Today I have been inspired by a post on my favourite wedding website A Practical Wedding, to tell you about the marriage preparation course Rodney and I have been going on. At first I was going to keep quiet about it as I wasn't sure what people's reaction would be, I can imagine some people thinking "if you need to prepare for marriage you are obviously not ready" or a lot of our friends have had very unsuccessful wedding courses with the churches where they got married and would think it was a waste of time.
I would say neither of those are true for the course we have been attending. We first heard about the course through good friends when they got married a few years ago and it sounded so good that when we got engaged I booked us in straight away. Turns out they only run a couple a year and the only one we could get on started in February 2013, I signed up anyway and quickly forgot about it. Fast forward to a month ago when we got an email asking if we still wanted to go, and both of us very nearly chickened out, but I am so glad we didn't.
The reasons we were wary were we aren't particularly religious, we aren't getting married in a church and we were worried it wouldn't be relevant to us and our relationship. We also thought that having been together for 6 years we had got most of the things they were going to cover sorted and didn't need to go. Finally it is a night a week for 5 weeks and we are busy bees, we didn't know if we were prepared to spare the time.
Anyways we grew a pair and went along for our first session four weeks ago and had a great time. At each session we are served a fantastic two course dinner and listen to two speakers talk about a certain aspect of marriage and their experiences of it. Throughout the night there are interactive bits between Rodney and I and a hot seat interview with a married couple on their take of the subject. Although there are 12 couples there all the exercises we do are just between Rodney and I, although we speak to the others through dinner.
So far we have covered:
- Communication and how you will both have different ways of communicating depending on how you were brought up.
- Commitment and what marriage means to you
- How you Argue, are you a rhino or a hippo? and how to argue more effectively (note there was nothing about not argueing!)
We are going again tonight and have one more session after that which will cover:
- Keeping Love alive; and
- Shared goals.
We also have weekly homework, which is always some discussion point and we get it done with a glass of wine in the pub on a Friday night. After the first weeks homework on communication when we realised we don't communicate well at set "we need to talk" times in the flat.
It's really nice as time gets busier and busier in the run up to the wedding to have some protected time to chill out and get to know each other even better than we already do. I especially love hearing from people that have been married a long time than us on the popular subjects of "date night", "marriage takes work", "don't go to bed angry" etc etc. (Spoiler - do what works for you!)
We are going to the marriage preparation course run by P and G's church on the corner of York place and Broughton street and if anybody else fancies it but is a bit nervous ask me anything you would like!
What about you guys, did you go to any pre-marriage courses, would you?
That's awesome! We did a group through our church with other engaged couples before we got married and it was so great! It is so important to work on things before you get married. It just sets you up for success. Good for you guys!
ReplyDeleteThanks - I definitely think more people should do it, it has been great so far.
DeleteWe are getting married in a church, although we're not church-goers ourselves. We had one day-long marriage preparation course and found it really useful. Mr V wasn't so enamoured with the bits where the vicars were telling us things, but we both agreed that the discussion points that we discussed between ourselves were really useful. It was so great to have a discussion about those "hot topic" issues (like money, sex and family planning!) at a neutral time and place, without either of us having an agenda.
ReplyDeleteI'd heartily recommend it to anyone getting married! I think it's the sort of thing that secular society isn't great at.
Yes I would agree, when it's done well it is so useful.
DeletePS. And I've been discussing some of the things we learnt (not about each other, but the general stuff) with my friends and they've been finding it mind blowing! Lots of good discussions in the pub about it all...
ReplyDeleteUs too! Think we have persuaded a few people to give it a try as well :-) xox
DeleteWe got married in a church so we were required to take a marriage prep and natural family planning class. Each class was only 2 sessions and I didn't really mind the marriage prep class as it did get us to chat about stuff but the natural family planning class was a bit (actually, it was a lot) uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteI think that planning a wedding is great marriage prep and a great indicator of how your relationship will be after you say "I do". Will you work together or will someone take the lead on everything? Will you compromise or just do what you want?
eek natural family planning!! We had the "keeping love alive" session last night which was on sex, that was less useful and pretty uncomfortable as they had quite a different view on things to Rod and I. The videos of couples talking about their sex lives were a bit cringy as well. xox
ReplyDeleteWe got married by the church, so marriage prep classes were a requisite. Though they were quite "Light". We went a total of maybe 6 times, with another 3 or 4 couples. Most of the subjects we found a bit "duh" as they gave examples of situations like:
ReplyDelete"It is your mother-in-law's birthday but you don't really feel like going, what do you do". This situations happen and you have to deal with them... but I don't see where the big deal is.
The one part of the classes that I actually really really liked was the one given by the actual priest (not volunteers, which were, essentially, married people), where he explained what marriage meant (religiously) and made an analysis of its meaning through history and through different religions. Essentially the message was that the love between humans was a reflection, a proof, a way of God to show his love to use and that is why it was something sacred, because it came from Him. A thought which I really like...