be blessed, family.
I’ve never seen anyone bring so much joy to our family. Thank you for being you and welcome to the family.
It’s crystal clear that you two were made for each other. Continue to walk in that light and the rest of your years together will be blissful.
You two are one of my favorite couples. I’m so happy it’s official because now you’re family. Congratulations!
You are the yin to her/his yang. Keep bringing out the best in each other. You two are a match made in heaven. Welcome to the family!
I pray that God continues to bless your union. We’re so grateful to welcome you into the fold.
You’re now a treasured branch on our beloved family tree and we’re forever grateful. Congratulations on your nuptials.
Family is everything and we’re so proud to have you in ours. We love you! Welcome to the family!

I couldn’t be prouder of the beautiful/handsome young man/woman you’ve become. Congratulations on stepping into this new chapter.
As your mom, witnessing your union makes my heart sing. I am overjoyed to watch your love grow.
I’ve watched you blossom into a wonderful young woman/man. Always know that I’m here for you no matter what. Congratulations!
Although you will always be my baby, you’re now entering a new role in your life. Wishing you nothing but best wishes and everlasting love.
It makes me so happy to see you marrying the love of your life. I always knew you’d find someone who cherishes you as much as I do. Cheers to a lifetime of happiness.
May you bring each other as much happiness as you’ve brought into my life. Best wishes for a long and healthy marriage.
I always knew you were special, and it warms my heart to see someone else love and appreciate you as much as I do. Congratulations on your special day!
From the moment you were born, I knew that you would grow up to become an exceptional individual. Now that you’re getting married, never lose sight of your values and principles that have taken you this far in life.
I’m so happy to be part of your special day, daughter. As always, I’m wishing you the best in everything that you do.
To my beautiful/handsome daughter/son, it’s such a lovely feeling to witness your union. May your marriage be filled with joy and happiness on this special occasion.
It’s one of my greatest joys to see you find your special someone. Wishing you a lifetime of love.
It’s been an honor to raise you. You’ve grown into a warm, compassionate and loving human being and I couldn’t be prouder. May your union be blessed for an eternity.
You’re truly blessed to have found your soulmate. Always stay true to yourself and don’t let outsiders interfere with your unique love.
It’s been a pleasure to see you in love. Getting a front row seat in your life has been one of my greatest blessings. Wishing you infinite love today and always.
I’ve never known a love that shines as bright as yours. Continue to spread your unconditional love and your union will forever flourish.
From the first day I laid eyes on you, I knew that you were special. It’s always been my hope that you’d find someone who loves you the way you deserve to be loved. That day has come, and I’m overjoyed.
You’re the most beautiful/handsome bride/groom that I’ve ever seen. May you continue to glow in your light as you enter this new chapter.
You’ve always been a loving child. Now you’ve grown into an even more loving young man/woman. It’s such a privilege to witness your love evolve. Eternal blessings to you and your partner.
Even though you’re married now, you’ll always be my baby. Happy wedding day to my beloved baby girl/boy!
Besides your original birthday, this is probably one of the happiest days of my life. Wishing you nothing but matrimonial bliss.
It brings me the greatest joy to see you embarking on this new journey. I know that you will be an amazing husband/wife. Congratulations!I’ve been there with you since day one, so watching you take this step into holy matrimony is a blessing that I’ll forever cherish. I love you so much!

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Wedding Readings – The Journey

When it comes to a wedding ceremony, it’s often reflective of the path the couple has taken to get to the wedding day. So continuing on with our wedding readings series (see readings on togetherness here and readings on the definition of marriage here .) I’m focusing on readings which tell of journeys in love and life that a relationship takes and the road yet to be travelled.

Shares yours in the comments, I’m always looking for wonderful readings!

Journey – Christine De Luca

Today you see far down a mountainside, out over islands to your far horizon. Your sight is sharp, your goal clear, and tides of love lap round all your desiring.

Two sets of footprints you will make, but true companions on this journey you’ll become.

When you slip out of step, think of today; relive again its close embrace of freedom. May truest feelings stir you as the wind disturbs the loch, or smirr on cotton grass. May you find bliss in ordinariness and joy forever in its present tense.

Oh! The Places You’ll Go! – Dr Seuss

Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.

And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t. Because, sometimes, you won’t.

I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.

You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.

You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.

And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And if you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.

No! That’s not for you! Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing. With banner flip-flapping, once more you’ll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky. Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!

Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all. Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don’t. Because, sometimes, they won’t.

I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.

All Alone! Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.

And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.

But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. On and on you will hike. And I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Kid, you’ll move mountains! So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!

We Have Lived and Loved Together – Charles Jefferys

We have lived and loved together through many changing years; We have shared each other’s gladness and wept each other’s tears; I have known ne’er a sorrow that was long unsoothed by thee; For thy smiles can make a summer where darkness else would be. Like the leaves that fall around us in autumns fading hours Are the traitor’s smiles, that darken when the cloud of sorrow lowers; And though many such we’ve known, love, too prone, alas, to range, We both can speak of one love which time can never change. We have lived and loved together through many changing years; We have shared each other’s gladness and wept each other’s tears. And let us hope the future, as the past has been will be. I will share with thee my sorrows, and thou thy joys with me.

Union – Robert Fulghum

You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making promises and agreements in an informal way.

All those conversations that were held riding in a car or over a meal or during long walks — all those sentences that began with “When we’re married” and continued with “I will and you will and we will”- those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe”- and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.

The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things we’ve promised and hoped and dreamed- well, I meant it all, every word.”

Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another- acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, and even teacher, for you have learned much from one another in these last few years. Now you shall say a few words that take you across a threshold of life, and things will never quite be the same between you.

For after these vows, you shall say to the world, this- is my husband, this- is my wife.

Darest thou now O Soul – Walt Whitman Darest thou now O Soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

No map there, nor guide,

Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.

I know it not O soul, Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us, All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land…

“Everything is Illumanated” The 120 Marriages of Joseph and Sarah L – Jonathan Safran Foer

The young couple first married on August 5, 1744, when Joseph was eight and Sarah six, and first ended their marriage six days later when Joseph refused to believe, to Sarah’s frustration, that the stars were silver nails in the sky, pinning up the black nightscape. They remarried four days later, when Joseph left a note under the door of Sarah’s parents’ house: I have considered everything you told me, and I do believe that the stars are silver nails. They ended their marriage again a year later, when Joseph was nine and Sarah seven, over a quarrel about the nature of the bottom of the river bed. A week later, they were remarried, including this time in their vows that they should love each other until death, regardless of the existence of the riverbed, the temperature of the riverbed’s bottom (should it exist), and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed. They ended their marriage one hundred and twenty times throughout their lives and each time remarried with a longer list of vows. They were sixty and fifty-eight at their last marriage, only three weeks before Sarah died of heart failure and Joseph drowned himself in the bath. Their marriage contract still hangs over the door of the house they on-and-off shared-nailed to the top post and brushing against the SHALOM welcome mat:

“It is with everlasting devotion that we, Joseph and Sarah L, reunite in the indestructible union of matrimony, promising love until death, with the understanding that the stars are silver nails in the sky, regardless of the existence of the bottom of the river, the temperature of this bottom (should it exist) and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed, overlooking what may or may not have been accidental grape juice spills, agreeing to forget that Joseph played sticks and balls with his friends when he promised he would help Sarah thread the needle for the quilt she was sewing, and that Sarah was supposed to give the quilt to Joseph, not his buddy, ignoring the simple fact that Joseph snores like a pig, and that Sarah is no great treat to sleep with either, letting slide certain tendencies of both parties to look too long at members of the opposite sex, not making a fuss over why Joseph is such a slob, leaving his clothes wherever he feels like taking them off, expecting Sarah to pick them up, clean them, and put them in their proper place as he should have, or why Sarah has to be such a pain about the smallest things, such as which way the toilet paper unrolls, or when dinner is five minutes later than she was planning, because, let’s face it, it’s Joseph who’s putting that paper on the roll and dinner on the table, disregarding whether the beet is a better vegetable that the cabbage, putting aside the problems of being fat-headed and chronically unreasonable, trying to erase the memory of a long since expired rose bush that a certain someone was supposed to remember to water when his wife was visiting family, accepting the compromise of the way we have been, the way we are, and the way we will likely be. May we live together in unwavering love and good health. Amen”

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15 Creative Ideas for a Travel-Themed Wedding

Libby McCarthy is a Sustainability Communications Coordinator for Quantis International.
Libby helps forward-thinking companies share their sustainability stories.
Libby was a freelance writer for The Knot for four years.

If you're dreaming of a destination wedding, but airfare and hotels aren't in the budget, turn your celebration into day filled with travel-inspired touches. Or maybe you and your partner are a couple of jet setters who want to share their adventures with guests through a travel-themed décor. Here are some of our favorite wedding details that will make your guests feel like they're being whisked away to a faraway place.

1. Snail Mail Save-the-Dates

From: An Elegant Island Wedding in Maui, Hawaii

2. Map Stationery

Travel-themed wedding program and passport stationery

From: A Classy Garden Wedding at the Cornerstone Sonoma in Sonoma, California

3. Around-the-World Seating Charts

Travel-themed wedding escort card display idea

4. Themed Signage

Flower and greenery wreath for a rustic wedding entrance

From: A DIY Vintage Wedding at Providence Public Library in Providence, Rhode Island

5. Globe Decor

6. Unique Accessories

Rugged groom look with a map-themed pocket square

7. Centerpiece Alternatives

Nonfloral centerpiece idea for a travel-themed wedding

From: A Rooftop Spring Wedding at Foundation for the Carolinas in Charlotte, North Carolina

8. Sweetheart Chair Decor

Sweetheart chair decor with framed maps for a destination wedding idea

9. Table Numbers

10. Travel-Ready Decor

From: A Romantic, Glamorous Wedding With a Rustic Twist at the Lace Factory in Deep River, Connecticut

11. Travel Phrases

Rustic wedding idea with hanging flowers

From: A Chic Rustic Wedding at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia

12. Non-Traditional Guestbooks

Post card guest book for a creative wedding idea

From: A Romantic, Fall Vineyard Wedding at Chalk Hill Estate Winery in Healdsburg, California

13. Creative Groom's Cake

Globe and luggage travel-themed groom's cake idea

From: A Ritz -Carlton Cancun Wedding in Cancun, Mexico

14. Destination Signage

Travel sign idea for a destination wedding

From: A Travel Themed Destination Wedding at Na 'Aina Kai Botanical Gardens on the island of Kauai, Hawaii

15. Luggage Tag Favors

Want More? Of Course You Do! > See 100s of venues across the country > Fun and creative reception ideas you'll want to steal! > Everything you need to know to start planning your dream wedding

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Adventure Wedding Readings and Quotes | Tips for Adventurous Brides

Behind the scenes adventure wedding readings, quotes, and poems.

Over the years of working as adventure wedding photographers we’ve heard some beautiful adventure wedding readings and quotes on love. That might mean nature and love poems, quotes, and readings. We’re excited to share the best wedding quotes we’ve heard with you!

As you can imagine, I always love when a couple puts some time, thought, and intention into building their ceremony. Wedding ceremonies are important. (If you want some free relationship advice, a healthy relationship is about spending time on important things.) The words that are said, the vows that are exchanged, and the promises made are a big part of the celebration.

