Best Wedding Book ever

"The Wedding MC" is all about how to run a great wedding reception. It would make an excellent gift for any best man who is going to be the Master of Ceremonies at the reception. And, of course, it would be the perfect primer for whoever is going to be your MC, if it isn't the best man.

NO, we don't get paid to recommend this book. We stumbled across it at a wedding show and loved it, is all. It is a gem of a book. (Come to think of it, we should accost author Tom Haibeck and get him to bundle the e-book as part of our CouplesQuestions premarital workbook package.)

Haibeck points out that fully half the cost of the average wedding is for the reception. Being a major event with an average of 186 attendees, it needs planning. But he doesn't lecture you. After his first three pages, he doesn't need to. If you don't find them screamingly funny, you've never been to a wedding. And they are funny because they are so true.

He goes on to give you all the tools, advice and encouragement you need to knock the socks off of all 186 guests and the bride and groom. If you are going to be an MC, or make a speech or make a toast at a wedding get this book!

Among our favourite tips:

• Look for friendly eyeballs when giving a speech.

Don't know what that means? Go get the book. You won't regret it!

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Labels: recommended, weddings

posted by Heather and Dan @ 8:25 PM 2 Comments Links to this post

Happy Thanksgiving! Are you ready to meet the in-laws?

CouplesQuestions wants to wish American friends a very happy and safe Thanksgiving!!

This is the time of year when thousands of engaged couples will be going home to meet the parents - their future in-laws. Yikes! For many, there is no doubt this is one of the more stressful things that happens early on in a relationship. Big YIKES!

Here are some tips that come via The Knot (for brevity, I have paraphrased many) that may help to make this nerve wracking situation a little easier on you AND allow you to make a terrific first impression!

1. Dress nicely and be sure that you are all cleaned up (check under your nails and go easy on the perfume or cologne).

2. Do your homework and find out who's who and what's what. Find out specific likes and dislikes of your in-laws, at least the important ones.

3. Respect the culture of the home - especially if it is very different from your own!

4. Be polite: "Yes" is better than, "Yup"...you get the idea.

5. Ask your future in-laws what they would like you to call them. Don't assume they want you to start calling them "mom" and "dad" right off the bat. Or worse, just because your father-in-law swats your mother-in-law on the bum and calls her "Boom-Boom" doesn't mean you should. I'm just saying....

6. Bring a gift for the home or bring something you know (i.e. your fiance has already TOLD you) they like.

7. Listen well and show interest in what your future in-laws like or in what they are doing.

8. Keep the conversation to rather neutral subjects...avoid being controversial in any way. Don't make political jokes; they could seriously backfire!

9. Be kind to everyone from crazy Aunt Betty, to the annoying little brother, to waiters and waitresses. (My grandmother used to say, "If he's not kind to the waiter, he's not kind".

and last but not least...

10. Don't fake it. "In addition to -- and despite -- the previously mentioned pleasantries, be yourself; don't try to be who you think they want you to be (parents can smell a brownnoser a mile away). Assert your personality in small doses -- at safe junctures -- and sit up straight; some parents will want to test that you actually have a backbone."

You may be worried that your future in-laws will turn our to be freaks or psychos. That is probably just your nerves talking. In our estimation only 5% of the population are truly freaks. OK we really have no idea what the percentage of freaks in society is, but it has to be pretty low and the chances of your fiance's family being COMPLETELY twisted is really rather small. So, try not to worry, it will probably be fine!!

I remember flying to Ontario the meet Dan's parents for the first time and though he assured me they would "love me", I was so nervous I felt almost sick. Would they REALLY like me? Or would they just tell Dan that they liked me and then harbor some maniacal resentment towards me for years to come? After all, I was the woman who was going to marry their first born. I was to be the mother of their future grandchildren. Oooooh, man! Was I anxious!

But from the moment I got off the plane (OK, not exactly. It was more likely from about 30 minutes after I got off the plane....) I felt the tension leave me and I began to understand that I was one of the lucky ones in the "in-law" department. These were nice people who trusted their son's choice and wanted him to be happy. By the end of the first night, Dan had passed out from exhaustion on the sofa, and his mum and I sat at the kitchen table swapping stories over wine. She made every effort to make me feel comfortable and welcome...and I was.

