Keeping the Romance Alive while Wedding Planning

We have a romance expert to share some of her thoughts on romance, particularly during wedding planning season. It's such a tough balance, between jobs, errands, life, trying to still date, and then spending many hours getting details in order for the big day.

One thing that often surprises couples is how the wedding starts to take a toil on their relationship. Before being engaged, a date was just about the two of you. After being engaged, the date may come with sticky conversations about difficult parents, or jealous siblings, or a mismatch in expectations for the wedding. The relationship is in the adolescent phase. You're not married yet, but you're not just single. It's a tricky situation to be in, no matter how long you've been together.

I can say, a few years into marriage with two kids, those dates you have will stick in your memory, even if you have less time to do them. There were many times my husband and I would walk around the local lakes, only for my low blood pressure to cause me problems and we'd have to find a bench. Annoying at the time, but pretty funny how we could never quite manage to walk all the way around a lake without a pause. It became part of the expectation of those dates, which were sometimes quite stressful as we tried to talk through the Stuff of Married Life. But they were important conversations and we moved forward in our relationship because of them. (For more conversations, we have an amazing self-guided premarital counseling book designed for date/conversations. Check it out.)

Those little moments of life are always grander than the big plans. Hopefully your wedding is amazing, but it is just one day of many, many romantic days you should plan for! If you haven't yet set your honeymoon plans, check out our interactive guide to get the two of you on the same page for what exactly you want from the honeymoon (and we don't just mean THAT....)

Enjoy our great questions and answers on romance during wedding planning from a romance expert! May her wisdom instill the passion in you to keep your love alive.

Mini-moons are gaining popularity

Another moon is rising in the sky of romance - a mini-moon.

It's sort of a quickie honeymoon, taken when newlyweds put off their major honeymoon trip and go off on a short getaway instead.

Want to know our spin on this trend? Read on.

The article and movement seems to lack the recognition as a society that a honeymoon is the once-in-a-life-time, unique opportunity to escape post wedding. It is a time when everyone expects you to be gone - family, employers, friends. It is a time to reconnect, decompress, process the wedding, and is that final bridge that gets you from "single but dating" to "we have wedding rings! You are now my husband and I'm your wife! It is even magical for those you come into contact with on the honeymoon. Like pregnant women and new babies, honeymooners elicit a sort of happy sign from people who remember the glory of that newly married time or who see it as the most romantic of all times the couple will experience as a married couple. Honeymooners know they can get free upgrades on planes, hotels, free desserts, and get a lot of smiles from people on their honeymoon travels plus a lot of "how was the wedding" questions.

While a honeymoon a year later may be more practical, financially, I am not sure it would then be a honeymoon. In essence you have given up the honeymoon and are just taking a vacation as a married couple (a wonderful practice but not with the same decompression as the honeymoon right after the wedding.) Or perhaps not a vacation but an anniversary-trip, not something I'm dissing at all, but anniversary celebrations imply celebrating the time you've spent already married. A honeymoon is the fresh beginning of married life.

This movement also begs the question: what has happened in the wedding planning world that it is too hard to plan for your own couple getaway to celebrate, alone, the transition from single to married? When the message out there is that "It's your day, do what you want!" why would you take away from yourself the single time of the wedding that is truly about you - the honeymoon, where no guests are invited (or expect to be there), when your employer doesn't even schedule important meetings for those days or weeks after the wedding date and simply asks "how long" you will be gone rather than "if" you'll be gone.

So perhaps it's a financial strain. I get that, I really do. But even that argument makes me wonder, how many guests at your wedding would rather eat a fancy steak than see you and your spouse-to-be enjoy a really nice honeymoon? Are guests really hoping to get a super nice meal, a fancy wedding favor, and then see you back at work on Monday!? If given the choice, I think most wedding guests would prefer to see a more moderate wedding with a happy couple who can then enjoy themselves on a honeymoon, rather than a high-end wedding filled with stress and debt with no post-wedding, honeymoon bliss.