In fact, what are we gathering to celebrate other than a commitment? Essentially, the ceremony itself states what exactly that commitment means to the couple, and what marriage means to the couple. For us, love is an adventure and one that we’re excited to continue hand-in-hand!

love is an adventure – and the wedding is only day one

Today we’re excited to share some wedding readings about the adventure that reflect that. After this, we hope you’re asking if you can Get Married on a Mountain ! We’ve broken them down into the following categories.

Our favorite marriage adventure quotes
Short nature quotes on love for your wedding
Popular wedding readings on love and adventure
Religious or spiritual readings with a nature element

Enjoy these wedding quotations, wedding quotes and sayings, I hope you find something to inspire you!

Why I Love Nature and Love Poems for Weddings (non-religious)

A successful marriage requires falling, trusting, choosing, and committing. Every day. Happy marriages begin at the edge of your comfort zone where the adventure is. A successful marriage grows from the lesson learned through the process.

Connecting to nature quotes can remind us that love is an adventure and sometimes it’s hard, risky, and challenging. But nature teaches us how to grow as individuals and couples. The best readings for weddings non-religious, in my opinion, have their own spirituality. The spirituality of nature and the lessons we can learn from the natural world.

If you’ve heard of the concept of twin flames you’ll know that your twin flame is someone whose love is powerful enough to encourage you to meet your own soul and do the hard work of being your best self. That’s an adventure! Whenever we hear an unusual wedding readings non religious we try to add it to this post!

yosemite taft point elopement photography adventure wedding readings and quotes

our favorite adventure wedding readings and quotes

Enjoy these happy marriage quotes inspired by adventure! Whether you’re seeking pagan wedding vows, funny tying the knot quotes, alternative wedding readings or spiritual saying to tie the knot, I hope you find what you’re looking for.

These quotes can be added to your nature wedding ceremony script or built around it for a nature inspired wedding ceremony script.

1. “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” – John Muir

One thing I love about John Muir is that he has memorable, recognizable, and noticeable quotes and nature-inspired readings for weddings. But I am also always hearing new ones. Seems like there’s something magical and poetic for everyone.

Additionally, a lot of our brides choose where to get married very intentionally, they want a magical place to be the setting for their fairytale. A good nature quote can help set that vibe for the ceremony. For example, take this reading that one of our couples introduced me to.

2. “Forests will always hold your secrets, for that’s what forests are for. To separate and hide things. To protect, to comfort, to hold, to envelop, to demonstrate, to slow down, to hold, to teach. Go to the trees to explore your questions and dreams. Go to the tree to desire and seek. The world will listen as you walk, watch, soften, and breathe.” – Victoria Erickson

Looking for inspirational marriage poems? Check out more beautiful poems by the amazing Victoria Erickson in her book Edge of Wonder .

nature quotes and love poems:

Next, below are some more adventure wedding readings and nature quotes love to consider. Everything from short adventure wedding quotes to longer nature-inspired readings, Native American blessings, and nature-inspired poems. Some of them we’ve heard at weddings and others just inspire us. Let me know what I missed! And be sure to check out these 3 Tricks for Planning a Remote Wedding in a Wilderness Location.

Looking for inspirational quotes wedding? Enjoy these love poems nature theme.

short adventure wedding quotes that prove love is an adventure

Here are some of our favorite short wedding quotes about adventure! Their beauty is in their simplicity. They say so much with so little.

“The journey is always towards the other soul.” -D. H. Lawrence
“Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” -Franklin P. Jones
“Sometimes when you fall, you fly.” -Neil Gaiman
“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness — and call it love — true love.” -Robert Fulghum
outdoor inspired wedding readings on love

1. John Muir – Sings Our Love

“Wonderful how completely everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.”

2. Edward Abbey – May Your Trails

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.

May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you — beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”

From Edward Abbey – Desert Solitaire

3. Pierre Tielhard de Chardin – Love is an Adventure

“Love is an adventure and a conquest. It survives and develops like the universe itself only by perpetual discovery. The only right love is that between couples whose passion leads them both, one through the other, to a higher possession of their being.

Put your faith in the spirit which dwells between the two of you. You have each offered yourself to the other as a boundless field of understanding, of enrichment, of mutually increased sensibility. You will meet above all by entering into and constantly sharing one another’s thoughts, affections, and dreams. There alone, as you know, in spirit, which is arrived through flesh, you will find no disappointments, no limits. There alone the skies are ever open for your love; there alone lies the great road ahead.”

Check out books by Pierre Tielhard de Chardin

4. Sonnet 17 by Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom, and carries hidden within itself the light of those flowers, and thanks to your love, darkly in my body lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I know no other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you; so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

popular religious/spiritual wedding readings with a nature element

Behold the popular readings from the word.

1. Song of Songs

If you’re looking for a religious reading, one of my favorites with a little nature inspiration is: Song of Songs 2:8-10,14,16a; 8:6-7a

“Hark! my lover—here he comes springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills. My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. Here he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattices. My lover speaks; he says to me, “Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one, and come! “O my dove in the clefts of the rock, in the secret recesses of the cliff, Let me see you, let me hear your voice, For your voice is sweet, and you are lovely. My lover belongs to me and I to him. He says to me: “Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; For stern as death is love, relentless as the nether-world is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away.”

2. Apache Wedding Blessing – Shelter for Each other

This apache wedding poem is very fitting for nature lovers:

“Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other. Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other. Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other. Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you. May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years. May happiness be your companion and your days together be good and long upon the earth.”

3. Apache Marriage Blessing – Ride the Storms

This apache wedding prayer is a great reminder of the lessons from nature:

“Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves. When frustration, difficulties and fear assail your relationship, as they threaten all relationships at one time or another, remember to focus on what is right between you, not only the part which seems wrong. In this way, you can ride out the storms when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives — remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there. And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.”

4. Cherokee Wedding Blessing – Honor and Harmony

“God in heaven above please protect the ones we love. We honor all you created as we pledge our hearts and lives together. We honor Mother Earth and ask for our marriage to be abundant and grow stronger through the seasons. We honor fire and ask that our union be warm and glowing with love in our hearts. We honor wind and ask that we sail through life safe and calm as in our father’s arms. We honor water to clean and soothe our relationship — that it may never thirst for love. With all the forces of the universe you created, we pray for harmony as we grow forever young together. Amen.”

5. Traditional Irish Blessing

May the raindrops fall lightly on your brow May the soft winds freshen your spirit May the sunshine brighten your heart May the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you And may God enfold you in the mantle of His love. May the road rise to meet you May the wind be always at your back May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall soft upon your fields And until we meet again my friend May God hold you in the palm of his hand May God be with you and bless you May you see your children’s children May you be poor in misfortunes and rich in Blessings May you know nothing but happiness from this day forward May green be the grass you walk on May blue be the skies above you, And from this day forward. May the joys of today Be those of tomorrow.

marriage adventure poems

1. the day sky by hafiz.

Let us be like Two falling stars in the day sky. Let no one know of our sublime beauty As we hold hands with God And burn

Into a sacred existence that defies— That surpasses

Every description of ecstasy And love.

More poems by Hafiz: The Subject Tonight Is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz

2. The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have became shriveled and closed for fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from mysterious presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the njght of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

3. The Privileged Lovers by Rumi

The moon has become a dancer at this festival of love. This dance of light,

This sacred blessing, This divine love, beckons us to a world beyond only lovers can see with their eyes of fiery passion.

They are the chosen ones who have surrendered. Once they were particles of light now they are the radiant sun.

They have left behind the world of deceitful games. They are the privileged lovers who create a new world with their eyes of fiery passion.

Rumi – The Book of Love: Poems on Ecstasy and Longing

4. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

Love one another But make not a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea Between the shores of your souls Fill each other’s cup But drink not from the same cup Sing and dance together and be joyous, But let each one of you be alone Even as the strings of the lute are alone Though they quiver with the same music Give your hearts But not into each other’s keeping For only the hand of life Can contain your hearts And stand together Yet not too near together For the pillars of the temple stand apart And the oak tree and the cypress Grow not in each other’s shadow.

The Prophet

nature themed weddings and inspiration for love

Since we tend to work with nature loving couples, we’ve notice them thoughtfully including the spirit of adventure in their wedding readings and vows. We’ve even seen couples be thoughtful about their adventure wedding invitation wording . Ideally, it seems to illustrate what they value in life, love, and marriage.

Check out more Mountain Top Wedding Ideas or The Appeal of an Adventure wedding for the full effect.

Most importantly, a shared love of nature and adventure is more than just a passion, it is often a lifestyle and a way of life. For some couples, nature is a big part of their spirituality as well. As a result, it makes sense that we turn to naturalists and poets such as John Muir for inspiration on days like these.

We hope you enjoyed these wedding readings about adventure and love! We’re shared everything from short wedding quotes to adventure wedding poems to readings on love. We hope these adventurous readings on love will help you kick off your marriage!

What do you prefer? Short wedding quotes or longer adventure wedding poems? We’d love to hear what you’re planning to use for your wedding ceremony reading.

different nature-themed quotes:

Whether you’re looking for short wedding card verses or a unique wedding reading, I hope you found something you can use.

happy kayaking quotes quotes on paths and journeys 1. sailing marriage quotes:

“no matter how vast the sea, sometimes two ships are destined to meet”

“no matter the winds, no matter the see, I will set sail forever with thee”

“In high time or low tide, I’ll be by your side”

2. beach wedding quotes

“By the salty sea, I pledge my love to thee…”

“As the sea birds sing with their siren-like cry.

Precious few have answered our ocean’s calling,

Shouting out with eye bright and bawling.

So take this proposal and fly like the dove,

To come with me and be my love.” – Christoper Sousa

such a wedding for a few shared tears, laughs, and smiles

The impact of the right nature wedding ceremony script can lead to a few shared teams and a meaningful day. Your wedding officiant might have more ideas from biblical wedding invitation wording to new beginning wedding quotes. Bridal phrases are on the one hand, just words. And on the other hand the ceremony is what the wedding day is really all about.

Now that you have some ideas, inspiration, or at least some direction for your adventure wedding readings and quotes are you looking for more wedding planning information? When you join our newsletter you will get monthly tips, deals, and updates. AND you’ll have access to exclusive content such as our:

What did I miss? Modern wedding ceremony readings? Buddhist scriptures for a Buddhist wedding ceremony? Whether you’re having a spiritual or interfaith ceremony, remember love at the center.

I Bow Deeply Standing quietly by the fence, you smile your wondrous smile, I am speechless, and my senses are filled by the sounds of your beautiful song. Beginning-less and endless. I bow deeply to you. – Thich Nhat Hanh.

FREE comprehensive e-guide: Prioritize your planning so your wedding is a memorable adventure.

Stay tuned for more tips for adventurous brides and check out these wedding photography tips for adventurous brides ! You can also view more of our current and most popular wedding planning advice . If there’s a question we can answer, reach out. Most of our content is built from questions from our readers.

Tips for an Adventurous Honeymoon

Our 9 Best Outdoor Wedding Photography Tips
Outdoor Wedding Planning Advice
Sample Wedding Photography Timeline
3 Tips for Planning a Remote Wedding in a Wilderness Location
Creativity Meditation

We also offer tips for photographers like understanding your camera settings .

