Is there anything more fantastic than the perfect wedding? The plan is that you will only do it once in your life! Life is tricky though; if you are lucky and all the stars align in your favour you will be married only once and to the love of your life. When you decide to get married, there are always so many friends and family members around more than willing to offer you all sorts of advice about marriage and having children. As soon as you have that ring on your finger, everyone becomes an expert – even those who have done it a few times!!
Making up your mind can be scary and nerve wracking (did you see the last Bachelor?!), so I thought being that it’s our BIG WEDDING ISSUE, I would try to find the very best advice from the very best knowledgeable people (who aren’t your friends or family) and these are the beautiful words I found.
“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
“Marriage: If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don’t expose it to the elements. You don’t make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by.”
- F. Burton Howard
“Marriage has the power to set the course of your life as a whole. If your marriage is strong, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are filled with trouble and weakness, it won’t matter. You will be able to move out into the world in strength.”
- Timothy Keller
“Rules for a happy marriage: 1. Never both be angry at the same time. 2. Never yell at each other unless the house is on fire. 3. If one of you has to win an argument, let it be your spouse. 4. If you have to criticize, do it lovingly. 5. Never bring up mistakes from the past. 6. Neglect the whole world rather than each other. 7. Never go to sleep with an argument unsettled. 8. At least once a day say a kind word or pay a compliment to your partner. 9. When you have done something wrong, admit it and ask for forgiveness. 10. It takes two to make a quarrel, and the one in the wrong is usually the one who does the most talking.”
- Unknown
“Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. Love is not proud. Love is not rude. Love is not self-seeking. Love is not easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil. Love rejoices with the truth. Love always protects. Love always trusts. Love always hopes. Love always perseveres. Love never fails.”
- 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8
“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create.”
- John Lennon
“Common courtesy plays a big role in happy marriages. People who are permanently married are polite to one another. They don’t want to hurt one another’s feelings, and they don’t try to make the other one feel humiliated. People who are married for life are extremely kind to one another.”
- Frank Pittman
“I think a man and a woman should choose each other for life, for the simple reason that a long life with all its accidents is barely enough time for a man and a woman to understand each other and... to understand – is to love.”
- William Butler Yeats
“You were my strength when I was weak; you were my voice when I couldn’t speak; you were my eyes when I couldn’t see; you saw the best there was in me; lifted me up when I couldn’t reach, you gave me faith cuz you believed. I’m everything I am because you loved me.”
- Celine Dion, Because You Loved Me
“People who look to marriage to make them happy make a fundamental mistake. It is your own happiness that you bring into your marriage that makes it so deliciously wonderful”
- Fawn Weaver
I wish each and every one of you a beautiful love story and hope you find lots and lots of great ideas within these pages of our (wait for it…!) 7th Wedding Issue!
And remember, once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale.
- Anonymous
Kathryn Hartwell
References: happywivesclub.com, weddinglovequotes.com, poweroftwomaridge.com and offbeatbride.com