Fifth blog (scroll down or look in blog archives to read Sarah's past blogs) Welcome to an on-staff guest blogger, Sarah Nass, Brown County Director here at thinkmarriage and someone who is engaged! We thought you would really enjoy following Sarah’s journey from how she and Tim met and all the adventures along the way to their wedding. As a trained healthy relationship facilitator, Sarah is getting first- hand knowledge on putting her education, into practical action. Tune in to this blog often to keep up to date with Sarah and Tim’s story! Sarah writes:
I am finally starting to get excited. These past couple weeks have been filled with finalizing details and reorganizing lists and gathering supplies and rallying the troops. At the time I am writing this, there are currently ten days until our wedding day. Tim has the pergola built and set up in the backyard, Mom and Dad have been tending to the garden and house, and I have been trying to contact and finalize plans with vendors. I have also been learning how to delegate tasks and find a balance between work time and play time and planning time. It is no easy undertaking. I have also been attempting to move some of my belongings down to Tim’s house…and have realized that it is futile to think that I will have everything completely moved before the wedding. There’s just no way. There are still more tasks outstanding than make me comfortable, but hey, what can you do except to keep on plugging away at them. One of my high school teachers once asked the class, “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer she gave us was, “One bite at a time.”
One of the other things Tim and I have done in the past weeks that has been of great value to us is take the Prepare-Enrich Inventory. This is a program that can be taken online or with paper and pencil. It can be used for pre-marital as well as married couples. The inventory is designed to help a couple realize their areas of strength as well as their areas of growth. Basically, what areas are you good at and what areas need a little more working out? After we took the inventory, we met with a couple who has been using this program for several years with young couples in their church. They walked us through the evaluation, and explained to us what each indicator meant. We also had a chance to talk through a few of the growth areas that we have. I don’t think either of us was surprised at the feedback we received. I do think that it gave us a great opportunity to discuss some very important matters, before the wedding. Even in the midst of all the craziness and business and planning it is important not to lose sight of what it is you and your fiancé are planning and preparing for. The wedding is one day, one glorious, beautiful, significant day. Your marriage is for a lifetime. It has been a priority for us to continually invest time and energy in that long-term goal and relationship instead of unintentionally neglecting it in favor of wedding hubbub.
Planning this event together has given us opportunity to practice our communication skills, our conflict resolution skills (certainly), having patience and being gracious towards one another, and has also reaffirmed the idea that we are indeed on the same team. That is just the sort of foundation on which to build our marriage.
Sarah and Tim's big day is almost here! Stay tuned for the rest of the story!
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