Editors Share | First Dance Songs

The first dance as husband and wife is often the most awaited part of a wedding reception. It is a special and romantic moment between the newlyweds and it highlights the unique personality of the couple.

In this month’s Editors Share, our team remembers their first dance and explains why they chose their song.

PHOTOGRAPHY: MEL WATSON PHOTOGRAPHY

Stephanie Calis, Co-founder & Editor in Chief

My husband and I danced to the song “You are the One” by Matt Hires, which had come on my iPod as we drove to a holy hour one night during our engagement. It’s a sweet, simple song that still brings back precious memories, but the truth is, we were too shy to set our first dance to the one we truly felt defined us! The ideal selection, for us, was “In My Arms” by Jon Foreman, the lead singer of Switchfoot. Despite our love for it we ultimately felt too shy to use such a quiet song, with such intimate lyrics, in front of all our guests. For any couples like us hesitating to choose particular reception music because of self-consciousness, I’d encourage you to communicate and discern what you’re comfortable with and to pray for a sense of freedom with the necessary attention your wedding day brings!

Andi Compton, Business Director

We chose Matt Maher’s version of “Set Me As A Seal” because we simply liked the song. I wish I had a deeper explanation, but we both just felt like it was the right song. We ended up having a dance choreographed. If you know my husband, you know that we’re complete opposites. I love to dance, he likes to not dance. But for me he was willing to take ballroom dancing lessons and perform in front of our families..

Jiza Zito, Co-Founder and Creative Director

My husband and I chose “Accidentally in Love” by Counting Crows. Mark and I had a stressful engagement since he was serving overseas with his military command, all up until a few days before the wedding, so we wanted something fun and upbeat. Mark was also an avid swing dancer during his college years at the United States Naval Academy, which we got to enjoy together a few times during our courtship, so we wanted to share that part of our relationship with our friends and family on our wedding day as well.

Stephanie Fries, Associate Editor

For our first dance, we moved in sync with Michale Buble’s “Hold On.” My husband suggested many ideas for our first dance song, but many focused on the beauty of the bride or the groom’s love for his bride; I was uncomfortable choosing a wedding song about the bride. This song was a great fit because it captures the essence of the mutual and reciprocal love of a married couple. The lyrics also serve as a reminder to grow in affirming physical touch in the midst of stress, frustration, sadness, and joy. Although physical touch is not my number one love language, a good hug often breaks through heavy emotional tension. As this song builds up to its finale, it reinforces the power of holding onto love in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, ‘till death do us part.

Though we both enjoy jumping around during spontaneous dance parties, neither of us are organized dancers. With that in mind, we invested in dance classes at a local studio—and loved every second. Beyond the benefits of feeling confident in our plan for our first dance, lessons were also a special opportunity to learn something new, be challenged, move our bodies and laugh together in preparation for our wedding day.

Mariah Maza, Features Editor

Our first dance song was “God Gave Me You,” the version performed by Blake Shelton. My husband and I first met when we were 14 and high school sweethearts, and we were a country couple. On our first date he drove me to dinner in his white Chevy pickup truck in blue jeans, boots, and all. Many, many years and a wedding later, we still own that truck!

When we decided to pick “our song” for our relationship (which was definitely inspired by Taylor Swift’s 2009 single by the same name — released only the year before!), we decided on two requirements: the melody needed to mention God and needed to be a country song. I suggested “God Gave Me You,” and it became the song we grew up with together, from the age of 14 to (now) 23.

A couple years before we got married, I taught my husband how to country dance, and it is now one of our favorite things to do together. So when our wedding day finally arrived, seven years after we met, we country danced to the song we fell in love to as high school freshmen.

Carissa Pluta, Editor at Large

My husband and I chose the song “God Moves Through You” by Jason Mraz for our first dance. My husband has been a Mraz fan for a long time, which is how he first heard this song; Jason Mraz actually wrote it for his sister’s wedding so it’s not on any of his albums. It’s a really beautiful song, and was adapted from a collection of poems by Kahlil Gibran.

One of my favorite lines from the song is: “Let the wind of heaven dance between you too/Allow the space and time to bring you closer to everlasting love.” The song speaks of the love between a husband and a wife being a movement of God, a grace working in your life. We also loved that it also speaks of children as a gift.

Since it isn’t on an album, our friend Steve the Missionary offered to play it on his ukulele and sing it live during our reception. It was such a memorable moment from that day.