We are Marc and Brenda Bergreen, a husband and wife photography team specializing in outdoor weddings and other adventures. Capturing people in nature and the mountain lifestyle is a passion that became a dream that became a life. Cheers to creativity .

Based in Evergreen, CO we travel throughout the state as Colorado wedding photographers and videographers . We also frequently travel to California and other wedding destinations to document love and adventure in a variety of memorable settings. Don’t hesitate to contact us and let us know how we can help!

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30 Adventure Wedding Readings for the Wanderlust Couple

Post author: Brittany
Post published: February 18, 2020
Post category: Readings & Vows

After much research and contemplation, I have compiled a list of what I think are the best adventure wedding readings for those couples looking for a nod to their next great adventure together… which is of course marriage!

These can also be incorporated into wedding vows for the adventurous couple!

Related Post: 25 Nerdy Wedding Readings for Unique Ceremonies

I’ve chosen readings that either explicitly talk about adventuring together, or that speak on this theme in a more subtle way. I tried to include some unique, less common ‘adventure’ wedding readings in this list, as well as many adventure love quotes interspersed throughout!

Before you read, you might want to download my FREE 10-Page Wedding Ceremony Guide on creating your own personalized wedding ceremony (complete with a sample script, readings, and vows!). You can get it here along with the Wayfaring Weddings newsletter! 🙂

PRO-TIP: After your wedding, keep your readings and vows ( and maybe the whole ceremony script! ) bound together in a cute binder that you can treasure forever in your home. I personally recommend checking out prices for artistic 3-ring planner binders on Amazon.

#1 – Our Great Adventure

We are today still dizzy with the astonishment of love. We are surrounded by affection – by smiles and kindliness, By flowers and music and gifts and celebration. Yet they enclose a silence Where we are close with one another. My eyes see only you. I hear nothing but the words We speak to one another This is the day we start our life together. This is our new beginning. – Pamela Dugdale

“Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.” J.K. Rowling

#2 – The Last Battle

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” — C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia, #7)

#3 – “I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love…”

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!” It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments. — Oriah Mountain Dreamer

“Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.” Jack Kerouac

#4 – The Love of God

The love of God, unutterable and perfect, Flows into a pure soul… The way that light rushes into a transparent object. The more love that it finds, the more it gives itself; So that, as we become clear and open, The more complete the joy of loving is. And the more souls who resonate together, The greater the intensity of their love, For mirror-like, each soul reflects the other. – Dante Alighieri

#5 – The Meaning of Marriage

The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words. We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving, for in joining ourselves to one another we join ourselves to the unknown. We can join one another only by joining the unknown. We must not be misled by the procedures of experimental thought: in life, in the world, we are never given two known results to choose between, but only one result that we choose without knowing what it is.

Because the condition of marriage is worldly and its meaning communal, no one party to it can be solely in charge. What you alone think it ought to be, it is not going to be. Where you alone think you want it to go, it is not going to go. It is going where the two of you — and marriage, time, life, history, and the world — will take it. You do not know the road; you have committed your life to a way.

In marriage as in poetry, the given word implies the acceptance of a form that is never entirely of one’s own making. When understood seriously enough, a form is a way of accepting and of living within the limits of creaturely life. We live only one life, and die only one death. A marriage cannot include everybody, because the reach of responsibility is short. A poem cannot be about everything, for the reach of attention and insight is short. – Poet and environmental activist Wendell Berry

“I have always known That at last I would Take this road, but yesterday I did not know that it would be today.” Kenneth Rexroth, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese

#6 – The Country of Marriage

“…our life reminds me of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing and in that opening a house, an orchard and garden, comfortable shades, and flowers, red and yellow in the sun, a pattern made in the light for the light to return to. The forest is mostly dark, its ways to be made a new day after day, the dark richer than the light and more blessed, provided we stay brave enough to keep on going in.” -Wendell Berry

#7 – “Can one have love?”

“Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as “love.” “Love” is abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing… To say “I have a great love for you” is meaningless. Love is not a thing that one can have, but a process, an inner activity that one is the subject of, I can love, I can be in love, but in love I have … nothing. In fact, the less I have, the more I can love.” -Erich Fromm, From To Have or To Be

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.” Henry David Thoreau

#8 – Gift from the Sea

“When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.” -Anne Morrow Lindbergh, From Gift From the Sea

“”Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward at the same direction.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

#9 – Song of the Open Road

The road is before us! It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detained!

Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopened! Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearned! Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher! Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

Camerado, I give you my hand! I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live? – Walt Whitman

“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

#10 – Patagonia

I said perhaps Patagonia, and pictured a peninsula, wide enough for a couple of ladderback chairs to wobble on at high tide. I thought

of us in breathless cold, facing a horizon round as a coin, looped in a cat’s cradle strung by gulls from sea to sun. I planned to wait

till the waves had bored themselves to sleep, till the last clinging barnacles, growing worried in the hush, had paddled off in tiny coracles, till

those restless birds, your actor’s hands, had dropped slack into your lap, until you’d turned, at last, to me. When I spoke of Patagonia, I meant

skies all empty aching blue. I meant years. I meant all of them with you. -Kate Clanchy

“Here? Where is here? But you understand. In my heart Within your heart Is home. Is peace. Is quiet.” Eugene O’Neill, Quiet Song in Time of Chaos

#11 – On Marriage

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master? And he answered saying: You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. -Khalil Gibran

“No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go, we will go together, over the waters of time. No one else will travel through the shadows with me, only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.” Pablo Neruda

#12 – Friendship

Such love I cannot analyse; It does not rest in lips or eyes, Neither in kisses nor caress. Partly, I know, it’s gentleness

And understanding in one word Or in brief letters. It’s preserved By trust and by respect and awe. These are the words I’m feeling for.

Two people, yes, two lasting friends. The giving comes, the taking ends There is no measure for such things. For this all Nature slows and sings. – Elizabeth Jennings

“Two separate beings, in different circumstances, face to face in freedom and seeking justification of their existence through one another, will always live an adventure full of risk and promise.” Simone de Beauvoir , The Second Sex

#13 – Tell Me

Tell me where you go When you look faraway, I find I am too slow To catch your mood. I hear The slow and far-off sea And waves that beat a shore That could be trying to Call us toward our end, make us hurry through This little space of dark. Yet love can stretch it wide. Each life means so much work You are my wealth, my pride. The good side of me, see That you stay by my side Two roots of one great tree. -Elizabeth Jennings

#14 – A Lovely Song For Jackson

If I were a seaweed at the bottom of the sea, I’d find you, you’d find me. Fishes would see us and shake their heads Approvingly from their submarine beds. Crabs and sea horses would bid us glad cry, And sea anemone smile us by. Sea gulls alone would wing and make moan, Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.

If I were an angel and lost in the sun, You would be there, and you would be one. Birds that flew high enough would find us and sing Gladder to find us than for anything, And clouds would be proud of us, light everywhere Would clothe us gold gaily, for dear and for fair. Trees stretching skyward would see us and smile, And all over heaven we’d laugh for a while. Only the fishes would search and make moan, Wondering, wondering, where we had gone. – V.R. Lang

“No matter what transpires between us, in this life or in any other, I will be with you always. You really are my soul mate. We have traveled together before, and we will travel together again.” Diane Rinella

#15 – Passage from Love in the Time of Cholera

“She clung to her husband. And it was just at the time when he needed her most, because he suffered the disadvantage of being ten years ahead of her as he stumbled alone through the mists of old age, with the even greater disadvantage of being a man and weaker than she was. In the end they knew each other so well that by the time they had been married for thirty years they were like a single divided being, and they felt uncomfortable at the frequency with which they guessed each other’s thoughts without intending to, or the ridiculous accident of one of them anticipating in public what the other was going to say. Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nastiness and fabulous flashes of glory in the conjugal conspiracy. It was the time when they loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were most conscious of and grateful for their incredible victories over adversity. Life would still present them with other mortal trials, of course, but that no longer mattered: they were on the other shore.”

― Gabriel García Márquez, From Love in the Time of Cholera

#16 – The Confirmation

Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face. I in my mind had waited for this long, Seeing the false and searching for the true, Then found you as a traveller finds a place Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you, What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste, A well of water in a country dry, Or anything that’s honest and good, an eye That makes the whole world seem bright. Your open heart, Simple with giving, gives the primal deed, The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed, The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea. Not beautiful or rare in every part. But like yourself, as they were meant to be. – Edwin Muir

“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.” Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)

#17 – My Wife

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, With eyes of gold and bramble-dew, Steel-true and blade-straight, The great artificer Made my mate.

Honour, anger, valour, fire; A love that life could never tire, Death quench or evil stir, The mighty master Gave to her.

Teacher, tender, comrade, wife, A fellow-farer true through life, Heart-whole and soul-free The august father Gave to me. – Robert Louis Stevenson

“Love, like everything else in life, should be a discovery, an adventure, and like most adventures, you don’t know you’re having one until you’re right in the middle of it.” E.A. Bucchianeri

#18 – “Love should run out to meet love…”

“Love should run out to meet love with open arms. Indeed, the ideal story is that of two people who go into love step for step, with a fluttered consciousness, like a pair of children venturing together into a dark room. From the first moment when they see each other, with a pang of curiosity, through stage after stage of growing pleasure and embarrassment, they can read the expression of their own trouble in each other’s eyes. There is here no declaration properly so called; the feeling is so plainly shared, that as soon as the man knows what it is in his own heart, he is sure of what it is in the woman’s.” -Robert Louis Stevenson, From Virginibus Puerisque

“They who travel the rocky road together arrive in paradise undivided.” Karey White

#19 – Not Love Perhaps

This is not Love, perhaps, Love that lays down its life, that many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, But something written in lighter ink, said in a lower tone, something, perhaps, especially our own.

A need, at times, to be together and talk, And then the finding we can walk More firmly through dark narrow places, And meet more easily nightmare faces; A need to reach out, sometimes, hand to hand, And then find Earth less like an alien land; A need for alliance to defeat The whisperers at the corner of the street.

A need for inns on roads, islands in seas, Halts for discoveries to be shared, Maps checked, notes compared; A need, at times, of each for each, Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech. – Arthur Seymour John Tessimond

“But I love your feet only because they walked upon the earth and upon the wind and upon the waters, until they found me.” Pablo Neruda

#20 – The Master Speed

No speed of wind or water rushing by But you have speed far greater. You can climb Back up a stream of radiance to the sky, And back through history up the stream of time. And you were given this swiftness, not for haste Nor chiefly that you may go where you will, But in the rush of everything to waste, That you may have the power of standing still- Off any still or moving thing you say. Two such as you with such a master speed Cannot be parted nor be swept away From one another once you are agreed That life is only life forevermore Together wing to wing and oar to oar. – Robert Frost

“And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” Pico Iyer

#21 – Here’s another poem…

Here’s another poem, like all others before and after, dedicated to you. There isn’t anything left to be said but I will spend my life trying to put you into words. You who is every goodness, every optimism and hope. Your love is a better fate for me than anything I could wish for. If you are a part of me, then you’re the best part. And if you’re separate from me, then you are my destination. But I’ve become a weary traveller, so please, let us never be apart. ― Kamand Kojouri

#22 – A Marriage

A marriage makes of two fractional lives a whole; It gives two purposeless lives a work, And doubles the strength of each to perform it. It gives to two questioning natures a reason for living And something to live for. It will give new gladness to the sunshine, A new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth And a new mystery to life.

