Almost everyone gets cold feet to some degree or another. The thing is that most people are strong enough to resist it or in love enough to ignore it. However, there are people who seem to be afflicted much more than others. These unfortunate people are the ones who barely make it through the ceremony without bolting. They sweat profusely and their eyes are constantly darting about, looking for avenues of escape. If you suspect your immanent spouse to be one of these poor souls but you are not sure what to look for, here are some of the tell tale signs and how to spot them.

The first thing you can do if you want the down and dirty info on your spouse and you want it on the down low, which is slang for if you want to know how he or she is reacting but you don’t want them to know that you know, is to use spies. This is very easily done with bridesmaid gifts or maid of honor gifts that are overly expensive. You basically hire the person to be your spy and pay them out in the open to avoid blowing their cover with an unusually expensive yet expected gift. However, you will want to watch your camp and make sure your groomsmen are not suddenly wearing Rolexes or that your groomsman is not sporting around town in a new car that you know he can’t afford. These are telltale signs that the enemy, or in this case, your betrothed is watching you closer than you think.

After a year of planning details, hiring caterers and interviewing bands, disc jockeys, and surveying wedding halls and churches, you are going to be either completely exhausted or totally focused. In either case, the last day of your wait, which is the day before your wedding, you have 24 hours to wrap up the details and take care of a few commitments. However, the biggest challenge you now face is getting some rest, you are going to need it.

The last day before your wedding is usually reserved for beauty treatments such as hair and make-up prep, nails and for final rehearsals. With any luck, you have worn and broken in those shoes you are going to be standing in for eight to ten hours tomorrow. If not, today is your last chance to get them worn so you know what to expect from them. You have a long day tomorrow, which means you have a lot to do today.

Don’t Forget to Breathe The big day is coming faster than you can prepare for it and you are so stressed out you could light a match…just by looking at it. Pre-wedding stress can be a royal pain in the wallet as well as the heart and there is no worry worse than one that involves money. You have planned a wonderful wedding and reception but more things have seemingly gone wrong than right. You have heard that wedding planning is supposed to be fun but by now, that is just a vague rumor and you know the truth. If this sounds familiar and you are still planning your wedding…, STOP! Do not forget to breathe.

Choosing Your State of Mind Wedding stress is natural and is sometimes hard to deal with. It is also fun and a wonderful experience. Which one of these you get the most out of is completely up to you. If you are in a frenzied, ready to pull your hair out and then start on someone else, very stressed out mode and you are just weeks from the big day it is time for a breather because this kind of state is the last frame of mind that you want to be in going into your wedding day. It is okay to let someone else take the reins for a little bit while you gain your composure. Pass smaller but important tasks, like choosing wedding favors, especially unique wedding favors, on to someone you trust. You do not have to do everything yourself.

A checklist is a great way to keep track of how your wedding plan comes together and the closer you get to the big day, the more important the checklist becomes. Unfortunately, a wedding plan is only as good as the checklist it follows. Starting with a good and complete checklist is important. So how do you know if your checklist is complete? Well, you do not because there is no such thing as a complete checklist. In fact, no matter how hard you try, you will find yourself adding more to the checklist as you go than there was original content to begin with. Why have checklists at all if it will never start as complete? A checklist will keep you organized and keep you thinking in a right direction. If you go into wedding planning without a checklist or some other form of organized direction, you will find it very difficult and discouraging.

There are two rituals in life that everyone goes through that bear a striking resemblance to each other yet are two completely different rites of passage. The wedding and the funeral have so much in common that is almost uncanny. Why we made these ceremonies so alike is something that escapes me and I cannot think of a way to explain it other than the way the bachelor might feel for a brief moment just before the completion of the ceremony. However, I can list the ways that these two entirely different occasions parallel each other and if you think about it, you could probably come up with more.