Mary Wilmot, Social Media Manager

In the last couple weeks before our wedding, Patrick and I decided we really needed to sit down and make a decision on our first dance song. We never really had a song in the five years of our friendship/dating relationship, so we didn’t have too many ideas. One afternoon, while hanging out in my parents’ kitchen, we ended up Googling “First Dance Song Ideas” and decided to just go through the list until something resonated with us. We stumbled across “That’s How Strong My Love Is” by Otis Redding and both really liked it.

I love that it’s soulful and with a beat, but still a slow song that makes it easy to dance and sing along to. We actually ended up taking a couple of dance classes at Fred Astaire with a Groupon I had purchased. In the end, I think we just decided to sway to the music, not worrying about counting steps, but it was still fun!

I have no regrets about our choice, but funnily enough, we were just talking a couple weeks ago about our first dance. We said we probably would have picked the 1998 classic “All My Life” by K-Ci and JoJo if we had thought of it at the time!

Danielle Rother, Pinterest Manager

Our first dance was inspired by the waltz in Disney’s live-action Cinderella, where Ella greets the Prince on the dance floor in her beautiful blue ballgown for the first time. Since we wanted to dance a traditional waltz we looked through a variety of instrumental songs that had the right ¾ time signature we needed for the dance. As I was searching for songs I came across, "The Princess Diaries Waltz," by John Debney from the score of The Princess Diaries. After listening to it I knew, in my heart, it was the right song for us.

The Princess Diaries is a favorite childhood movie I watched growing up with my maternal grandmother, who passed away in 2012. One of her biggest dreams was to see me get married. While I wish she had lived longer to see me take my marriage vows, this song made me feel close to her on our special day.

Dancing a waltz at our wedding was an incredible experience and it was everything I had hoped for. Jeff and I had practiced dancing for many hours during our engagement and it certainly paid off! During the dance, I felt like I was flying and it was truly magical.

Now that we are married, I am still practicing the art of dance through life as a married couple. It may not always be as graceful as it was on our wedding day. Occasionally we may stumble. But it’s good to know that as long as we have each other we can make it through anything together.

Tasha Johnson, Administrative Assistant

A couple of years ago, I got to fly across the country to attend the wedding of two former missionary teammates of mine. I served with the husband my first year and the wife my second, so I had really gotten to know them separately, and it was such a joy to finally see them together.

Their choice of Matt Maher’s “Hold Us Together” was a perfect fit for their small, intimate wedding, because it was so evident that their love for each other was already something fruitful; it really spoke to the care they had taken to welcome all of us to share life with them throughout their courtship, and even especially in the days leading up to the wedding! It was definitely a fun song to watch them twirl and dip to, but it was even more so a reminder of the ways their relationship had already served as a shelter, both for them and for those of us who had the honor of walking through life’s storms with them. It was an absolutely beautiful theme for the first day of the rest of their lives!

Love and Sacrifice Say the Same Thing.

STEPHANIE CALIS

What is beautiful draws our senses to the sacred. At a recent wedding I attended, a harp, organ, and choir lifted their melodies to the heights. The groomsmen wore tailcoats; the bridesmaids, embellished gowns the color of jade. Even these breathtaking details, however, were nothing compared to the radiance of the liturgy, or the couple themselves.

Photography: Lindsay Pleyvak, seen in Jamie + Seth | Astronomy-Inspired Wedding

After a tear-filled procession and Liturgy of the Word, the celebrant’s homily illuminated an essential truth of our vocations, one embodied in a particularly tangible way through the call to marriage: love and sacrifice say the same thing, but only to the extent that we embrace them.

“You love,” he said, “as much as you sacrifice, and you sacrifice as much as you love.”

What does this mean?

As a wedding guest, I took these words as a prayer for the couple about to become one, that they might spend their lifetime willing one another’s good and fulfillment.

On a personal level, I heard them as a call, insistent and clear: along this path, my husband’s and my pilgrimage to the eternal wedding feast, our vows merit that we love with the entirety of our hearts, even when emotion runs dry and when we’d prefer not to make the effort. That we embrace the good times and bad, knowing that in making a gift of our actions, time, and entire selves to one another, we’re free from enslavement to self-serving desires.

I often consider the link between the words integration and integrity when it comes to relationships. That is, the times when the complementary parts of who I am--body and soul, reason and emotion, and more--are well-integrated and not in conflict with each other, are the times I find myself treating my husband with the greatest sense of integrity.

These are the times when my love for him and the sacrifices I’m willing to make for him--taking on extra chores when he’s busy, respecting our budget, putting our kids to bed on the nights he has to bring work home--speak a language of wholeness and good will.

When our hearts are integrated, love and sacrifice say the same thing: I give of myself to you, I place your present wants and needs before my own, I enter into your burdens and carry them alongside you.

