As Rita Rudner said, “It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” Love is a beautiful thing and marriage more so. Now that you need to begin planning your wedding, you probably realize the difficulties. You want your wedding to be a memorable event in your life, so perhaps some tips will be helpful. Common concerns include the wedding expenses and planning, the tensions of the wedding day itself, and the permissible extent of lying. General advice is also always helpful, even though you are probably being bombarded with it by various married people you know. Hopefully, by reading this, you will be able to have your dream wedding run smoothly and be able to maintain a good relationship with your new spouse.

As you probably already know, weddings are expensive and time-consuming to organize. So many tensions can form while planning the wedding. The easiest way to avoid this mess is by eloping. An alternative would be to budget time and money wisely. Many checklists can be found online or you can create one yourself. Regardless, stick to the timeline and life will be much less chaotic. Banquet halls need to be arranged, a venue needs to selected, bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower-girls, and ring-bearers also need to be chosen. The list goes on to every minute detail which include the tablecloths at the reception and the favors given to guests. Because many decisions need to be made, disagreements can easily surface, but it is quite possible to plan and execute a wedding in four months. Albeit, the brides and grooms of these weddings probably wanted a plain and simple wedding or let their parents take care of the special day. Parents will promise to keep things small and modest, yet the total guest count will pass 400. Moral of the story: if you let your parents plan and pay for the wedding, there will be many guests neither you nor your fiancé(e) know, but you will also have more wedding presents.

When the big day arrives, problems will definitely arise. However, you should not have to worry. First of all, make sure that you are in good terms with all of the vendors involved. After all, if anyone can ruin your wedding, it’s those who you hire. So if you need to supply the vendors with anything, make sure you do so at least one week in advance, unless otherwise stated by them. Next, all of the programs should be designed to follow a divide-and-conquer routine. Before the wedding, assign a task to each of your friends and relatives. Your only task should be to get married. This will both ease your mind and make everyone you ask feel very involved in your wedding. Also, it is a good idea to keep some painkillers within reach, just in case. Overall remember that it’s YOUR big day, so enjoy it!

It’s time for some general advice to both the ladies and men. Ladies, I hope he never says, “Would you be mad if I…” because chances are he’s already done it and has no way of hiding it. Men, “Do whatever you want to,” actually means, “You better know what you should do.” Forgiveness is very important, especially when it comes to the small stuff. Therefore, five essential words are, “I apologize,” and “You are right.” Divide the chores equally, so neither person feels overburdened. Also, when you’re at the altar, don’t say things like “I can’t wait for mom to move in with us!” Another thing for the men, don’t let your wife go to bed angry, because you are defenseless when you sleep. And women, “I don’t care” and, “I don’t know” are phrases that tell the truth when a man says it. It’s often said that marriage is when two become one, but the trouble is deciding which one. Learning to compromise avoids this dilemma. But above all, always remember how you fell in love and always love each other.

So after the wedding and all the thank you cards, it is finally just you and your new spouse. Can you still keep secrets to yourself? To avoid all misunderstandings, you should probably talk to him/her about it. Communication is very important for a relationship. Regardless, there are two circumstances where lying is acceptable—surprises and relations. If your other half does not like surprises, it’s needless to say don’t plan them. You don’t want to let the word marriage become a life sentence. Also, if there is any friction between you and your partner’s relatives don’t complain about it. In fact, if possible, don’t even mention it, because saying that isn’t going to make things any better. Other times lying is up to your discretion. If your wife asks you whether she looks fat in a dress, you should probably respond with a “No, you look gorgeous!” But other times these white lies could come back to haunt you. For example say your spouse made you dinner, but it was terrible. You could lie and say it was delicious, but you might have to suffer with eating the same dish over and over for the rest of your life.

Planning a wedding is hard work, so it’s highly recommended to have assistance. Of course, hiring a wedding planner can alleviate some of these problems, but you still need to put in effort. Also, brides don’t forget your grooms! They may not tell you, but grooms have opinions too. Although some may say that marriage is an alarm clock to the beautiful dream of love, the commitment is very admirable. But remember that your wedding vows are a contract with no returns, refunds, or exchanges. All in all, you are getting married to the love of your life. So the act of marriage is much more important than the other programs. If everything does not go according to plan, don’t let it bother you. Just remember that from this day forward you are never going to be alone. There will always be that special person to share both the good and bad times with you. I wish you the best of luck of your journey!