Since we got married in my hometown, not our current city, we thought about who we would want to marry us. It was important to both of us to choose someone who was important to our family and who would make our wedding ceremony meaningful and special to us.
The mister's grandmother's church has rotating pastors and as it turned out, one of her favorite pastors was living in about an hour away from our wedding location, in Abingdon, Virginia. We called and asked her if she was available for our wedding, and when she confirmed that she was, we decided to make a "pre-martial counseling" trip to Abingdon to talk to her about our relationship and wedding.
During this trip, we got some of the best advice we could have received as a couple getting ready to make the next big step in our relationship. She recommended we establish a "Family Mission Statement." Yes, like a company's mission statement!
She made the point that companies use their mission statements as a backbone of their core values and how families can use the same concept to go back to when making family decisions and resolving conflicts. We absolutely loved this idea and spent a lot of time thinking about what ours would be.
We finally established our "Family Mission Statement" one night after dinner on our honeymoon. While I won't share ours here right now, I will say we have already used it to help us make big decisions and resolve conflicts within and outside of our marriage and I know we will continue to do so.
Side note: the hubs and I also went to pre-martial counseling at our church, Forest Hill, in Charlotte. Couldn't recommend this enough! We were able discuss what was important to us and ensure we were on the same page prior to our trip down the aisle... but that's another post for another day! :)
