Are you getting married soon? Be sure to prepare yourself–you’ll want to surpass the seven-year itch, as data shows that first and second marriages end in divorce around 7 years. Are you wondering how you can do it?
A well-planned wedding and married life by both partners gives you more chances for a happily ever after. Before making an honest person out of your partner, consider doing the following:
- Set Up a Wedding Budget
- Establish a Financial Management Plan and Be Financially Stable
- Ensure Physical, Mental, and Emotional Stability before Tying the Knot
- Give More Importance to Life after the Wedding
If you dream of a perfect wedding and a happy married life, read on to learn the 4 essential tips to consider before tying the knot!
1. Set Up a Wedding Budget
You and your partner may have different backgrounds and views toward finances. Your individual upbringing determines them. Learn to compromise to avoid arguments and conflicts if you are not financially compatible.
Reception venues are often the most expensive part of the wedding. Long before your wedding, create a budget based on your wedding plan. Are you planning on a destination, hotel, estate or backyard wedding? Both must have well-defined financial responsibilities and be able to track expenses. It ensures that you live within your budget.
More importantly, the budget maintains and strengthens a constant communication and serves as an exercise in preparation for your married life.
2. Establish a Financial Management Plan and Be Financially Stable
Tying the knot entails building a family–having children, a home, and a retirement plan for both you and your spouse. These, in turn, have costs. You will raise children, pay your bills, and spend on necessities.
The cost of raising a child is $310,605. The average cost of building a house is $300,000, with a 15% contingency budget for unforeseen expenses. Retirement costs depend on how you want to spend your retirement–around the world tour, having your own retirement home, or anything you plan for.
All these may sound too much for you, but you should not and cannot accomplish this in one sitting. How about setting up a financial date night every month? It will help you determine your financial goals, identify your risk appetites, and decide together on investments.
Little by little, you’ll be able to set up a solid financial plan and learn to manage your finances to accomplish these goals.
3. Ensure Physical, Mental, and Emotional Stability before Tying the Knot
A successful marriage involves physical and emotional stability. As a married person, you will have more responsibilities, and your family will depend on you.
Learn how to take care of yourself by eating a balanced diet and exercising, and know how to handle pressures from work, family, and other factors.
It’s important to also consider your mental and emotional health. Include in your financial management plan some activities that uphold your mental and emotional health, like dates, retreats, and travels with the family, physical activities, interacting and reaching out to others, and maintaining a positive outlook.
4. Give More Importance to Life after the Wedding
How something starts is essential to how it continues and flourishes. A perfect wedding may be important for beginning your married life. However, isn’t life after the wedding more important than the ceremony, reception, and honeymoon?
Yes, your wedding rites mark the beginning of your marriage. But the day you decided to be lovers commenced your mutual bond. It is the day you concurred to be one. That day, you started to build the foundation of your relationship.
Through your relationship, you got to know each other, learned and accepted your individual strengths and weaknesses, and learned how to deal with each other’s differences.
After everything you’ve been through, you finally will settle down and tie the knot. This pivotal moment in your life does not really change everything. There will only be some new things and factors, such as the following, that need adjustment.
- Being responsible not only for yourself but also for your spouse and children. You’ll have to decide for them and with your partner.
- Relating and dealing with in-laws
- Dealing with children and your partner’s suppressed (before marriage) or newly-emerged behavior and attitude
- Change in lifestyle and routine
The list goes on, but before tying the knot, look far beyond the wedding day, the reception, and the honeymoon and be ready for it for a successful married life.
The Happiness You Deserve
To live happily ever after is all in your hands in the end. There is no perfect wedding nor a perfect married life.
You will not get cold feet if you consider the 4 essential tips before tying the knot, along with other factors. Then, walk down the aisle and say, “I do.” You deserve to be happy!
