On August 17th of this year, our daughter, Faith, was married to Brett, a wonderful young man from Australia. They were married here in the New Jersey which meant we were hosting an international wedding with 20-25 guests coming from the other side of the world. As a result, a one-day wedding grew into a larger five-day event.
The wedding offered a window into a unique, high-level application of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. (Our first wedding was six years ago but didn’t have as many moving parts.) After reflecting on the event, Geri and I reflected on the qualities of an Emotionally Healthy Wedding. Here they are:
- We Kept the Focus on the Most Important Part of the Day: the Exchange of The Vows. We invested the necessary time to keep first things first, and served them in shaping a beautiful, sacred ceremony.
- We Monitored our Own Hearts and Anxieties. Not only was this an international wedding, but a “do-it-yourself” one. This added to the 1,001 moving parts and details to juggle.
- We Stayed Connected with One Another. Geri and I nurtured our own oneness as a couple through the wedding process, staying together emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally.
- We Checked in Regularly with Faith to Clarify Expectations. We applied a number of the emotionally healthy skills (Stop Mind Reading, Clarify Expectations, Speaking, Listening) at key moments.
- We Gave a Gift of a Fixed Amount of Money and Let Go. Because this was a gift, this was their wedding, not ours. There were no strings attached. They made the decisions and asked us for input along the way. Yes, we went over budget.
- We Celebrated with Abandonment. We celebrated with passion with music, dancing, wine, and lots of joy.
- We Made Adjustments for Our Self-Care When It Was Over. After the wedding, we were more tired than expected so we took an extra week for vacation before returning back to work.
Enjoy!
