08 Oct Pre-Marital Counseling

Most pastors I know do premarital counseling, but I’m sure our approaches are quite varied.

For some years, we have been using the Prepare compatibility test as well as the old Richard Dobbins videos/workbooks.

I’d like to invite everyone into this, not just the contributors.

What do you use? What does your process look like?

Please leave a comment and share…

BTW, here are three things I tell almost every couple:
(1) You are attracted to each other because you are different from each other, but a terrible thing often happens right after the wedding. Couples start wondering why their spouse isn’t more like them. I say, that’ll happen, but it takes about 50 years. Don’t expect to become more like each other the first year.
(2) There is absolutely no correlation between a good wedding and a good marriage. I remind them of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. I encourage them to have as nice a wedding as they wish to have, but not to think that it has anything at all to do with the success of their marriage. I then ask which they are putting more prep into.
(3) Along those lines, I counsel the bride to make the wedding as nice as she can, but when the wedding time comes, forget about all the details and just enjoy it, no matter what goes right or goes wrong. I say, wouldn’t be a shame to put all that effort into a wedding and then not enjoy it because something went wrong, which is almost inevitable.