In the times I turn to my own selfishness, preferring personal convenience or comfort above what’s best for my marriage and family, I see our relationships being chipped away at. I see them quite literally dis-integrate.

Thanks to grace and mercy, these breaks can be restored to something like their former wholeness, and only in eternity will they be brought to perfection.

Only in eternity. The words of this wedding homily, an occasion of such heavenly rejoicing, drew my attention down to earth and to the tension we live out in our vocations. We are earthly and imperfect, yet our call is focused on eternal life; on bringing our spouses and children (biological or spiritual) to the banquet by way of love.

And how to pour out that love? Through our acts of sacrifice. Saint John Paul II said, “There is no place for selfishness and no place for fear! Do not be afraid, then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid when love requires sacrifice.”

By praying for your spouse, by serving and assisting him without keeping score, by keeping your shared goal of each other’s fulfillment and salvation at the forefront--even when it feels too hard--you become living icons of self-emptying love, bearing Christ to the world.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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Does Planning for Your Future Together Stress You Out? Finding Rest in the Unknown.

STEPHANIE CALIS

There was the spat I look back and laugh on; the one in Bed, Bath, & Beyond over whether me and my husband-to-be should register for champagne flutes as a wedding gift. “Our grandchildren will use them at our holiday parties!” I insisted. “We don’t have grandchildren,” he replied.

Later, there were the more serious discussions about preferences for our future children’s education, where we would live after my husband completed his graduate degrees, how we’d care for our parents as they aged over the decades. I felt anxious, trapped by indecision and nervous when our opinions differed--which they did, often.

Photography: True 2 You Photography, c/o Divinely Designed Events

Have you experienced anything similar? Uncertainty, that is, about the details of your future as a married couple?

When I think back on my teenage years and early 20s, they are marked by a consistent desire for when: when I’d figure out my vocation, when I’d meet my future spouse, when I’d determine what career path I was drawn to. And later, during engagement and early marriage, the real adult whens set in: when we would--God willing--become parents, when we’d have a long-term city and state in which to settle, when we might become homeowners. My mind continually casts around for what’s next, somehow lulled into the belief that knowledge will bring peace.

And yet, I find myself needing the frequent reminder that self-determination and a need to always know are habits that pull my gaze inward, rather than heavenward. That true peace resides not in my own decisions, but in discernment and trust.

The Sisters of Life have a beautiful prayer called the Litany of Trust, a cry to Jesus’s mercy and total care for his beloved children. One line that frequently stands out to me is, “From the fear that trusting you will leave me destitute, deliver me, Jesus.” Deliver me.

His mercy is endless; an outpouring of love that never leaves us wanting--in whatever form that looks like. An answer to uncertainty and to my poverty of fear.

If, during engagement and your newlywed months, you and your beloved find yourselves similarly indecisive or fearful about decisions and life events yet to come, I offer you several practices that have brought peace to my own married life.

First, take the plunge into the root of your worries. With your beloved, discuss any fears of the future you’re wrestling with. Consider their causes: is it a matter of shifting your spiritual paradigms (I recommend Dr. Gregory Bottaro’s book The Mindful Catholic for tips on drawing your attention to the Lord’s hand in your life at the present moment)? Are there past family or relationship wounds that have led to anxiety over particular matters?

If counseling or therapy--either individually or as a couple--feels necessary, rest in knowing there is no shame, but strength, in seeking professional assistance.

Second, consider concrete ways to respond to any fears. Talk together about habits you might develop to contend with major decisions or the unexpected in a healthy way, such as infertility, family conflict, or serious illness. While we can trust completely in the Lord’s care, we can also cultivate that trust, and a sense of peace, by taking advantage of our God-given reason and of tools and resources created to assist.

Lastly, I encourage you to pursue a sense of surrender to the unknown.

Practical preparation for and discussion of the future is both necessary and reassuring, yet at a certain point, we are still called to make a leap and live.

In the years since my husband and I swung wildly between dreamily imagining our life together and arguing in fear over what that life might actually look like, I’ve realized it’s alright not to determine everything about your future right away; alright to take a rest from chasing the when.

It’s alright, too, to change your minds--while expecting our first child, for example, I initially planned on returning to work. Yet the whirlwind of recovery from giving birth and our bumpy entry into parenthood led to a reevaluation of that decision, leading to my current work-from-home setup. Giving yourselves permission to follow the Lord’s call--even when it leads you somewhere you never expected to be--is a gift that eases the weight of expectations and self-focus.

So long as you and your beloved share the same fundamental values--the Catholic faith, in particular--and persist in respect, openness, and good will, then decision-making and looking ahead can become a source of discovery and peace, rather than contention and unrest.

