What is the best way to prepare for marriage as a soon to be bride?

Please be specific on Finances, Behavior / habits, spirituality (christianity, no other) etc.What is the best way to prepare for marriage as a soon to be bride?
I got married nine months ago and to be honest none of my classes on marriage prepared me for my husband. Everything I learned or thought I learned my husband is or want the opposite. One example you always hear men complain about is their wives being whiners. I prayed that I would not be a whiner. When I don't...MY husband says I act if things don't bother me...








Also what works for others may not work for you. When it comes to finances figure out together with your husband what is best for the two of you. Hopefully you both know about each others finances now so there will be no surprises once you say I DO! It might be best for both of you to pay the bills and manage savings or could be better for one of you to handle them alone. Just depends on your strengths and weaknesses as a couple and individually.





One thing that has helped me. I came into this marriage with the frame of mind... come hell or high water...we are not getting a divorce. Unless one of us start to abuse the other or the children. There is NO divorce. Don't allow past hurts to affect you and him. Example: If he did something in the past, don't keep bringing it up. There are going to be fights and arguments but never ever say something that will damage his spirit because you cannot take it back and he may forgive you but he will never forget it.








I hope this help and I pray that your marriage is long and blessed!!What is the best way to prepare for marriage as a soon to be bride?
1. Set a realistic budget and stick to it.


2. Book the location of the ceremony and know the costs for use of facilities, officiant, musician, janitor, soloist, etc.


3. Knowing what's left in the budget, get prices for hall rental and caterers and work out caterer's cost at a per person basis.


4. Behaviour and spirituality issues can be worked out in conjunction with the officiant providing they are proficient.


5. In terms of habits and behaviour at the reception you want to choose your speakers really carefully.


6. Allow room in the budget for extraneous items such as gifts for those in your party.


7. Please note I left out Bride's dress, men's suits, and attire for bride's maids. Good Morning America recently did a program on such and they found bargains at second hand and liquidation retail establishments.


(8. [Caution: do not take seriously] After doing all of the above tell the Groom it is his job to do all the planning.)
maybe this is a question you need to talk to your pastor about.





In my opinion, nothing changes when you get married, I think people felt the false impression that marriage is going to be something that its not.


If your not living together, your incomes going to be combined, your going to be sharing bills and sharing the up keep of the home, talk to your partner about who will do what and start figuring out a budget plan.
It is definitely smart to sit down with your fiance and discuss all the unromantic but necessary stuff, like finances, religion, children, etc. so there are no bad surprises down the road. My fiance and I agree on just about everything regarding finances and how we should maintain them (separately, with a joint account for the mortgage). We also are both agnostic and plan to introduce our children to religion without being regular church-goers. We agree that we want no more than 2 children. However, sometimes our opinions on how these children should be raised differ slightly. He's a bit more of a disciplinarian than I am, but at least we both agree that we want to raise our kids to be creative, free thinkers with a lot of compassion and social skills.





Also, as a fellow bride-to-be, I took this opportunity to sort out my finances and pay off as much debt as I can before the wedding, so I can enter my marriage with a clean slate. It's not fuin to bring debt into a marriage, so we both used this past year and a half to work on any credit issues we had from the past. Also, we started a savings account, which we are currently using as our wedding fund, but plan to maintain after the wedding as a ';just in case'; account for emergencies. Our plan is to always have a few thousand dollars in there just in case one or both of us lose our jobs or somehow become unable to work for a month or two. We also plan to make one extra mortgage payment per year so we can pay down the capital on our home loan sooner, thus avoiding having the bulk of our mortgage payment go toward interest all the time.





One thing I also plan to do in the months following the wedding is start a 401K for each of us, and then a third one for the both of us, and set up regular paycheck deductions to contribute toward our retirement. It is important to make sure we can retire someday and not worry about money.





On a non-financial side, I've been getting myself physically ready to look my best on my wedding day, but also to develop some healthy habits for our life together. I joined a gym and now work out every day. I visited the doctor and had a physical so I could be sure I am in top health. My fiance is also starting a workout regimen and we're both trying to eat healthier and cut down on fatty fried foods. It's very motivational to get healthy when you're getting ready to spend the rest of your life with someone, because you want the rest of your life to last as long as possible! :)
First off understand that you are giving up many of your rights to do the things when you were by yourself. You need to be responsible toward each other. Write down how much income you have. Then total out your monthly expences and rip up any credit cards you have. If ya owe a Credit Card PAY IT OFF. For God sake's DO NOT HAVE A BABY UNTILL you have insurance and MONEY saved up in a Special Account. Baby's are VERY EXPENSIVE Toy's





PS: Stop trying to change everything about yourself. He loves you the way you are.








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