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You've gotten engaged, and you can't wait to tell everyone you know. No wonder - it's exciting. You've waited for this moment, this special time in your life. You're busily planning the wedding, the guest list, the menu... every single detail has to be looked after. The entertainment must be scheduled. The cake must be ordered, the photographer has to be booked, and the flowers need to be arranged. The gown needs to be fit, and refit and refit to perfection. Your mind is going in a thousand directions, and after a while you realize you haven't taken the time to focus on your relationship at all. You may begin to feel a little distanced from the relationship itself, but you're trusting it will all work out.

Too often and too easily, it becomes all about the wedding and staging that perfect wedding day rather than being about two people who are engaging in a life together. It's easy to neglect the rough spots that need work. It's even easier to convince yourselves that since you're about to share in such a wonderful commitment, everything else will automatically be wonderful in the end.

Then you have moments of clarity during this time, when you may find yourselves fighting, and you wonder why it is you're getting married in the first place. You remember the things that need work in the relationship, and at times you may even second-guess your decision and wonder if you might have been better off cutting ties rather than committing to a life with this person. But you love this person, and since you're not really sure how to fix the issues at hand you just keep barreling forward, finalizing the plans for that important day. Things need work in the relationship, sure. Things may even be at critical mass, but what can you do? Invitations have been sent. Thousands of dollars have been spent. It's too late to go back, right?

So you just keep going - you plaster on the smile and try to shake that nagging feeling that maybe the issues are too big, that maybe a big, beautiful wedding isn't enough to cover the gaps in the framework of your marriage, and maybe you shouldn't be walking down that aisle after all.

Too often when couples find themselves filing for divorce, it's because they didn't take the time to listen to those nagging feelings, to work with their partner at taking a temperature reading of the relationship and gauging where they're at. Relationships are hard work, and walking down the aisle together won't ever change that fact. The wedding is a day - it's only one day in a lifetime of days, and even if that one day is an absolute perfect fairy tale, that one day will not guarantee happiness for you and your spouse. Don't let the magic of the wedding day cloud your judgment or distract you so much that you lose sight of the person you're marrying and the fact that marriage is a relationship you both need to work at constantly and consistently. Only when you make the effort do you get the beautiful reward.