I know now that just because my husband and I didn’t begin our relationship in agreement over every single issue doesn’t mean we’re incompatible. It means we’re human--two individuals who have chosen each other, made a vow to each other, and become one.

I respect his ideas and worries and trust in his respect for mine, to the point that now when we don’t see eye to eye on certain questions, I find it exciting to see where he’s coming from, to join him in discernment and to reach a common ground.

Together, we’re able to look to the future largely with joy--though I suspect there will always be more questions, more uncertainties--and call each other to focus on our priorities in the present. I wish you the same, and I wish you true peace.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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Editors Share | When Expectations Meet Reality

The beauty of a wedding and joy of fulfilling a call to vocation is daydream worthy. From a young age, girls and women can often identify their ideals for the kind of man they imagine marrying, visions of their wedding day, or expectations of day-to-day married and family life.

In this month’s Editors Share, our team reflects on the dreams we had about marriage as single women, and how those expectations either changed or came to fruition after saying I do.

Photography: Horn Photography, seen in Rosie + Tyler | Fall Yacht Club Wedding

Stephanie Calis, Co-founder & Editor in Chief

During our engagement, I frequently prayed in thanksgiving that no one knew, saw, or understood me in the way my husband-to-be did, and I felt the same about him. At the time, I think we did know each other more fully than anyone else.

After our wedding, however, I started to realize how little a fullness of him I had actually known: I’d never known, for instance, how he liked to load a dishwasher, how he preferred to unwind after a stressful day, what grocery staples he liked to keep on hand. Normal adjustments to married life and significant time spent together--particularly after a long-distance engagement--sometimes made me question how well we knew one another at all.

In hindsight, I see the Holy Spirit drawing us out of self-focused habits and toward a shared life. I now consider it a great gift that even with all the trust, confidence, and admiration I had for my husband (and how well I knew him at the time) on our wedding day, the years have continually revealed new parts of him to me and we are constantly presented with opportunities to know and love each other more deeply through various quirks and discoveries.

Andi Compton, Business Director

I really thought that my future husband would do large showy displays affection (think Toby on This is Us. The guy gets me). I REALLY wanted to be proposed to in front of Cinderella’s castle at Disneyland, but the man I married is a very private person. He and I were the only ones present when he proposed and we had no engagement party. We didn’t even get a photo until a couple of hours after! A part of me was definitely crushed, but the longer I’ve known my husband, I’ve learned how hard it was for him to be vulnerable and propose at all (even when he knew it was a sure thing!) and I’ve learned to embrace the private way he chose.

Jiza Zito, Co-Founder and Creative Director

I am a recovering perfectionist and overachiever, and I too married a perfectionist and overachiever. I was (and still am at times) the sort that if you said “Jump!”, I would ask “How high?”. I always wanted things done efficiently and with the least amount of mistakes as possible on the first try. Because perfectionists and overachievers can often set the bar too high, it can take a great deal to break them out of their unforgiving and sometimes unrealistic expectations.

As an engaged couple, we lived long-distance while being fully immersed in our careers and education at the time; therefore, I did not yet fully realize my expectation for perfection from others. Like many, you sometimes enter into marriage thinking you’re invincible. It was not until my husband and I were expecting our first born immediately after our wedding that my pride got “a swift kick to the pants” and I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and hyperemesis gravidarum, a condition characterized by severe nausea, vomiting, weight loss, and electrolyte disturbance during pregnancy. In addition, we were also experiencing our first deployment and his numerous underways out to sea. When you pair separation and illness on top of the “typical” learning to grow and live together as a newlywed couple and later as parents to a colic-y, difficult newborn, it is severely humbling.

Over 10 years of marriage, there has been many good times. However, it is through the times of great suffering that has strengthen us in our vocation — 8 moves around the country, multiple deployments, the loss of two babies, the special needs of our earthly children, and the continued battle with gestational diabetes and hyperemesis gravidarum with each pregnancy, endometrosis, and as well as post-partum depression that sometimes follows. Each individual within the family unit has their own unique way of processing grief, loss, and trials, and it requires great patience and dying to self when walking in those valleys together. It requires leaning into a support system of people you trust, as well as spiritual direction and professional therapy when necessary. Suffering is sanctifying. It breaks us and molds us. It purifies the heart of its selfish ambitions, and when done in union with Christ, it draws us closer to Him and to each other. While you can never fully anticipate the suffering to which you both will be called to before your wedding day, the reality of God’s abundant Love and Mercy will always greatly surpass your expectations.

