When many couples decide to get married they are not really thinking about the costs and all of the hard work that is involved to pull off a day that they will remember for the rest of their lives. Once the plans kick into action, many couples are faced with sticker shock on how much that wedding is going to cost them and/or their families.

Once reality has set in…these same couples are looking for frugal do-it-yourself wedding ideas to help cut the costs and to save money. After all, who wants to start out their new marriage in debt? No one! Here are some ideas that might help you when it comes to planning your own wedding.

1. Shop Around – Shop around for photographers, cake makers, dresses, reception halls, wedding venues and everything else that you will need for your big day. Make a list of all providers of the services that you will need and personally interview them & check them out for yourself. Decide how much you can spend and stick within your budget.

2. Photographer – If you have to hire a professional photographer, hire only one and only for the exact amount of time you will need them. Let your guests know before the wedding day that you would appreciate them taking photos and then showing you the proofs of the photos they took. Buy only the BASIC PACKAGE that your professional photographer offers and then get extra photos from your family & friends to fill up your wedding album. Trust me, you don’t need the biggest and best package that the photographer has to offer.

3. All-Inclusive Wedding Packages – These days you can rent a wedding venue and many of these places include everything you may need. For example: Place to hold the wedding & the reception with catering, flowers, the wedding cake, table decorations, the entertainment and more! A lot of times these package deals are cheaper than you trying to put it all together yourself.

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It is so easy to get in a rut within your marriage. You have kids, work, church, health issues, money, (and the lack of) other family member drama and the list goes on and on. You are dog tired when you get home. Most times you don’t even want to be bothered.

I have seen far too often how two people living under the same roof can go separate ways while still living together. They have grown apart because they’re never together. They don’t like each other anymore and can’t wait to be apart.

Don’t let this happen to you.

It’s great that you love one another but do you like him or her? I like my husband. If we were not married he’d be someone I could hang out with because when we’re together we have a lot of fun. We laugh and we do that often.

Take a break from your day to day routine and rediscover what you like about each other. What made you fall in love with him or her? What do the both of you enjoy doing together? Once you find that out, DO IT!!

You won’t like everything they like but the things you do enjoy make it a habit of doing it together (without the kids).

My husband always reminds me that our kids are going to be gone one day. When they do leave we must be able to enjoy one another.

Write down 3 things the both of you enjoy doing. Now implement those things monthly or weekly in your marriage. The love you have for your spouse will increase and you’ll look forward to the dedicated “fun” times with each other.

Motivational Speaker, Minister, Workshop Leader, Radio Host, and Author, Nicole Cleveland lives her life on purpose. Her mission is to ensure that women are not suffering in silence, as she once was. People are on the verge of giving up all over this world. They are waiting for someone to stand up and say, “I have been where you are … but this is how I made it.” Visit her online at www.nicoleconline.com. She is also the founder of www.breatheagainmagazine.org.

It doesn’t matter if you have a few days off or if the weekend is fast approaching, spending time with your spouse is important. When you have a family or a busy life, it’s hard to stop and do something by yourselves, but your marriage will suffer if you don’t find a way to make it happen.

Whether you live in a small or large your community, you can find things to do together. Here are a few tips to help you get started.

* Take a walk together
* Eat dinner without the kids
* Find a babysitter for the kids or send them to a friends house
* Go shopping together
* Spend the weekend at a hotel out of town
* Plan a spa day together
* Get a massage together
* Take a drive to the country together
* Go camping together
* Go ice-skating together

When you’re trying to come up with things to do you need to consider what you enjoy doing. Do you have a hobby or sport that you like to do? Maybe you have wanted to learn how to do something; can it be done together? It doesn’t matter what you choose to do, when you do it together you’ll be able to work on your marriage and you’ll begin to see the difference.

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As a business owner you know how important it is to continually work your business so you have success. This means at times you may work into the night or early in the morning. You may also find yourself working more and sleeping less just to get things done and to reach deadlines.

While doing this helps your business reach success, it’s going to damage your marriage. Doing this a few times will be ok, but it’s not good when it becomes a routine. That’s why it’s important to create business hours and always strive to work within those hours.

It’s also important to know your limits. There is no point in staying up late to work when all you’ll do is fall asleep at your desk. At the same time there is no point in getting up early if you don’t function that way and require several cups of hot cocoa before you’re fully capable of working.

If you find you’re in this situation it’s important to get out of it before it’s too late. It’s not going to happen overnight, but within a few days or weeks you can get out of this habit and work your business in a way that will bring in the money you need and it’ll give you the time you need to be with your spouse.

Today is Tuesday and it’s going to be a wonderful day. It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m so glad I’m with Kevin. He’s the best man in the world. He’s helpful, willing to do anything, and he’s always there for me no matter what’s going on. He understands why I do what I do and he helps me when he can and when I need him.

When you find the best person in the world, you know how I feel and what’s going through my mind and in my heart. He’s the best dad in the world and I’m so glad he’s a dad to our boys because I know there isn’t anyone else in the world that would be willing to do what he does to help our boys and he gives everything to them.

Today is Valentine’s Day and while we will be attending Josh’s basketball game, it won’t be a romantic dinner or a night out, we’ll be doing something together, something we love doing, and we’ll be together which is the most important thing to us.

So today I want to say Happy Valentine’s Day Kevey. I love you with all my heart sweetie. I hope you have a great day and I’ll see you at the game this afternoon.