Beside the fact that you will never come away from a funeral with wedding gifts or wedding accessories, you will come away from both feeling tired and drawn. Both of these ceremonies are hours long and take something from you emotionally. Anytime you spend several hours deep in an emotion, whether it is joy and happiness or grief and sorrow, it will mentally wear you down. That is just the way emotions act on the mind and the central nervous system. At both functions, someone will be crying. Weeping out of joy and sobbing with despair is still crying no matter how you slice it.

In 1604, the word Bridegroom came into being for the need to call a man about to be married something other than, “the poor soul,” or, “the doomed one.” The word is derived from two words, The “Bride” which simply means the woman about to be married and in some dominantly male run countries, the bride means, a screaming, and slave-driving banshee from the pits of Hades itself, and the word “Guma” which is roughly translated from old English as “boy.” The bridegroom, on the day of his wedding, usually wore clothing specific to the type of religion, the time of the day, or the uniform of whatever branch of service or position he held with a government status. We have since shortened the word to the simple “groom,” which is what many bachelors believe any man would have to be to get married.

In those days, it was not uncommon for the groom to have the final say in matters of the ceremony, especially as to where and when it would be held and who would be the Celebrant. The Celebrant is someone other than clergy or government official who is licensed to perform ceremonies if the couple or party wishes not to involve church or state. This person is now more commonly referred to as the officiant and can perform many types of ceremonies, including weddings. The groom and the bride’s father would usually hammer out the details of the wedding and then inform the rest of the family.

Chances are that if you are having a big wedding you are going to have a very diverse age group representing several generations of your families. This means that no matter what type of music you chose, someone is going to be left out or possibly even insulted should you have an acid rock or rap wedding. It is not like picking out the wedding favors where is does not matter to any age group whether they receive golf wedding favors or beach wedding favors. There is an old saying you can’t please all the people all the time and that holds particularly true when picking out the music for your wedding. There are things you can do, however, to minimize the damage. Here are a few ideas that might make your musical montage more palatable for everyone.

You are planning a wedding and you need some ideas that will make it special and unique but you do not know where to look. Well, if you are looking for ways to make your wedding unique, it will not be unique. In order for you to do something special you only have to look at your heart and what it tells you. Find your inspiration from within and if that does not work, try these ideas on for size and maybe you will be inspired. It is the little things that will make your wedding experience different because it is the little things that people notice the most. A good for instance would be to add little tags everywhere your guest will look that have poems or declarations of love. Even love song titles will stick in your guest’s minds and remind them of how special this occasion really is.

I know a couple that has been married for fifty years. When they first tied the knot, they must have tied it well and double knotted it because they are more in love now than they ever were. I just had to ask what their secret is since I have been married twice myself and I’m hoping this one will last forever. What I learned is actually no secret at all. In fact, it is common knowledge that most of us tend to forget or take for granted from time to time.

John and Mary were poor when they married back in the fifties. He worked his heart out in the automobile industry and she waited tables deep into the night shift. They saved their money diligently and started a family. They encountered many difficulties over the years but the one thing they held true to was their love for each other. John told me that the secret to his marital longevity was simple. Whenever he tried to imagine what his life would be like if his Mary were suddenly gone it would scare him so bad that he knew he could not bear it. Mary told me just about the same thing. She looks at their friends who are married and thanks God every day that her John is not like the other husbands who stay out late at night and put their marriages second.

Writing your own wedding vows can be a wonderful way to express openly how you feel about your spouse to be. It is a declaration of love, your hopes, and dreams of your future together, and a statement of your commitment to one another. Unique wedding vows can be poetic, sincerely written admissions of love that are sometimes hard to get through without shedding a tear or two and in general getting all choked up. Most of all, they can be a beautiful thing for all who witness them. Seeing two people who are madly in love with one another exchange-wedding vows captures your heart and makes you smile.

However, they can be very difficult to write. If you have ever tried to write what you feel down on paper or type those feelings into a word processor, then you already know how difficult it can be. If you have not tried this yet, you do not have to be getting married to discover how much fun and how challenging this can be.