– Mark Twain

#23 – Hinterhof

Stay near to me and I’ll stay near to you — As near as you are dear to me will do, Near as the rainbow to the rain, The west wind to the windowpane, As fire to the hearth, as dawn to dew.

Stay true to me and I’ll stay true to you — As true as you are new to me will do, New as the rainbow in the spray, Utterly new in every way, New in the way that what you say is true.

Stay near to me, stay true to me. I’ll stay As near, as true to you as heart could pray. Heart never hoped that one might be Half of the things you are to me — The dawn, the fire, the rainbow and the day. – James Fenton

“and then every once in a while, you remember to pull up and look at your partner, your life partner, really look at the one who travels down the lonely road right by your side, and you realize how much you are in this together.” Harlan Coben

#24 – I Would Live in Your Love

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea, Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes; I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me, I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul as it leads. – Sara Teasdale

#25 – These I Can Promise

I cannot promise you a life of sunshine; I cannot promise riches, wealth, or gold; I cannot promise you an easy pathway That leads away from change or growing old. But I can promise all my heart’s devotion; A smile to chase away your tears of sorrow; A love that’s ever true and ever growing; A hand to hold in yours through each tomorrow. – Mark Twain

“What we find in a soulmate is not something wild to tame, but something wild to run with.” Robert Brault

#26 – Reply

I cannot swear with any certainty That I will always feel as I do now, Loving you with the same fierce ecstasy, Needing the same our lips upon my brow. Nor can I promise stars forever bright, Or vow green leaves will never turn to gold. I cannot see beyond this present night To say what promises the dawn may hold. And yet, I know my heart must follow you High up to hilltops, low through vales of tears, Through golden days and days of somber hue. And love will only deepen with the years, Becoming sun and shadow, wind and rain, Wine that grows mellow, bread that will sustain. -Naomi Long Madgett

#27 – Love’s Insight

Take me, accept me, love me as I am; Love me with my disordered wayward past; Love me with all the lusts that hold me fast In bonds of sensuality and shame. Love me as flesh and blood, not the ideal Which vainly you imagine me to be; Love me, the mixed up creature that you see; Love not the man you dream of but the real. And yet they err who say that love is blind. Beneath my earthly, sordid self your love Discerns capacities which rise above The futile passions of my carnal mind. Love is creative. Your love brings to birth God’s image in the earthiest of earth. – Robert Winnett

#28 – I’ll Still Be Loving You

I’ll still be loving you. When your hair has turned to winter and your teeth are in a plate, When your getter up and go has gone to stop and wait I’ll still be loving you.

When your attributes have shifted beyond the bounds of grace, I’ll count your many blessings, not the wrinkles in your face I’ll still be loving you.

When the crackle in your voice matches that within your knee and the times are getting frequent that you don’t remember me I’ll still be loving you.

Growing old is not a sin, it’s something we all do. I hope you’ll always understand – I’ll still be loving you. – C. David Hay

#29 – Love is…

Love is… Love is feeling cold in the back of vans Love is a fanclub with only two fans Love is walking holding paintstained hands Love is Love is fish and chips on winter nights Love is blankets full of strange delights Love is when you don’t put out the light Love is Love is the presents in Christmas shops Love is when you’re feeling Top of the Pops Love is what happens when the music stops Love is Love is white panties lying all forlorn Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm Love is when you have to leave at dawn Love is Love is you and love is me Love is prison and love is free Love’s what’s there when you are away from me Love is…

– Adrian Henri

“Tell him he was my greatest adventure. Tell him I love him.” Fisher Amelie

#30 – Unlimited Friendliness

This is what should be done by the man and woman who are wise, who seek the good, and who know the meaning of the place of peace. Let them be fervent, upright, and sincere, without conceit of self, easily contented and joyous, free of cares; let them not be submerged by the things of the world; let them not take upon themselves the burden of worldly goods; let their senses be controlled; let them be wise but not puffed up, and let them not desire great possessions even for their families. Let them do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove. May all beings be happy and at their ease. May they be joyous and live in safety. All beings, whether weal or strong—omitting none—in high, middle, or low realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far away, born or to be born: may all beings be happy and at their ease. Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state. Let none by anger or ill-will wish harm to another. Even as a mother watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living beings, radiating friendliness over the entire world, above, below, and all around without limit. So let them cultivate a boundless good will toward the entire world, unlimited, free from ill-will or enmity. Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all their waking hours, let them establish this mindfulness of good will, which is the highest state. Abandoning vain discussions, having a clear vision, free from sense appetites, those who are perfect will never again know rebirth.

-From the Buddhist scriptures

That’s all! I hope you enjoyed reading these readings and were able to find one (or more) that you loved! If not, please check out my other posts on the topic of wedding readings:

30 Wedding Readings from Song Lyrics
30 Traditional Wedding Readings For Your Big Day

25 Nerdy Wedding Readings for Unique Ceremonies

25 Romantic Wedding Readings from Movies and TV

How to Write Your Own Wedding Vows: Easy 10-Step Template & Guide

Wedding Readings from Harry Potter

Read more about the article 25 Nerdy Wedding Readings for Unique Ceremonies

Few days in our lives are as memorable as our wedding day, and few decisions more significant, than deciding to marry. While couples spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on the wedding, which will last a few hours, they often neglect to prepare for the marriage, which we want to last a lifetime. All couples dream of living “happily ever after” but many are unaware of, and ill-prepared for, the normal challenges and struggles of marriage. The sad reality is that almost half of all couples will experience the pain of divorce because strong feelings of attraction are not what you need to have a great marriage.

Research indicates that couples who take some sort of marriage preparation have a lower divorce rate than couples without marriage preparation. Preparing for marriage means…

Learning What Marriage is For

God is the author and architect of marriage. He reveals to us, through the Scriptures, the Church, and the Tradition, His purpose and plan for marriage. Couples get married for a variety of reasons, but couples need to learn that a successful marriage needs to follow God’s plan for marriage.

Marriage is a journey together, a journey of getting to know ourselves and each other, and a journey of becoming one. “O Master, stretch out Your hand…and join your servants; …Yoke them in oneness of mind; crown them in one flesh.” (Orthodox wedding prayer before the crowning) Becoming one means learning how to make decisions together, not apart, and working together through the challenges and disagreements of daily life. It’s easy to work together when spouses agree on things. Marriage is a journey of learning how to build oneness with your spouse when you disagree.

“Marriage is a journey of love,” writes Elder Aimilianos. I remember how much I loved my wife on my wedding day. After 20 years I realize how limited my love was for my wife back then. It is easy to love my wife’s good qualities, or when she sees the world the way I see it. Marriage is a journey of learning to love each other as you discover the faults and when we you see things differently.

Marriage is about learning to love each other with God’s love, with Christ-like love. Christ’s love for our spouse is selfless and unconditional. God’s love is much deeper than feelings, which come and go. God’s love is expressed as a commitment to serve and care for someone, no matter what we’re feeling. Christ’s love is expressed as putting our spouse’s needs before our own desires. God allows the predictable struggles and challenges of marriage so that we can learn His perfect love. “Marriage is the key that opens the door to discover…perfect love.” (St. Gregory Nazianzus)

This journey of acquiring God’s love for our spouse is a process of healing of our own sins, rather than trying to change our spouse. Preparing for marriage means learning that God’s plan for couples, on their wedding day, is that they do live “happily ever after,” but not by getting all our desires met, or trying to change each other. Rather, it is by learning how to love with Christ-like love, and allow God to change us.

“If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:12

Learning the Danger Signs

All couples have differences and all marriages experience disagreements and difficulties. Happy couples learn how to work together through these differences. When couples chose to react selfishly, then criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling to enter their relationships. When these selfish types of reactions fill a couple’s relationship, intimacy and oneness are undermined and couples slip down a slippery slope toward marital meltdown and divorce. Couples need learn how to recognize these warning signs that they are sliding down that slope and learn to address their difficulties in a way that nurtures intimacy and oneness.

Getting to Know Each Other

Everyone enters marriage with certain expectations about marriage, assumptions about the world, and ideas about love and family life. We acquire these things from the families we grew up in. The list is endless of the ways the families in which we grow up shape our expectations about everything from the role of the Church in the home to the role of the dad in the home. Preparing for marriage means getting to know your own family, and your fiancée’s family, and deciding together how you would like to do things in your new home. These mature conversations facilitate oneness and put good patterns in place for how couples work together in the home.

It’s one thing if you discover, after the wedding, that your wife prefers Miracle Whip to real mayonnaise. It’s another thing to discover that she wants a career, and you want to have kids right away, or you want to attend Church and he wants to sleep in on Sundays. Preparing for marriage means making the time to discuss the larger issues that can undermine oneness in marriage if they are unaddressed. Issues related to faith, finances, parenting, in-laws, communication, sexual intimacy, problem solving, and personal time versus couple time need to be addressed before the wedding. Discussing this issues as a couple, and with your priest, prepares couples for all the issues that will arise along the journey of marriage.

Engaged couples can feel a lot of pressure to go through with the marriage without addressing these issues. While it’s disruptive to postpone a wedding until these issues are addressed, it is more disruptive to get divorced because one of these issues was not attended to before the wedding.

Learning to Communicate

We inherit our communication style, in part, from our families. Before the wedding is the best time for couples to learn how to speak and listen to each other in a way that builds oneness and intimacy. Learning to speak, as an offering of our thoughts, feelings, and ideas, allows couples to grow in intimacy as they work though difficulties.

No marriage struggles from too much listening. Rather, listening is the first casualty in marital discord. Listening is a sacrificial act of self-offering to your spouse. Real listening requires that we suspend our own thoughts, feelings, and agenda, and allow the other to be heard. Real listening is an act of veneration that nurtures oneness in the midst of daily life. Couples do best when they learn the importance of listening and make time to listen to each other.

Making a Plan

As engaged couples learn about the path of marriage, the danger signs, about each other, and how to communicate, they can put some strategies in place before the wedding to help them stay on the path of marriage. Several of the strategies include:

Ground rules: Like guardrails along winding roads, ground rules keep happy marriages on the path on oneness and salvation. Couples need to make ground rules together around those areas they have difficulty, whether it’s anger, communication, finances, or time together. We show our love to our spouse by sticking to these ground rules no matter how we feel.

A guide: Couples who desire to stay on the path of marriage need a guide, a priest who knows the path, to work with them, to lead them on the path of marriage, and assist them when they get stuck. It is the priest, with the Gospel in hand, who leads couples on their very first steps of their marriage in our wedding ceremony. Couples are united in Church, in the midst of a community of friends, family, and faithful. Couples who desire to stay on the path of marriage keep their marriages, and their homes, Christ-led, intimately connected to the Sacramental life of the Church.

Forgiveness: All couples have struggles and all couples make mistakes. Happy couples learn how to incorporate forgiveness and repentance into their daily and weekly lives. Christ offers to each of us the sacrament of Confession, to help us get back on the path of oneness and salvation.

Prayer: We participate in the life of Christ and His Church by incorporating prayer into our marriage and our homes. Couples who learn how to pray together, and as a family, invite the Holy Spirit into their union. It is the Holy Spirit who transforms a couple and unites them into one. Oneness is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Mandatory Marriage Preparation for All Couples

We need to make marriage preparation a priority as we prepare for our wedding day. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese Center for Family Care, developed a 3-part marriage preparation program designed to address this need, The Journey of Marriage in the Orthodox Church . For more information about workshops in your area please contact Center for Family Care [email protected] for more information.