During our chat, my mother-in-law told me that history must actually repeat itself from time to time because a similar thing happened when she met her in-laws nearly 40 years earlier. Long after the men had gone to sleep, she and her mother-in-law sat up drinking beer and getting to know each other. She had a precedent set long before I came along, and I will have to stick to it when my children bring their intended spouses home to meet me.

At this moment I am truly thankful for wonderful in-laws.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Couples, Happy planet!

Labels: holidays, life, relationships

posted by Heather and Dan @ 2:47 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

How much ink do you want?

We have a friend who, among other things, is a blossoming writer. She has had 2 novels and a short story published recently. But she also just got her first rejection and it is an interesting one.

Her latest novel (for teens, by the way) was about a girl, her horse, her "always there for her" best friend, and her decent, competent mother and father. What's not to like? It sounds like the childhood most of us wish we had!

"Too perfect," said the publisher. Nobody wants to read a story without drama. Conflict sells -- just glance at your local newspaper or gossip tabloid, if you don't believe that it does. So the father is being killed off, the mother is becoming unstable, and the best friend is now best half the time and worst the other half. Only the horse will be her constant friend.

Fair enough, if you want people to read about your life. But if you want to live your life, would you prefer to have great parents, great family, great friends and a great horse? Or crappy everything else and just a great horse?

Cutting to the chase: most of the couples/marriages/relationships that you will ever read about (or hear about in the lunch room) are not going to be the great ones or even the good ones. They are going to be the juicy, stupid, salacious, problematic, criminal, or high drama ones.

There is always going to be a huge bias in fiction and media towards conflict and disaster, elation and despair, entertainment more than education. When you think about it, even academics look mostly at problems!

If you go looking for good role models, you will find them. There are untold millions of happy marriages out there. You just won't find them being written about until their 50th wedding anniversary.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Labels: goals, news

posted by Heather and Dan @ 5:45 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Do you need a great reason to quit smoking?

An extensive study shows that smokers are more likely to divorce.The risk for marital break-up is as high as 53% among smokers. Apparently, age, race, education, income or gender makes no difference.

In a study of over 33,000 young adults researchers from the University of Michigan found that smoking rates were far higher than average among those men and women who would later divorce. Therefore, smoking is a predictor of divorce. (When I think about the people I know who are divorced, roughly half of them are smokers...weird! What about you?)

According to MarriageAbout.com, studies indicate that younger smokers "enter adulthood with more psychological problems than non-smokers". Additionally, adult smokers have been shown to have higher levels of depression and anxiety. These are the type of challenges and issues which can lead to difficulties in relationships.

MarriageAbout.com as a great little article for you to read on the subject so you might want to check it out.

If you ever needed an excuse to quit, this might be it.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

posted by Heather and Dan @ 9:16 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

The Power of the Blog

I was delighted to get an e-mail from an old friend and colleague today. He'd stumbled across the blog and dropped me a note to let me know how he is getting on in retirement.

We'd lost touch in 1999 because I am such a lousy correspondent. I hate to think the amount of effort it would have taken to get back in touch without the Internet.

Have you lost touch with someone? Do a Google Blog Search... they might now be on line.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Labels: off topic

posted by Heather and Dan @ 9:31 PM 2 Comments Links to this post

Walking together

We went walking together this morning. We live in such a great place for walking, yet life gets in the way. It was lovely to see roads we usually drive from a different, more interesting perspective.

Have you made time for a walk with your lover recently? Think about where and when you could go next.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Labels: romance

posted by Heather and Dan @ 2:31 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

Wonky blog alert

We are moving our blog into our website, so things may be a bit wonky here for the next day. In the meantime, you can find a great source of couples related stuff at Tango Magazine.

Back soon!

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Labels: resources, service announcements

posted by Heather and Dan @ 10:28 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

New Scoop on Some Old Stats

If you are a regular reader, you probably know this already: There are a lot of things I love about O Magazine.

I love the way you can always find the table of contents (it is always right after the cover page) and you don’t have to go flopping through the first half of the magazine to find what you are looking for. I love all the questions. Relationship questions, money questions, sex questions …I always read the advice columns. There are even questions for me alone to ponder. I don’t always give my soul the searching it may deserve, but I love the questions.

I love the article headlines on the front cover that get me to buy the magazine - this month it was “Better Sex: The 20 minute Rule” (when you find the article, you learn that most women need about 20 minutes of foreplay to achieve orgasm…hmmm) but it could have just as easily been “How Not To Feel Like A Stuffed Turkey”.