Stephanie Fries, Associate Editor

Long before I even knew my husband-to-be, I confidently committed myself to saving a KitchenAid Mixer for marriage. Despite the friends who tried to talk me into Black Friday sales and family who offered to buy one as a college graduation gift, I desired to withhold this life-changing kitchen appliance until the day I became a wife.

At the time, I made this decision simply because I wanted my life to look and feel remarkably different before and after marriage. It is the same line of thinking that held me accountable to not live with a boyfriend or fiancé before we were married. It is the same delayed gratification that saved other highly valued and anticipated experiences with my husband for marriage alone.

My husband and I are well-into our first year of marriage and my life is undeniably different from the life I lived as a single person. Marriage brought me across an ocean, into the military, away from my professional career and apart from friends and family. As it turns out, I didn’t need to save a KitchenAid Mixer for my life to look and feel radically different.

But God used my playful expectation and desire in other ways. My withholding of a kitchen appliance wasn’t about the mixer itself, but was about instilling in me an anticipation for married life to be a remarkably different life. I recognize how “saving a KitchenAid for marriage” was a means for God to prepare and strengthen me for the immense changes that followed our wedding day.

Nonetheless, our mixer has been a means to build community and serve others in our home. It is a means of love in the form of chocolate chip cookies. It is a stress reliever and a source of joy. Although I don't make financial contributions in our family right now, I make meals for our single friends, new parents and neighborhood kids. God is using my desires—both the playful and the serious—to teach me about myself, open my heart to love in creative ways, and be affirmed in my vocation as a wife.

Mariah Maza, Features Editor

My story is different than most. To be honest, I never had a rosy idea of marriage at all. Since I was little, God gave me the grace to understand the profound beauty in marriage, but I also never thought about it without remembering how hard and painful it probably would be. I didn’t spend most of my tween and teenage years fantasizing about my future husband, writing letters to him, or praying novenas that I would finally meet him. I’m sure part of that is because I didn’t hear about these typical “Catholic girl” trends until college, and also because I met my future husband at 14...on the first day of high school.

By 15, I knew I was going to marry him, but not in a squealy, teenage, naive way. I told my mom one day that I didn’t know how I knew, but I was going to marry this cute football player. Call it a crazy Holy Spirit moment! I said it calmly, nodded, and fell silent again, just knowing, and my mother didn’t challenge me at all. She has told me since then that she knew, somehow, too. She said I looked at my now-husband at 15 the way she looked at my dad at 15, when they met.

Seven years after meeting, after a lot of high school and college growing pains, we joyfully (and exhaustedly) walked down the aisle and were finally married. It’s difficult for me to say what surprised me about marriage, because my temperament is the kind to anticipate and expect all the possible suffering and little crosses that I could possibly encounter in the sacrament. This has its good and bad consequences. So when, for those first three months especially, hard times came, conflict flared up, or I found myself in tearful frustration at midnight on the couch, I saw it as the inevitable. I wasn’t surprised, just dealing with the suffering in marriage I knew would come.

Perhaps what began to surprise me, little by little, was my husband’s consistent, loving, patient response to all the selfish things I said and did that first year. He truly got the worst of me, because marriage felt like looking into a mirror that showed all your worst weaknesses. But he loved me tenderly in spite of them. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that when I would say something incredibly hurtful, he would often pull me into his arms, apologize for upsetting me, and tell me he loved me so much. He showed me what it was to be quick to forgive, to sacrifice your own desires for the sake of your spouse, without any complaints, and to say sorry even when I was the one who had started a quarrel! He loved (and still loves me) like God loves me: so good that it hurts, because I know I don’t deserve it. By the grace of God, I know the sacrament of marriage is forming us into saints, together.

Carissa Pluta, Editor at Large

Whenever someone asks me what I’ve learned so far in my marriage, I always half-jokingly respond: “I’ve learned how selfish I am.” While I wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t a particularly selfish person during my single or engaged years. However, marriage demands so much more of me than anything else I have experienced.

I thought (albeit, naively) that I would always be the best version of myself once I got married. And while marriage has certainly shaped me more into the woman God made me to be, I still frequently have days where I’m grumpy or frustrated or downright annoying. My life is not my own anymore, it’s shared with my husband. Everything I say and do has an intimate effect on him and over the past three years I’ve been learning how to forget myself and actively choose love.

At the same time, however, I’ve found more joy in this process than single me ever could have imagined. I really feel like I have found myself through my vocation and I’ve been able to watch my husband grow more as a man. And through that, I’ve been able to encounter God more fully. It’s through self-denial that God has rooted up the weeds in my life (as painful as it can sometimes be) and has replaced it with fertile soil.