Dr. Philip Mamalakis is the Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care and Director of the Field Education Program at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA. Together with Fr. Charles Joanides, he authored The Journey of Marriage, marriage preparation program. He offers seminar for couples and trainings for facilitators on the marriage preparation program. He and Georgia, his wife of 20 years, live in Boston with their seven children.

Our Journey From Engagement to Marriage| Author - Shipra Saini

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Shipra Saini

20 Of The Best Journey Wedding Songs for Your Special Day

One of the world’s best-selling bands of all time, Journey has been a major name in the Rock music genre for decades. Since its inception in the early 1970s, the band has had no shortage of chart-dominating hits.

They have also crooned some of the most memorable and enjoyable love songs in the genre. And if you are gunning for some rock flavor on your wedding playlist, what better serenade for all in attendance than the magnificent sounds of Journey?

In this article, we are going to show you the top 20 journey wedding songs that will bring that musical magic to your event.

Top Journey Wedding Songs to Try

After over four decades of their career, the Journey crew are still serenading us with their splendid art. As such, some of the songs here will be fairly recent ones. But without further ado, let’s get to the journey songs.

You will also love these other wedding songs:

Spanish Father-Daughter Wedding Songs
Cliche Wedding Songs to Avoid
Fleetwood Mac Wedding Songs

1. Faithfully

Memorable lyrics: /Restless hearts, sleep alone tonight/ Sendin’ all my love along the wire/

Released in 1983 as part of the band’s album ‘Frontiers,’ ‘Faithfully’ is a powerful love song that was a strong couples’ favorite in the 80s. It was written by the band’s keyboardist, Jonathan Cain, who says he did it in a moment of exceptional inspiration. It’s a marvelous song to play for first dances.

2. Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)

Memorable lyrics: / Here we stand/ Worlds apart, hearts broken in two, two, two/

The upbeat tempo and pace of this song make it the perfect song to play when you wish to keep the mood lively and celebratory.

What is more, its infectious beats and catchy lyrics make you want to sing along, making it the perfect song to pull out when everyone has had their fill of slow dance songs.

3. Don’t Stop Believin’

Memorable lyrics: / Just a small town girl/ Livin’ in a lonely world/

‘Don’t Stop Believing’ is one of Journey’s most iconic and beloved songs ever. It’s played at all kinds of events, from birthdays and anniversaries to wedding ceremonies and even bridal showers.

The song’s uncanny knack for getting people to let loose and just have fun makes it perfect for your wedding dance time playlist.

4. Open Arms

Memorable lyrics: / Softly you whisper/ You’re so sincere/ How could our love be so blind?/

Talk about the perfect song for an intermission between dance times. ‘Open Arms’ is a sweeping, gentle rock ballad that is ideal for playing in the background as everyone catches their breaths, chats around, has a drink, and enjoys some special moments with other guests. And afterward, it’s straight back to the dance floor.

5. Anyway You Want it

Memorable lyrics: / She loves to move/ She loves to groove/ She loves the lovin’ things/

This song is one of the most popular dance numbers by Journey, and it’s loved by music lovers, both young and old. It’s a lively, dance-worthy song sure to hit the right chords with couples who appreciate humor and are willing not to take themselves too seriously.

6. Wheel in the Sky

Memorable lyrics: / Haven’t been home in a year or more/ I hope she holds on a little longer/

This is one of those songs with such melodies that keep audiences captivated and in the spirit of the moment. It’s the perfect mid-tempo number to keep your guests in a steady, not-too-lively mood—just the right mood for some mingling around between major segments of the event.

7. Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’

Memorable lyrics: / Lovin’, touchin’, squeezin’ each other/ When I’m alone all by myself/

Steve Perry is on the vocals as usual, and the song is simply marvelous. Admittedly, the lyrics of the song don’t lend themselves easily to a wedding environment, and that’s why it’s best tried at a themed wedding, such as a gothic-themed one.

8. Stone in Love

Memorable lyrics: / In the heat with a blue jean girl/ Burning love comes once in a lifetime/

If you want to add some charm to your wedding, this edgy, quintessential 80s rock song should definitely be on your playlist. It’s perfect first for dance moments, as it has a proven track record as a body shaker.

It’s also the most splendid song to play while you and your spouse are introduced as a couple for the first time.

9. When You Love a Woman

Memorable lyrics: / When you love a woman/ You see your world inside her eyes/

This 1996 song from Journey best hits album ‘Trial by Fire’ is one of the most romantic Journey wedding songs ever released. It’s a dreamy track that expresses the elation of finding that special girl that you want to spend your life with.

Its passionate vocals and splendid instrumentals make it a great song for wedding first dances.

Memorable lyrics: / When the lights go down in the City/ And the sun shines on the bay/ Ooh, I wanna be there in my City, oh/

This is another one of those mid-tempo Journey wedding songs that will make a splendid addition to your wedding playlist.

It’s a versatile tune, so you can use it for almost any part of the wedding event; however, it’s particularly ideal for cocktail or mingle periods. Additionally, it’s also a perfect song to play near the close of the wedding, as it’s great for helping guests wind down for the day.

11. Who’s Crying Now

Memorable lyrics: / The taste of bittersweet/ Love will survive somehow, somewhere/

As the title already indicates, this is not a particularly joyous or celebratory love song. However, its deep and heartfelt lyrics reflect upon the love and the enduring longing for a lover, even after they’ve gone their separate ways. It works well as a reflective first dance song.

12. Why Can’t This Night Go On Forever

Memorable lyrics: /Lost in twilight/ The memories/ Precious moments, you and me/

This song is ideal for first dances at a wedding, especially due to its tempo. It’s also potentially one of the most underrated songs by this band, with its great instrumentals and Steve Perry’s fantastic bit at the end.

The song expresses the desire to stay with the one you love and share some more precious memories.

13. Only the Young

Memorable lyrics: / Shadows of a golden age/ A generation waits for dawn/ Brave carry on/

‘Only the Young’ is not a love song, but its upbeat tempo and great lyrics make it splendid for dance time. The lyrics talk about the young coming into their own, with the future open before them and full of promise. It portrays the feeling that two young lovers about to start a life together can relate to.

14. Message of Love

Memorable lyrics: / Baby can you hear me/ Can you hear me callin’/ Baby can you hear my/ Message of love/

This is another timeless number from Journey, released in 1996. The song is the soft rock type, and it’s a song of longing and desire. It has a fast tempo, making it ideal for dance time, and it’s also great for retro-themed weddings.

15. Happy to Give

Memorable lyrics: / Shadows fall, after the hurt is gone/ Through it all, we love and we lose/

Part of the album ‘Raised on a Radio,’ this song has some very deep and reflective lyrics. In addition, its tempo is just the right stuff for a relatively mid-pace dance between bride and groom. The lyrics express the fact that we all deserve to be with someone who loves and adores us. And even though we lose love, we also find it again.

16. After All These Years

Memorable lyrics: / A faded wedding photograph/ You and me in our first dance/

What makes this song so romantic and so good as a wedding song is the perspective from which the lyrics emerge.

The song is from the perspective of a lover who looks back on all the years they have spent with their better half, remarking on the journey so far and marveling at how time has not diminished their bond.

17. With Your Love

Memorable lyrics: / On this day… To be standing here with you/ There’s no doubt… I know this love is true/

This Journey masterpiece exhibits the band’s regular big production size, and it contains marvelous piano melodies and spacey guitar rhythms trickling in the background. The song has such quality that it can be enjoyed by all, regardless of their music preference.

18. Send Her My Love

Memorable lyrics: / Send her my love/ Memories remain/ Send her my love/ Roses never fade/

This song is simply a musical masterpiece, with its emotionally charged lyrics and touching, rangy vocals.

The song blends the unique Journey vibe that characterizes all the band’s tracks with soothing, slow jam qualities, and that’s why many consider it one of the best songs by Journey. You want to try this song for a memorable first dance.

19. Girl Can’t Help It

Memorable lyrics: / The girl can’t help it, she needs more/ He hasn’t found what he’s lookin’ for/

This 1986 Journey song is another timeless number that you can use for a lively dance. Steve Perry pulls off the vocals in a way that only he can, and he delivers the powerful lyrics in a way that makes it hard to resist moving your body to the beat.

20. Chain Reaction

Memorable lyrics: / I bet you, she’s the one/ Who helped you, come undone/ Those changes/ She put you through/

The lyrics of this song render a testimony to how loving someone changes us, for better or worse. The song was released as part of the band’s 1983 album, and it quickly became a radio hit. It’s an upbeat number that will absolutely kill it as a fast-tempo dance song at your wedding.

Journey is one of those iconic bands with a long history of iconic songs, and where wedding music is concerned, they have very great options for you to try out. These are our picks for the best ones out there, but we would also recommend that you explore a bit.

The list of tracks in this band’s discography is extensive, and you will find no shortage of great Journey wedding songs for your event.

Is the Journey band still together?

The line-up of the band has changed a bit, especially with the exit of Steve Perry, but it’s still making music right now.

Who are the current members of the band?

The current members of the Journey band are Neal Schon (lead guitarist), Ross Valory (bassist), Jonathan Cain (keyboards and rhythm guitar), Deen Castronovo (drums, percussion), and Arnel Pineda (lead vocals).

Are non-romantic Journey songs good for use in weddings?

Songs don’t necessarily have to be romantic to be on a wedding playlist, although it’s ideal that they should be. Journey songs like ‘Only the Young’ still work if you play them at specific periods of the event.

Serena & Dominic are a married couple and parents to 3 wonderful children. They plan weddings, run multiple small businesses, and curate wedding events.

By giving you everything you need to make your dream wedding attainable, you can eliminate stress, get the ‘wedding glow,’ and focus on spending this rocking day with the person you adore. Discover their podcast for more information

Rocking Romance: 30 Best Led Zeppelin Wedding Songs

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Love You Wedding

An online wedding planning resource for couples. Our content focuses on every aspect of planning your big day, from “Yes!” to “I Do.”

Get in touch for any inquiries.

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16 Travel-Themed Wedding Ideas to Kickstart Your New Adventure

Getting married is your next big adventure together—celebrate the occasion with these travel-themed wedding ideas to reflect your love of exploring the world.

Shannon Cain Photography

If you and your partner love visiting new places together, or if it seems like both of you have a never-ending case of wanderlust, then a travel-themed wedding makes total sense for you when it's time to start planning your big day. Luckily, there are plenty of travel theme wedding ideas you can use to incorporate your love of exploration and adventure into your wedding decor. Whether you're into backpacking, glamorous getaways, or something in between, these ideas will help jumpstart your travel-themed wedding vision board.

What is a travel-themed wedding?

The travel-themed wedding style tends to be a mixture of boho and whimsical aesthetics , with the ultimate goal of creating an ambience that's both welcoming and eclectic—most importantly, it should be full of your personality and love of travel! Popular decor accents for a travel theme include things like globes, vintage suitcases, postcards, airplane motifs, stamps, and maps. Bright wedding colors are an easy way to give your travel-themed wedding a boost of fun, so we suggest choosing eye-catching colors like yellow, blue, red, fuchsia, and turquoise.