And I love all the pages with the little tidbits of information*. I love the little article-ettes that give fitness tips (clench your butt cheeks while seated at your desk…hey I’m doing it right now!), or beauty ideas (I case you haven’t already guessed, it’s Heather writing, not Dan or just little morsels of interest about our fellow citizens. I love it.

What does any of this have to do with CouplesQuestions? Well….

In this month's issue, in a section entitled “Are These Stats Still True?”, there were three significant updates to old data relevant to our interests at CouplesQuestions.com. The first stat-buster in the article that really caught my eye was the former belief (from a 1986 Newsweek cover and article) that a woman over 40 was more likely to be killed by a terrorist that get married. Now, a woman over 40, apparently, has a 40% chance of getting married. What changed? In a nutshell: 40 is the new 30.

The next stat that is most definitely related to couples and good news for women everywhere is that the old statistic of 43% of women having some type of sexual dysfunction is incorrect. Now it is believed that it is more like 24%. The new numbers focus more on how a woman feels about her own sexuality rather that what she may or may not be doing or feeling (or not doing or feeling) sexually. A woman may lack desire, but that is not deemed a dysfunction. Only those women who are deeply troubled by their sex life are deemed dysfunctional.

The last piece of information I found most interesting. For a very long time we have been told that 50% of marriages will end up in divorce. The good news is that number is actually lower. It seems somewhere between 40% and 50% is the actual number (a shame they couldn’t be a tad more specific). The great news is that the numbers drop dramatically to 24% the couple is at least 25 years old when they marry and if they wait seven months to have a child. Something they didn’t report, but we mentioned in a blog post back in August, is that couples who do some type of premarital education (like, say, couplesquestions.com) reduce their chances of divorce by 31%. Cool!

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

*Don’t get me wrong, the longer articles can be good, too. I am not averse to lengthy articulate pieces of writing (I’ve been known to crack a book or two) it’s just that sometimes, between feedings of my 4 month old or once my toddler has settled into her lunch of pasta and peas, the short little articles are just what a gal needs to keep from losing her nut!

posted by Heather and Dan @ 7:48 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

Traditions and Celebrations

It's about time to do a Guy Kawasaki-esque review of our blogging.

Only problem is that we don't have a good anniversary to hang it on. We missed our 100 post mark, flew past the six month mark, and have sailed past the 10,000 visitors mark.

This is a little odd because we are a family that celebrates milestones, big and small.

It wasn't always this way for me. I come from a family where people regularly forgot each others' birthdays... and their own! But Heather's family celebrates occasions, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, successes and just about anything notable that they can come up with. And I have mostly converted to their way of thinking. Partly it is more fun, partly it is so that H isn't disappointed.

This is something to think about in the run up to your own wedding and marriage.

• Is one of you more into such occasions? What are you going to do -- convert or compromise?
  
• Are there certain events that are particularly meaningful for one or both of you? Birthdays and holidays are probably high on that list for most people.
  
• Will celebrations be just for the two of you or will they include every *%^$&! in-law you have?
  
• Which celebrations will be big and expensive affairs and which ones will be smaller simpler affairs?

You don't need to have a firm plan for handling every one of these, but you should at least have kicked the ideas around. What you do in your first years together is often precedent setting. (Do you really want to travel 2,000 miles to spend a stressful Christmas with your inlaws every year?) Holidays are very stressful events for many people; if you are one of them, make sure that you flag that up front. You want your first holidays together to be memorable for all the right reasons and you want them to be a model for years to come.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Labels: holidays, premarriage questions

posted by Heather and Dan @ 5:50 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

AMEX user?

Sadly, we've hit a second technical hitch... if you are trying to sign up for CouplesQuestions using an AMEX, you'll have to contact us and we will process it manually (or work out some other arrangement).

Apparently, this is because our bank has set up our AMEX account for Canadian dollars, while all of our other financial arrangements are for US dollars. This will take a couple of weeks to sort out, as it requires another application to all three of the major credit card companies (though you can still register using Visa and MasterCard -- they work fine). If this sounds odd, we think "ridiculous" would be a better word. However, the card processor, banks and AMEX all seemed to think it was totally normal. Sounds like a "family of origin" issue to me!

Where to contact us? E-mail me at Heather@CouplesQuestions.com or call at +1 (250) 661-1512. Or e-mail us with your phone number and we'll call you back.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Labels: service announcements

posted by Heather and Dan @ 8:32 PM 0 Comments Links to this post