Mary Wilmot, Social Media Manager

I was just thinking the other day about how when we were dating and engaged, date nights and alone time spent together were so frequent. It really made me miss those early days! It was so easy to plan a spontaneous night out together at a new restaurant or bar in town. However, almost six years into marriage and add in two small children, our state of life has changed. Budget constraints and parenthood commitments obviously make this impossible, if not difficult. However, I am so grateful for the joy and struggles that come with raising these two little people. As much as I sometimes wish it were the opposite, weekly date nights out just aren’t a priority right now. I do not want to brush over the fact that date nights and quality time spent together are important for marriage and should be made a priority. I realize now though that date nights don’t have to be out to fancy restaurants each week, like I thought in my dating and single days. It’s easy to compare our realities to others’, especially in the age of Instagram stories when you can literally see what others are doing in the moment.

As my expectations change, I have learned to really appreciate the little moments that my husband and I are able to spend together at the end of the long day, praying our rosary, getting to mass together, reading our books of choice next to each other, and even listening to our favorite podcast together or having a special at home date night.

When we are able to secure a sitter and try out a new (or old favorite) restaurant, our nights are especially valued and savored. In fact, this past fall, we were even able to save up for and take a dream anniversary trip to Italy. With a little sacrifice and a lot of help from our families, we were able to spend this amazing, priceless time together and I am truly grateful to the Lord for that!

Danielle Rother, Pinterest Manager

During my single years I fantasized quite a bit about what my future husband would be like. I made a list of the qualities I was looking for in a husband after reading the book How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul by Jason and Crystalina Evert. I knew I wanted to find a practicing Catholic man who would go to church and pray the rosary with me ­— someone who was handsome, chivalrous, kind, gentle, and had similar interests to me. While the message of the Everts’ book is just as beautiful as the enchanting artwork pictured on the front cover; my own expectations were just about as real as finding a Disney Prince for a husband.

I believe having high expectations is a good thing, and at the same time, there comes a point when it’s important to recognize when those expectations have become unrealistic. Perhaps I sought to find someone so similar to me that I was basically looking for a male version of myself. Eventually I had to come to terms with the fact that the person I would end up with was not going to be a carbon copy.

The truth is, the man I fell in love with does hold many of the qualities I was searching for in a husband and he is also as different from myself as one can get. We have completely opposite temperaments and personalities. Throughout our courtship I knew that we were very different from each other, but it wasn’t until we were married that those differences became very challenging for us to navigate. Both of us have needed to adjust our expectations.

The extrovert in me is always seeking interaction and attention while the introvert in him is constantly looking for some solitude. My love language revolves around extravagant grand gestures and my husband is more content with the ordinary pleasures of life. Some days it seems like we have come to an impasse; yet somehow the grace of the sacrament has held us together. The reality of marriage means constantly dying to ourselves just a little bit more every day; compromise is an art form that we are still learning as newlyweds.

While the dreamer in me will never stop dreaming, I’ve learned that it’s important to live in our own reality and not to have unrealistic expectations in our marriage. I will always be grateful for the magical moment that was our wedding day, but everyday life in marriage can’t be a perpetual fairytale. It would be unsustainable. And even if it were possible, the magical moments would be less magical. It’s really the storms in life that we experience which help us to appreciate the joyful moments—because without rain there would be no rainbows.

Newlywed Life | What Do You Do When You and Your Spouse Have Different Outlooks on Health + Wellness?

STEPHANIE CALIS

My husband spent our year-long engagement two states away in his first year of grad school, determined to save money for our life together by shopping and eating as little as possible on his small stipend. The first time I saw him after he moved, he’d visibly lost weight and was more tired than usual--the result of a steady diet of frozen broccoli, boxed mac and cheese, scrambled eggs, and a weekly frozen burrito splurge on Sundays. I bought him a cookbook and promised we could live prudently without sacrificing his health.

Meanwhile, as I embarked on post-college living for the first time, I was sampling kombucha, oil pulling, and debating buying barefoot-style running shoes. Was my husband unnecessarily ascetic? Was I blindly following any wellness trend that appeared on my radar? The answer was probably both.

Even several years into marriage, I frequently observe the ways family of origin shapes your outlook, for better or for worse. My parents, sister, and I would take classes together at the gym and enjoyed cooking together from scratch. My husband and his siblings preferred pick-up sports to gyms, and his family often prioritized convenience and savings over other factors when grocery shopping.

After our wedding, as we began sharing meals and a bank account, my husband and I found ourselves in significant disagreement over how to use our limited resources well and to determine what was actually “healthy.” He called me a snob when I turned up my nose at butter that wasn’t grass-fed. I called him careless when he’d come home fatigued and sick from dipping into the candy jar at work all day.