Travel Theme Wedding Ideas

Not sure where to start? We've got you. Here are some of our favorite ideas for a travel-themed wedding—your next adventure begins now!

Event planning by Hazel & Bloom Events ; Calligraphy by Cottonwood Print

Travel-themed wedding invitations

Decorate your save-the-dates, wedding invitations , and other stationery with travel-themed details, like a hot air balloon motif, airplane motif, or even the geographical coordinates of your wedding location. Complete the invitations with themed stamps, or source unique vintage ones from Etsy.

PinkShe Designs

Passport wedding invitations

We love this alternative invitation idea if you're having a destination wedding. Work with your wedding stationer to create a themed stationery booklet that looks like a passport—you can include all of the important wedding invitation details , along with helpful travel tips for your guests.

Map & Compass Photography

Comfortable wedding attire

Practical attire is especially important if your travel-themed wedding is taking place in an unexpected locale, like at the top of a mountain. Skip the fancy gowns, tuxedos, and footwear in favor of clothes that make it easy to move around (hiking boots optional!) and are appropriate for your venue.

Engraved compass wedding gift

Watches are a popular wedding day gift to give your spouse, but for a travel wedding theme, why not surprise your S.O. with a personalized compass instead? This one has a sweet engraved message on the back that reads, "So you can always find your way back home."

Airplane hangar wedding venue

Don't hesitate to think outside the box when it comes to your travel-themed wedding venue. Unique transportation-inspired venues, like airplane hangars, aviation museums, and train stations, will add an extra-memorable element to your special day.

Kylie Martin Photography Pippin Hill Farm and Vineyard

Wedding welcome sign

This wedding welcome sign is elegant while staying on-theme thanks to a subtle postal motif in the top right corner. Vintage suitcases and hurricane lanterns turn the sign into a focal point at the venue entrance.

Nicki Wolfe Events & Spaces

Vintage map wedding seating chart

Direct your wedding guests to their reception tables with this travel-themed seating chart. Use a vintage world map as the background for printable or hand-written seating assignments.

Luggage tag wedding escort cards

If you prefer individual wedding escort cards instead of a seating chart, leather luggage tags are a creative idea for a travel-inspired wedding. Hire a professional calligrapher to write the guests' names—these also double as wedding favors!

Poirier Wedding Photography

Event planning by Erin Marie Weddings

Vintage suitcases

Vintage and antique suitcases are staple pieces when it comes to travel-themed wedding ideas. You can use them almost anywhere, whether it's to fill an empty corner at your venue, create a unique wedding cake display, or collect cards and gifts.

Garrett Richardson Photography

Event planning by White Lace Events & Design

Up -themed wedding table centerpiece

If you're inviting kids to your wedding , they'll love this adorable Up -inspired centerpiece (and we're pretty the sure adults will, too).

Palm Beach Photography, Inc.

Vintage travel postcards

From table numbers to place cards, there are a million different ways to use vintage postcards in your travel-themed wedding decor. If you can find postcards from your wedding location, honeymoon spot, or another place that holds significance for you and your partner, that's even better!

Rachael Schirano Photography

Globe wedding guest book

Skip the traditional tabletop guest book and ask your guests to sign a globe instead. Not only does it match the travel-themed wedding aesthetic, but it's something you'll actually want to display it in your home after the wedding. Check out local thrift stores for vintage globes, or purchase a customized one on Etsy .

Mallori Ma Photography

Travel-themed wedding koozies

Koozies are a tried-and-true wedding favor, and they'll come in handy right away if you put them out at the start of your reception. Customize yours with a cute travel-inspired phrase like, "Our adventure begins" and your wedding date.

Social Photo Camper

Vintage camper photo booth

This vintage-camper-turned-photo-booth is an added source of entertainment during cocktail hour and when guests are taking a break from the dance floor. Browse local event rental companies to find one for your reception.

Allie Dearie Photography Noteworthy Chocolates

Personalized wedding favors

Would you believe us if we told you this was chocolate? Treat your guests to a similar wedding favor idea by decorating custom cookies or candy with travel-themed details, like a compass.

Alicia Lucia Photography The Desert Compass

Tile inspired-wedding cake

For your wedding cake, pull inspiration from some of your favorite trips and work with your wedding cake baker to design something you love. This tile-inspired wedding cake reminds us of Barcelona or Santorini.

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The Forever

$149.95 $74.95

The Evermore

$299.95 $149.95

The Desire - Silver

$159.95 $74.95

The Eternity - Silver

$189.95 $74.95

gorgeous wedding ring set with mens ring shown in silver

The Promise - Silver

$179.95 $74.95

$289.95 $149.95

$209.95 $99.95

The Excalibur

$199.95 $79.95

$199.95 $99.95

The Titan Ring - Black

$149.95 $59.95

gorgeous triple stack engagement ring shown in gold

The Alexandria

The Titan Ring - Silver

The Bliss - Rose Gold

The Star Light - Silver

gold, rose gold, and silver engagement rings

$189.95 $99.95

The Camille

The Elite - Black/Rose Gold

The Lovely - Silver

$179.95 $99.95

Affordable Wedding Rings to Wear While Traveling

Looking for a travel engagement ring or wedding band that looks beautiful and doesn't cost a fortune? Look no further! Our selection of affordable wedding and engagement rings are the perfect travel companions. Our travel wedding bands are made of high quality materials and are made to withstand everyday use without damaging or tarnishing .

Why You Should Have a Back-Up Travel Ring

We understand the predicament while traveling — do you take your chances and bring your pricey wedding ring with you or do you leave it at home? The last thing you want to happen when you’re on vacation is to lose your expensive wedding ring or have it be stolen. To prevent this from happening, we’ve created a complete collection of affordable travel wedding rings that are both durable and stylish.

Whether you're going on your dream honeymoon vacation or you're spending a weekend away in your favorite city, consider switching over to a travel engagement ring while exploring new destinations. You’ll be able to relax knowing your diamond ring is home safe in your jewelry box , but when you choose a travel ring from Modern Gents, you’ll have the satisfaction of a high quality replacement that still looks dazzling. That’s because we work hard to make sure that our travel jewelry rings are just as stunning as a classic wedding band — but at a fraction of the cost.

Ready to start seeing the world? Before you start exploring new destinations, make sure to swap out your expensive ring for one of our affordable vacation wedding rings from Modern Gents Trading Co.

What Style of Travel Ring Is Right for You?

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The fool’s journey and beginnings at the wedding

By Bobby Jonte The Mt. Hope Scrolls
Jun 5, 2024

Was at a wedding a few weeks ago, weddings are interesting things. They are fun and exciting and can be viewed from lots of different perspectives. There is all the excitement of the newly weds beginning their journey through life and older people ready to give advice to young people reminding them they don’t know anything yet.

The wedding I attended had all this. It was a quick reminder of the fool’s journey with the tarot cards.

The fool’s card in a tarot deck is about the beginning of the journey through life. A young man begins his journey. He is full of naivety and ready to start a new adventure. The fool’s journey is the perfect card for the newlyweds start. The fool only carries a small bindle but it holds everything he needs to begin the journey that will take him to many trials and tribulations. This start at the adventure of life is wonderful and the fool is untroubled by the lack of knowledge about what life might bring before him.

As newlyweds begin their journey the older guests reminiscence about their own journeys and what they learned on their own journeys over the years. Even with all this knowledge that has been gained over the years, they would love to start again with a new journey. Most of the time they think they would like start over with the saying, “If I only knew then what I know now.”

If we knew that maybe we wouldn’t start on a new journey. That’s the fun of looking at cards and thinking about how life really is.

The newlyweds begin and the people remain to have fun and ponder where they are on their own fool’s journey.

What a time when we get to think about starting new journeys and where we have been in love and romance, career and money, personal and spiritual growth. That’s part of the thrill of watching the fool’s journey begin and to watch our own journey and how it turned out.

The best part of the beginning of a journey is the unknown part. No matter what life has in store for us, we can be assured it will be an adventure. The beginning is a clean start without any idea of what we are up against and it doesn’t matter at all. The adventure is what will matter in the end.

We are also a little jealous to not be starting our fool’s journey again too. The fool’s journey is so exciting because we really do not know what is going to happen and there is no way to imagine how things will turn out. If we knew we might not try any of this stuff that we go through. If we knew our life would be like this and would take this long and be fraught with all the tribulations we wouldn’t even start.

The car with the newlyweds drives off and their journey begins. That makes life worth living. Starting a journey and trying to answer the question, what am I doing where am I going?

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Five Cost-Saving Tips for Wedding Guests to Consider

Attending a wedding can get very expensive very fast, especially if you go out of town, so here are some considerations for keeping the cost in check.

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A wedding guest reaches for a glass of champagne on a table.

Being a guest at a wedding can be a great time: good food, flowing drinks, dancing and memories made. As someone who has planned her own wedding and attended many weddings, I find it much less stressful both financially and emotionally to attend one vs planning your own. However, being a wedding guest isn’t without its financial considerations.

The cost of attending a wedding can vary widely depending on a number of factors, including who the wedding is for, the location of the wedding, whether travel is involved and the related events leading up to the big event. In one study, the Knot reported that the average cost to attend a wedding last year in one’s hometown, where lodging and travel were unnecessary, was $250. Once you add in travel and hotel for out-of-town weddings, the cost jumped dramatically to an average cost of $1,600.

Here are some aspects to consider as a wedding guest to help you plan, maintain good wedding-guest etiquette and keep your expenditures in check this wedding season .

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1. Plan travel well in advance.

When it comes to destination weddings involving flights and hotels, you can get the best flight deals and secure better hotel rates by planning early. Both get increasingly expensive if you wait until the last minute to book. According to The Points Guy , on average, the best time to book a domestic flight is one to two months before your departure date.

Oftentimes with hotel rooms, a couple will secure a block of rooms for their guests at a discounted rate. Be sure to check the wedding invite to see if they have done so, and again — book early because these rooms are usually the first to go. And don’t feel like you have to stay at one of the hotels recommended by the couple. Often, lower-cost options, including home rentals through Airbnb or Vrbo , are just as great and make it easier to split the cost of lodging with friends or family.

2. Plan for pre- and post-wedding events.

For those attending destination weddings, frequently there are pre-wedding events or cocktails and/or post-wedding brunches in the mix. With this in mind, be sure to account for those extra events and additional nights at the hotel in your budget. That alone could add hundreds or thousands to the cost of your trip.

If you don’t have the extra room in your budget to cover these additional events, it’s OK to politely decline! The couple will be grateful that you can attend the main event.

3. Buy the wedding gift ASAP.

By planning and buying the wedding gift early, you also have the best selection of gifts off the registry. By best, I mean the widest selection — one that can fit your budget. If you would like to get the couple a big-ticket item off their registry, consider asking other guests to go in on it as a group gift. Depending on how big your group is, you may even save some money, and the couple will be happy to receive something that may be out of range for one person to afford.

Also, if your budget is tight now, don’t forget that it’s OK to give a wedding present up to three months after the wedding. Most important, stick to what is comfortable and within your budget. This may be an old saw, but it still holds true: It’s the thought that counts!

4. Start saving early.

If you know that you have an expensive wedding coming up, figure out how much you think you’ll need to spend and break down the savings goals into smaller chunks. Don’t forget to prioritize your own future retirement savings and debt repayment when you are creating your savings budget to attend the wedding.

