THE Best Wedding Planning Tips

According to The Knot the average wedding costs 20,000-40,000 dollars.

A Wedding Bee survey found that the majority of weddings take 6 months to a year to plan.

All of this is for...one day.

One day.

Now, there's value in this.  Marriage should be made a "big deal."  We honor it that way.

Still, in the midst of spending all that money and time planning a wedding for one day, I'd like to suggest something countercultural:

Plan for the following 60 years.

60 years.

Don't just plan a wedding.  Plan a marriage.

• Read marriage books.

• Take personality tests.

• Get premarital counseling.

• Our premarital counseling was required and it was okay, but we decided to do something else.  We asked an older couple that we really respected if we could just get together several times to pick their brains about what they had learned about marriage. 

• Make a list of married couples that have a marriage you would like to have.  Try to figure out what you like about them.

• Listen to marriage podcasts

• Deal with your "stuff."  Do you have some issues to face?  We all do.  Maybe now's the time to get some help, read a book, open up, share it with your fiancee or a friend, get some counseling, do some journaling.  This is one of the greatest gifts you can give your spouse-to-be.

• Pray about your marriage.  Maybe you haven't prayed in a long time.  You're betting a lot on the next 60 years.  I've come to believe that God is very interested in helping you succeed here.

• Laugh and have fun together.  Sometimes you've got to ditch that wedding plan list and go get ice cream and snuggle on a park bench!

So plan that big day, but 60 years from now consider this: you'll want to look back and not just see a great wedding, but a legacy that simply started on a beautiful day.