I look back and see each of our immoderate perspectives on wellness as a typical example of the growing pains of newlywed life. Becoming familiar with one another’s spending habits, tastes, and day-to-day nutritional, sleep, and exercise requirements are among many adjustments in the merging of two individuals’ habits into a new, shared life. I have asked myself, however, why I felt so passionately about health in particular, and why I often insisted my husband conform himself more to my habits than vice versa. He’d press me, insisting he’d cherish and care for me no matter if one of us gained weight or developed an illness.

I truly believe the human body makes manifest God’s glory and expresses the person. I believe taking care of my physical well-being--held, that is, in proper perspective with my spiritual well-being--better provides me with the energy and clarity of mind to serve my husband and children in my vocation and to place my gifts at the service of the Lord.

Yet if I’m being entirely honest with myself, I also see the raw places in my heart that hide in fear: I fear sickness, death, infertility. I fear my appearance won’t be enough for my husband; the lie that, as a woman, how I look equals who I am. It’s a constant struggle for me to embrace the tension of pursuing fulfillment in this life while still fixing my eyes on the next. I desire, too much, to cling to this life in which I’ve been graced with so many gifts.

Eternal preservation, good health, and youth aren’t the ultimate goods. Eternal life, however, is.

Fulfillment without flaw. As I’ve worked to cast down these idols, time has given my husband and I more of a shared, moderate perspective on diet, exercise, supplements, and otherwise.

So where to turn if, like us, you find yourself and your beloved at odds over a major lifestyle matter--health and wellness, or otherwise?

First, I encourage you to accept differences of opinion as a normal accompaniment to your time of transition as newlyweds and, moreover, to delve into them. Like me, you might recognize a root cause that illuminates the parts of you the Father wants to heal, to reconcile, to be invited into.

Second, trust that your spouse chose you, loves you, made a vow to you--a mirror of our heavenly bridegroom. He wants you, no matter if you’re an XS or XL, if you eat or don’t eat gluten, if you’re marathons or Couch to 5K.

And lastly, turn to the Lord. Ask how you, in particular, can put yourself at the service of the Gospel--body and soul--and for him to reveal who you were created to be, and a healthy perspective on wellness will follow.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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5 Tips for a Lower-Waste Wedding

STEPHANIE CALIS

One of the highlights of my honeymoon was sharing with my husband the dozens of Jordan almonds—one of our wedding favors—left behind on tables at our reception. At the end of the evening, my mother-in-law gathered the extras into a shopping bag and handed them to us. We snacked on them for the duration of an eight-hour drive and a week spent on the Carolina coast.

Photography: Sarah Ann Design

They were delicious, and even now the taste transports me directly back to those sweet first days of marriage. Yet as I untied each ribbon, pulled apart each tulle circle, and methodically moved them aside to unwrap another, I vaguely wondered how long it had taken to assemble each favor and how long our guests considered the packaging before throwing it away. I felt bad about what seemed like unnecessary waste.

Weddings unavoidably require consumption—which, in the name of hospitality and service, is not fundamentally bad. Beauty, feasting, and refinement have their place and can draw our senses to the invisible realities of the sacrament. It’s an excess of these matters that can unintentionally cause waste. As I look back on my wedding, I can clearly see elements that might have been stewarded more responsibly.

If sustainability and intention matter to you in a similar way, here, my suggestions for planning a lower-waste celebration and choosing details versatile enough to be reused—by you or another bride. As a disclaimer, be assured I make these suggestions not from a moral high ground (see the almond-eating above), but simply from a place of insight I’ve gained over time.

Buy items secondhand, and plan to resell them when possible.

Purchasing secondhand décor and apparel extends the life of items already produced and circulated. It’s not infrequent to find even wedding gowns that have never been worn, after another bride has reconsidered the purchase! When you’re ready, consider re-selling your gently used items; here, our curation of the best organizations for selling or donating your dress, including several distinctively Catholic resources.

Choose versatile items that can be reused for the everyday.

I loved the satin sandals, dyed green, that I wore with my gown. Yet even having had them dyed, the material and style of the shoes very much conveyed “wedding,” and I only re-wore them once before donating them. In hindsight, I wish I’d chosen something more adaptable.

Versatility can be a great guide as you shop: consider what types of accessories you’d enjoy wearing to elevate your everyday outfits or on your honeymoon, a tie your groomsmen can wear again, and signs, vases, or frames you’d be glad to display in your home.

Consider digital over paper materials.

Invitation suites and wedding programs become keepsakes for generations and take on precious meaning in print. For other correspondence, however, consider using digital tools to reduce excess paper. You might include online RSVP instructions in your mailed invitations, for instance, and use electronic cards for matters like wedding party asks, showers, and the rehearsal dinner.