If you work and receive regular paychecks, try having a part of your paycheck automatically deposited into a high-yield savings account . Many of these accounts are currently paying upwards of 5%, FDIC insured and are fully liquid. It’s much easier to save toward a goal when you set it and forget it and don’t have to think twice about it.

5. Leverage credit card points.

If you are traveling for a wedding, using a credit card is a great way to earn points and pay for travel. The best travel rewards credit cards might offer upwards of 100,000 bonus points if you spend a certain dollar amount within the first few months of having the card. They might offer more points if you book travel and lodging through their website and will offer additional travel deals and travel protection.

For example, I’ve seen deals on my own credit cards that have offered cash-back promotions, sometimes for up to several hundred dollars, if you book at certain hotel chains. Just be sure that you can pay off your credit card debt in full every month. You don’t want to negate those savings by paying high credit card interest on any balances.

Good friends are understanding friends

Don’t jeopardize your own long-term goals to attend a wedding. Remember to set a budget and savings plan as early as possible and revisit it to ensure you stay on track. If you review the numbers and decide you truly can’t fit attending the wedding within your budget, don’t be afraid to send your regrets. The earlier you can communicate that you can’t attend, the better.

It may be tough to skip out on a friend’s wedding, but there are numerous ways you can support and show up for them before and after the wedding, whether it be by attending pre-wedding events, sending them a gift even if you don’t attend or having a bottle of champagne delivered on their honeymoon. Remember that being present in spirit and sending heartfelt wishes can be just as meaningful.

Prince William arrives at Duke of Westminster and Olivia Henson’s wedding - watch live

Prince William has arrived at Chester Cathedral ahead of the Duke of Westminster’s wedding to Olivia Henson as hundreds lined the street to catch a glimpse of the Prince.

Bunting and camping chairs line the streets outside the church as onlookers waited to see the Prince, who disembarked a blacked-out van with 10 other ushers just after 10:30am.

There were cheers from the gathered crowd once they realised it was the Prince of Wales, who is acting as an usher in today’s ceremony , but he slipped quietly inside the church through a side entrance without greeting those waiting.

Hugh Grosvenor, the 7th Duke of Westminster, will marry fiance Olivia Henson in what will be the society wedding of the year, with some 400 society guests in attendance, including Princess Eugenie.

However, Prince Harry will be notably missing from the day’s events after “an understanding” was reached with the Duke, who is reportedly godfather to Prince Archie, that he should stay away.

Miss Henson will travel to the church ahead of the midday service in a vintage Bentley as the young couple said they were “hugely grateful” for the messages of support.

Follow the latest updates below

Live Reporting

Related stories, loud cheers as duke of westminster arrives at chester cathedral.

There were loud cheers from the crowds as the groom, the 7th Duke of Westminster, arrived at Chester Cathedral in a dark green Land Rover Defender.

Hugh Grosvenor arrived with his three best men in tow, who are understood to be long-standing friends.

Two of them are understood to be school friends from Chester.

Three coaches full of guests arrive at church

Bus loads of wedding guests are beginning to arrive at Chester Cathedral ahead of the 12pm ceremony.

So far, three coaches have arrived as well as two Mercedes vans, one of which was carrying Prince William and the groom’s ushers.

Thomas Van Straubenzee, a friend of Prince William and godfather to Princess Charlotte, and his wife arrive at the church

Princess Eugenie arrives at church with Vogue editor

Princess Eugenie has arrived at Chester Cathedral wearing a green dress and fascinator, walking alongside Violet Henderson-Vestey, an author and former editor at Vogue.

The Princess wears a sleek olive green dress and elegant veiled cream hat, with Ms Henderson-Vestey in a black and cream tweed Chanel-like suit.

Princess Eugenie arrives at the church following the arrival of Prince William

Pictured: Colourful guests arrive at church following ushers

The guests have arrived at Chester Cathedral ahead of the ceremony starting at midday

Prince William arrives at Chester Cathedral

The Prince of Wales has arrived at Chester Cathedral ahead of the wedding ceremony at midday.

He disembarked a blacked-out Mercedes van with 10 other ushers just after 10:30am.

There were cheers from the gathered crowd once they realised it was the Prince of Wales, but there was no crowd greetings and he was quickly inside.

The Prince is acting as an usher for the Duke of Westminster, while Prince Harry keeps his distance

Excitement builds amid rumours of Prince William’s arrival

Excitement is building here as rumours swirl that Prince William may soon be arriving.

Perched on a camping chair carefully placed on a monument opposite the entrance, Eileen Turner, 70, said she was eager to catch a glimpse of the Prince.

“We are really excited – it will be lovely hopefully,” she said.

“The winds a bit cold but you can’t have everything. It’s no raining!”

She added: “I wasn’t expecting to see Prince William but it would be very nice if we could.

“It’s brilliant for Chester.”

A green arch over the doors of Chester Cathedral with foliage taken from the Duke's estate

Hundreds gather in excitement to glimpse Duke and Prince William

Hundreds of people eager to catch a glimpse of the Duke and soon-to-be Duchess have begun gathering outside Chester Cathedral.

Bunting and camping chairs line the street as excited onlookers chat together and speculate about who may arrive.

They include friends Catharine Smith, 66, and Pat Taylor, 67, who said they were excited to see the Duke of Westminster and Prince William.

Ms Smith said: “The whole family have always been very decent people.

“When my dad was young boy.. the [now] Duke’s grandfather used to let the local men peddle in to the Eaton estate so they cut off half their journey.

“We’re excited to see the Duke and Prince William. It would have been good if [King] Charles could come.”

Some 400 guests expected at wedding

There are expected to be around 400 guests inside of Chester Cathedral for the wedding ceremony, including the Prince of Wales, who is to act as one of the Duke of Westminster’s ushers.

While the Prince has a leading role, the Princess of Wales will not attend the service as she continues treatment for cancer, along with the King (the Duke’s godfather) and Queen, having attended D-Day anniversary commemorations in France on Thursday.

However, other guests will include Princess Eugenie, Countess Lichfield as well as the couple’s school friends from university, Marlborough College and the Dragon School in Oxfordshire, which Olivia attended.

Following the service, there will be a private reception at Eaton Hall.

Why has Prince Harry decided to avoid the wedding?

One notable absence when the Duke of Westminster marries his fiancée Olivia Henson on Friday will be the Duke of Sussex.

Both Prince Harry and Prince William are among the Duke’s closest and oldest friends.

The groom finds himself in the unusual position of being godfather to Prince Archie, five, as well as Prince George, 10, and is one of very few who has maintained links with both of their warring fathers.

However, all involved were acutely aware of the problems that could arise with the attendance of both brothers.

Prince Harry and the Duke, Hugh Grosvenor, chatted it through on the phone and agreed that it might be best if Harry stayed away.

Prince William is to be one of the young Duke’s ushers.

Read more about the “understanding between two friends” here.

Pictured: People gather in Chester ahead of ceremony

Crowds are understood to be already gathering in Chester ahead of the 12pm ceremony and waiting by the church in festive attire.

The first people begin to gather by Chester Cathedral

Duke and soon-to-be Duchess “hugely grateful” for messages of support

The Duke and his soon-to-be Duchess have said “it means a lot to them to marry in Chester Cathedral” because of the Grosvenor family’s long and close personal connection to the cathedral and city.

The cathedral has hosted multiple weddings in the family already, including the nuptials of the Duke’s sister, Lady Tamara Grosvenor, to Edward van Cutsem in 2004.

It was also used for a memorial service held for the late Duke of Westminster, Gerald Grosvenor, who died of a heart attack aged 64 in 2016.

The couple’s spokesperson said that they have been moved by the messages of support they have received ahead of their wedding and that they are “hugely grateful that people want to share in their happiness”.

Speaking ahead of the wedding, a spokesman for the pair added: “The Duke and Miss Henson have taken a great deal of care in planning the wedding, putting their own personal stamp on all the arrangements and have made a conscious effort to involve local and regional suppliers in several aspects of the day.”

Why did the couple choose Chester Cathedral?

The Duke of Westminster has several family ties with Chester Cathedral, only a stones throw away from his family’s 11,000 acre Eaton Hall in Cheshire.

The oldest document in the Grosvenor Archives is a grant of land to the Abbey of St Werburgh (the site of Chester Cathedral) dated between 1135 and 1154.

Gerald Grosvenor, the 6 th Duke of Westminster and the current Duke’s father, gifted the “Westminster Window” inside the Cathedral in 1992, designed by Alan Younger to commemorate the 900 th anniversary of the church.

There have been several family occasions at the church with the Duke’s sister getting married at Chester Cathedral in 2004 and a memorial service for his late father held there in 2016.

Flowers and foliage sourced from grounds of Duke’s estate

The couple have used sustainable company Flower and Press for their wedding florals, making sure that all the flowers are 100 per cent British, seasonal and local.

Much of the foliage for the wedding has been sourced from the grounds of the Duke’s nearby 11,000-acre Eaton Hall estate, where they are hosting their wedding reception later on Friday.

The flowers include rambling roses, philadelphus, campanula and orlaya grandiflora, while birch trees will line the inside of Chester Cathedral.

All the flowers used will be repurposed after the wedding, in line with the couple’s sustainability championing.

They will be made into bouquets and delivered to local charities, churches and organisations in Chester, including those with which the Duke’s family have a close connection.

Now the Duke of Westminster is off the market – who are the UK’s other eligible bachelors?

For the last eight years, the country’s most eligible bachelor – at least for those interested in old money, big property and even bigger landholdings – has been Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster.

Of course, eligibility is subjective: plenty of women quite reasonably wouldn’t want the hassle of a big stately home or a famous London estate to look after, what with all those public events to attend. It really isn’t for everyone.

From Earl Percy to the Marquess of Tavistock, find out who is on the market now that the Duke of Westminster is set to be married.

Read the full list from Eleanor Doughty here.

Olivia Henson to travel to Chester Cathedral in vintage Bentley

Details of the Duke of Westminster’s wedding to Olivia Henson have been announced this morning, including that the bride will travel to Chester Cathedral in a vintage Bentley.

Ahead of the 12pm ceremony, the soon-to-be Duchess will travel with her father Rupert in the vintage car, provided by the Heritage Collection of Bentley Motors in nearby Crewe.

The car was originally made for the founder of Bentley Motors, W.O. Bentley, in 1930.

Details about the brides dress are being kept under wraps until closer to the time.

Olivia Henson will arrive at her wedding in a vintage Bentley, provided by the Heritage Collection of Bentley Motor

Pictured: Wedding preparations begin before the festivities

Preparations begin for the Wedding of The Duke of Westminster to Olivia Henson at Chester Cathedral

Princess Eugenie spotted at Grosvenor hotel ahead of wedding

Princess Eugenie enjoyed an evening of pre-wedding drinks with guests of the Duke of Westminster at the Grosvenor hotel on Thursday evening.

The day before the wedding, the Princess was seen drinking with other wedding guests and left the venue around midnight.

Princess Eugenie’s attendance at today’s festivities had not been previously confirmed, though her sighting in Chester makes it likely she will observe the ceremony at Chester Cathedral at midday

Who is Olivia Henson, the Duchess-to-be?

Olivia Henson, the soon-to-be wife of Hugh Grosvenor, the seventh Duke of Westminster , is the bride at the society wedding of the decade, reports India McTaggart.