I’m sure all of you know of Albert Einstein. His formula E=MC (2) basically means the world is made up of energy. That means that everything is moving all the time. When you look at you hand, it looks solid, but it is really a mass of fast moving molecules and so is every thing else in the universe. Everything in this universe is energy and everything is moving. The law of attraction says that you will attract to you a match for your energy, or your vibration. If you are always thinking negative thoughts, your vibration will be negative and you will attract a match for that vibration. This is the same for positive thoughts.

It is only thought that PERMEATES all time and space. Your thoughts create your feelings and your feelings set up an energy frequency that go out into the universe and find a match for that frequency. In the Bible it says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is”.

The first step in understanding the Law of Attraction is to ASK. Several years ago I was going through a difficult time in my life when I needed to make some changes and I had a good friend say to me, “Do you know how to get what you want?” I looked at her and said, “Tell me”. “Ask, she said, you have to ask for what you want”.

Do you remember when you were little – a genie would pop out of a bottle – I think it was Aladdin – and he would say, “Your wish is my command”. Also, “Ask and it shall be given” and “To him who knocks, the door is open.”

How many of us go into a restaurant and order something off the menu and expect to get exactly what we want? This is no different. Put in your order. Ask for what you want. Ask yourself, “What do I truly want?” Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. The universe is very literal so write it out on a piece of paper and write it down in present tense.

Instead of saying “I hope one day to have a good relationship” or “I don’t want to have an abusive relationship” (the energy you are sending out is bad relationship energy) say instead, “I deserve to be in a healthy, loving relationship with a partner who loves me unconditionally”. If you are in debt, instead of focusing on getting out of debt, instead say, “I am financially independent.” Say what you want in the present tense, as though you already have it. Feel like you have it and believe it is possible. Remember, we create from the inside out.

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During the holiday season life is always busy. You have all the Christmas shopping to do, cards to write, and baking to do along with all your regular day to day stuff. It can get stressful and hectic at times which makes it hard. A lot of times we end of grumpy and taking things out on the ones we love. This time of year is also stressful due to the amount of money you have to spend on gifts and other Christmas things.

When this stress happens, often times, we end up taking it out on the ones we love and a lot of times that ends of being the spouse. This can add stress to the marriage which is not good. It’s better to not let the stress of the holiday season effect your marriage, but that’s difficult to do. Here are some tips for making the holiday season less stressful on your marriage.

1. The best way to handle the stress is to not go at it alone. Do your holiday shopping, cards, and baking together as a couple. That way you won’t feel like it’s all coming down on you and this gives you a chance to be together.

2. Another way to handle the stress of the holidays is to spread it out of the month. This will help you to prevent the last minute things that can make you feel overwhelmed.

3. While you may think it’s next to impossible, scheduling “me” time is very important during the holiday season. This time can include getting your hair or nails done; taking a nap, watching a movie, or whatever else you feel is relaxing to you.

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Marriage is not an easy thing to deal with, but the love you have for your spouse over powers the problems you think could arise and the thoughts you have running through your mind.

How many times have you felt it’s just not possible to go on any further? You may feel the arguments are coming all too often or you think you might be so poor it’s just not worth it to keep going. You may think you could do better without your spouse or you could get out of debt without them, but that’s not the case.

Rhonda Neely wrote an awesome ebook called the “A Winning Marriage Model” and in this book she shares with you that the grass is never greener on the other side. She shows you that the problems you’re not going to change just because you go on your own or you marry someone else.

She shares several Bible verses that talk about marriage and she gives you a challenge to try that really works. Rhonda is giving away the third lesson in her ebook “A Winning Marriage Model” and you have to do to get it is to join her mailing list. Click here to visit her site.

There is one thing couples argue more about than anything and that is one thing is finances. Money is something a lot of couples hate to talk about because it’s hard to handle and deal with. The way things are paid and how much is paid or what to spend your money on is the worst.

These problems can cause more problems than you may think, so it’s best to talk these out and involve each other at all times. There are several things you can do to help each other through the hard times of dealing with your finances.

1. One thing you can do is sit down and make a budget together. Write down all of your bills, how much you owe, how much the monthly payment is, and when it’s due. That way you’ll know how much is going out each month.

2. The other thing you can do is to sit down and pay the bills together each week or month. When you do it together things will be so much more understandable and you’ll know where every dime is going.

When you communicate about your finances and you discuss decisions before they’re made you’ll find the arguments you have will be fewer and farther between which is what you want. Arguing is not a good thing for your marraige, so you need to talk things out. Your marriage you will be better off in the long run.

Corrie Petersen has been happily married since 1993 and she is very much in love with her husband Kevin. She has created a website that helps couples find things to do to keep their marriage alive. Click here to visit her site at to see how she can help you with your marriage.

Being married is not an easy task. One day things can be going perfectly and the next you could be arguing about something. Things can change very quickly depending on the situation you’re in and what you have going on.

One thing that seems to cause a lot of problems in a marriage happens to be money. If you’ve found you argue with your spouse about the lack of money or how you should spend your money, you’re not the only one. This is common and happens to more people then you may think.

Money is not something you can remove from the situation, so it’s something you must deal with on a regular basis. When you communicate with each other you’ll be able to get through almost anything. You need to talk through any problems and concerns and it’s also important to handle the bills together so you both know what’s going on. When there are no surprises things will be better.

A large number of arguments between married couples are caused by the finances. It’s hard to handle money when you don’t have enough of it to get you through the month. It’s also hard when you don’t agree on how you use your money. This is why it’s important to communicate with each other know matter how bad or good your finances may be.

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