The 31-year-old grew up between London and Oxfordshire and was introduced to the Duke through mutual friends in 2021.

Her schooling is littered with royal links, having attended Marlborough College, the Princess of Wales’ alma mater, at the same time as Princess Eugenie.

The couple dated for two years before he proposed on his family’s 11,000-acre estate, Eaton Hall.

The Duke of Westminster and Olivia Henson on a charity visit in Chester

Find out more about the soon-to-be Duchess of Westminster here.

Who is Hugh Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster?

It has been billed as the most royal, non-royal wedding of the year, reports India McTaggart .

Hugh Grosvenor, the seventh Duke of Westminster, was once referred to as “Britain’s most eligible bachelor” thanks to his close links to the Royal family and his title as one of the country’s richest men.

He inherited his title from his father Gerald in 2016, as well as the control of a fortune worth an estimated £10 billion that includes a sprawling global property empire, countless business investments and an enviable art portfolio.

The Duke’s is a future that encompasses being chairman of both the Grosvenor Trustees and the Westminster Foundation, the latter of which represents the charitable interests of the family and Grosvenor businesses.

Read more about the Duke’s upbringing and Royal roots here.

Good morning

Welcome to The Telegraph’s live coverage of the Duke of Westminster’s wedding to fiance Olivia Henson, which is set to take place at Chester Cathedral at midday.

Follow along for all the latest updates and read more about the society wedding of the year here and here .

Why Prince Harry decided to avoid Duke of Westminster's wedding
Meet the Duke of Westminster and duchess-to-be ahead of anticipated wedding
Duke of Westminster to add modern touch to society wedding of the year
Duke of Westminster's Marquess title safe thanks to bride's distant relative
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Duke of Westminster,
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Prince William Misses Rehearsal Before Duke of Westminster's Wedding as He Takes on Royal Duty

The Prince of Wales is expected to act as an usher for his friend's nuptials on June 7

Janine Henni is a Royals Staff Writer for PEOPLE Digital, covering modern monarchies and the world's most famous families. Like Queen Elizabeth, she loves horses and a great tiara moment.

Chris Jackson/Getty Images; Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

Prince William wasn't photographed at the June 6 rehearsal for the wedding of his friend the Duke of Westminster
The Prince of Wales stepped out in France that day to attend ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings
Prince William is set to serve as an usher at society wedding of the year on June 7

Prince William appeared to miss the rehearsal for the Duke of Westminster's wedding despite having a special role at the ceremony.

The Prince of Wales, 41, was not photographed at Chester Cathedral in northern England on June 6, where his friend Hugh Grosvenor, the 7th Duke of Westminster, and his fiancée Olivia Henson had a run-through before their nuptials at the historic church on Friday.

Prince William is set to serve as an usher at what's considered the British society wedding of the year, but he had royal duties to attend to first. On June 6, the royal stepped out in Normandy, France to attend two ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings, which changed the course of World War II.

Lou Benoist - Pool/Getty

In France, Prince William notably represented his father, King Charles , at the international commemorative service at Omaha Beach, where he joined over 25 heads of state, fellow European royals and veterans from around the world at the ceremony remembering the sacrifices made on June 6, 1944.

King Charles and Queen Camilla also traveled to France to attend a separate service at the British Normandy Memorial on June 6, in a trip significant as the King's first overseas since resuming public-facing duties after Buckingham Palace announced in February that he was diagnosed with cancer .

Meanwhile, preparations are underway in the U.K. for the Duke of Westminster's highly-anticipated wedding. According to Hello! magazine , the bride and groom were joined at the rehearsal by Hugh's sister, Lady Edwina, and her husband, television presenter Dan Snow.

Victoria Tetley / Grosvenor 2024

The Dean of Chester Cathedral, the Very Reverend Dr. Tim Stratford, told the outlet that it was "quite the decision" for Hugh, 33, and Olivia, 31, to have their wedding there. The church has long been linked to the Grosvenor family and is not far from their ancestral seat, Eaton Hall, where Hugh proposed in April 2023 and where the wedding reception will be held.

"They could have chosen a remote island, but they chose here," Stratford told Hello! , adding that the bride "has fallen in love with Chester."

Before Hugh and Olivia announced their engagement after two years of dating in April 2023, he was widely regarded as one of Britain's most eligible bachelors. The Duke of Westminster inherited his title at age 25 when his father died, and his family's fortune was estimated at $12.8 billion on The Sunday Times ' Rich List 2024. In the update published a few weeks before the wedding, the groom was reported to be the richest person in the U.K. under age 40 and the 14th wealthiest overall. The Grosvenor family's vast real estate portfolio includes over 300 acres of the posh London neighborhoods Mayfair and Belgravia, along with holdings in more than 40 cities around the world.

Hugh's family tree is also full of royal connections, and he is a godson of King Charles . His mother, Natalia, is a childhood friend of the late Princess Diana (a godmother to Lady Edwina) and a godparent of Prince William. Hugh is also a godfather to two young members of the next generation: Prince William's eldest son Prince George , 10, and Prince Harry 's son, Prince Archie , 5.

OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images

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PEOPLE confirmed earlier during the wedding week that the Duke of Sussex, 39, was invited to Hugh and Olivia's wedding. However, there was an acknowledgment on both sides that it would be difficult for him to attend.

The Duke of Sussex sends "his love and support and admiration for the couple" for their wedding day, the source tells PEOPLE.

PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images

On June 7, Prince William is set to help some of Hugh and Olivia's 400 guests find their seats at Chester Cathedral when he acts as an usher, a role he's played in the same church before. Prince William and Prince Harry served as ushers at the church for the wedding of Hugh's sister, Lady Tamara, to Edward van Cutsem in 2004 in a celebration that Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip attended.

Everything We Know About Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's Wedding

The son of India's wealthiest man is set to tie the knot this summer.

preview for 20 of the Most Iconic Wedding Gowns of All Time

Anant and Radhika, along with a reported 800 guests, will celebrate aboard a luxury European cruise this week, stopping in Palmero, Rome, Cannes, and Portofino. According to an invitation obtained by India Today , there will be themed parties including a toga party, a "La Dolce Vita" party, and a "Starry Night" party.

As they set sail, here's everything you need to know about Anat Ambani, Radhika Merchant, and their upcoming wedding.

Who is Anant Ambani?

Anant, 29, is the son of Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries and the richest man in India, and Nita Ambani . ( Forbes estimates Mukesh's net worth around $114 billion.) He has two siblings, Isha and Akash. Anat attended college in the U.S., at Brown University, and he now runs the energy vertical at Reliance Industries.

Who is Radhika Merchant?

Radhika, also 29, is the daughter of Viren and Shaila Merchant. Viren founded pharmaceutical manufacturer Encore Healthcare. She also went to college in the U.S., studying political science at New York University.

How did they meet?

They met in 2017 through mutual friends. "That first meeting just sparked something special between us, and it wasn’t long before we started dating," Radhika told Vogue . Anat asked Radhika to marry him last year, when they were visiting the Shrinathji Temple in Nathdwara, Rajasthan, a holy Hindu site located on the Banas River in northwestern India.

"I am 100 percent the lucky one, there is no doubt about that," Anant said at the first pre-wedding party. "It feels like I met Radhika yesterday, but every day, I fall more and more in love. Like my brother-in-law says, when he used to see my sister, he had volcanoes and fountains going up in his heart. I would say I have earthquakes and tsunamis going on in my heart when I see Radhika."

When are they getting married?

Radhika and Anant will be wed from July 10 to 12, the date determined by auspicious timing according to their birth charts.

Where are they getting married?

They will marry in Mumbai, with events taking place at both the Ambani home and the Jio World Convention Center.

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma , a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram .

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Bride-to-be laying down to secure mattress thrown from truck at 50 mph on day before wedding June 6, 2024

Couple shares their story on national secure your load day.

A day before their wedding, Alex and Lydia Kessinger attempted to transport a king-size mattress to their new home by having Lydia lie on top of it in the truck bed to prevent it from flying away. While traveling 50 mph on State Street in Provo, the mattress, with Lydia still on it, lifted off and landed in the middle of the road. Despite suffering significant road rash, she managed to reach the side of the road without being hit by oncoming traffic.

June 6 is national Secure Your Load Day, and the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) and Utah Department of Public Safety (DPS) are reminding drivers that it is their responsibility to properly secure transported objects.

Items not properly secured can fall out and collide with other vehicles or pedestrians, causing serious injuries or fatalities. These road hazards are often very difficult for drivers to avoid safely.

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Bride-to-be trying to secure mattress falls from truck at 50 mph on day before wedding

TAYLORSVILLE, Utah (KSL) - A bride-to-be in Utah found herself getting patched up the day before her wedding after she was thrown from the bed of a truck going 50 miles per hour while trying to transport a mattress.

Her story is an important reminder to always secure a truck’s load.

Ahead of a wedding day, there can be a lot on the couple’s mind.

“We were kind of time crunched,” new husband Alex Kessinger said.

That’s because Alex and Lydia Kessinger were getting married the day after a frightening incident.

Wanting to get their new home ready by moving their king size mattress, the two hopped in the truck and decided to take back roads.

With Alex Kessinger behind the wheel, Lydia Kessinger laid on top of their mattress to keep it from flying away.

“After we took off, just a couple of seconds later, and I just remember flying out,” Lydia Kessinger remembered.

Alex Kessinger recounted what he saw in his mirror.

“I see the mattress falling down and I see my fiancé rolling down the street,” he described.

Taking a trip to the hospital to get patched up and a trip to the dentist the next day, they still tied the knot.

“I’m just happy she married me still after that!” Alex Kessinger said.

“It was perfect because if it was any warmer, I would have been in a lot of pain because it was like legit burns,” Lydia Kessinger added.

As of June 4, the Utah Department of Public Safety said there have been more than 230 unsecured load-related crashes. That’s on top of more than 25,000 calls per year for road debris the Utah Highway Patrol said they receive.

“Anywhere from I’ve seen hot tubs out on the roads. I’ve seen construction material is a common thing. I’d say one of the things we see the most is ladders out there in the highway,” Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Cameron Roden said. “People think, ‘This is a heavy object. It’s going to stay in the car.’ It catches that wind. It sails out there on the road.”

Six weeks later, the newlyweds were asked if they’d do anything differently.

“I wasn’t thinking. If you have something in the back of your truck and you don’t strap it down, you’re not thinking,” Alex Kessinger said. “Because if you thought you’d strap it down because it’s the easiest answer to the question, ‘Should you strap it in?’ Yes.”

Another way to add that extra layer of protection to a load is by including a net or a tarp.

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IMAGES

The Journey from Engagement to Wedding
Many blessings are yours on the occasion of your engagement to be
Read Our Journey From Engagement To Marriage
Our Journey From Engagement To Marriage (Under Editing)
Vivah-A Journey From Engagement To Marriage MaNan FF (Completed
Marriage Journey Quotes. QuotesGram

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COMMENTS

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A day before their wedding, Alex and Lydia Kessinger attempted to transport a king-size mattress to their new home by having Lydia lie on top of it in the truck bed to prevent it from flying away. While traveling 50 mph on State Street in Provo, the mattress, with Lydia still on it, lifted off and landed in the middle of the road. Despite ...
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