Plan ahead for donating leftovers, and consider serving the Church.

Before the big day, discuss with your fiancé and families what you’d like to do with food, flowers, cake, and any other perishables left over. Contact your diocese’s Catholic Charities for information on food donations in service to those who go without, or contact local religious communities to inquire if and how they accept donations.

I treasure the memory of driving with my best friend after a wedding to drop off her bridesmaid bouquet at the cloistered community of which her sister is a member. Flowers to elevate the chapels of our sisters and brothers in religious life are a beautiful gift!

Have lower amounts of consumption and waste been on your mind as you plan your wedding? Share your experiences and additional tips with other brides in the comments and on our social media.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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What Does it Mean to Belong to Your Spouse?

STEPHANIE CALIS

The song my husband and I chose for our first dance includes the line, “I want to belong to you.” The words resonated deep within, evoking something free, intimate, permanent.

As we said our vows at the altar I felt the weight of commitment and distinction, grace made tangible and distinctively binding us together. The very gravity of our promises made them romantic to me: faithful love forsaking all others, fruitful love that wouldn’t stop at the two of us, free love that willingly desired exclusive belonging, total love that saw all of me.

Photography: MessyFace, seen in Heather + Matthew | Rustic Family Wedding

I thought I got it at the time. I thought my husband and I shared a healthy sense of vulnerability and a spirit of loving encouragement and correction. In many ways we did, and continue to.

But in the months and years since, I’ve seen the ways in which seemingly small matters make me fall short of letting myself belong entirely to my husband, calling me into communion over division.

There have been times I’ve clung to wounds received and inflicted in past dating relationships, allowing them to hold sway even after I thought I’d moved past them. It’s only been more recently, as I’ve waded fully into this pain for the first time, that I’ve shared the fullness of embarrassment over my past actions with my husband. I hadn’t intentionally withheld these thoughts earlier in our relationship; their magnitude and resulting unrest only surfaced later on, the fruit of deeper insight and self-examination.

Holding on to the past, I realized, was a distraction from my present.

I was sacramentally united to my husband and desired to rid my mind and heart of the past. He loved me still. He encouraged me to offer my humiliation--a true sense of being humbled--to the Lord, praying for freedom and interior peace.

There have been times I’ve retreated inward, too embarrassed and ashamed to admit fault in actions both minor and major. Yet each time I’m tempted to keep my mistakes to myself, I feel the restlessness creep in. The overwhelming desire to share, tempered by fear. Being seen in the fullness of who you are is thrilling, though terrifying. He loves me still.

Even in my shame, I am loved. Even in admitting the regrets and misjudgments I’m scared to bring up, my husband is gentle and forgiving. I’ve come to understand belonging to him as an invitation to take off my masks. An invitation to reveal who I am and who the Father calls me to be.

A healthy sense of belonging to my spouse has, for me, amplified an awareness of ways in which I ultimately belong to the Lord.

However imperfect in this life, the purpose of each vocation is to make manifest God’s love. My husband’s love—so patient, merciful, total, and accepting—shows this to me. I am known; I am seen; I am beloved. It’s not unlike the sacrament of reconciliation, in which we find ourselves tenderly embraced in our brokenness. We leave armed with the grace and resolve not to remain the same, but to stay the course in pursuit of greatness. The word reconcile, after all, is rooted in the Latin word for “to bring together.”

Are there small cracks and nagging divisions tugging on your own heart, drawing your attention to ways in which your relationship can grow in total honesty, trust, and intimacy? Though always a work in progress, I can’t attest more to the joy and freedom of transparency and accountability that embody the Father’s love. Saint John Paul II has interceded for us from the start, and I frequently recall his motto, totus tuus. This phrase, “totally yours,” expresses his trust in Our Lady to bring him to her son; in our marriage, we make this our same prayer.

If you find yourself, like me, suddenly seeing ways in which you can belong to your spouse more entirely, I encourage you to enter into them, even when you’d prefer to run. Sit with your mess, let yourself feel any pains of your shortcomings, and move forward--with prayer, practical steps, and, if necessary, spiritual direction or counseling--knowing you’re not just moving for movement’s sake, but toward a beautiful pursuit: being brought together--reconciled--with both your earthly and heavenly beloved.

“But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, Jacob, and formed you, Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine. When you pass through waters, I will be with you; through rivers, you shall not be swept away. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, nor will flames consume you.”

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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The Gift of Tears.

STEPHANIE CALIS

“Well,” deadpanned the priest, “that was the most emotional rehearsal I’ve ever done.”

The details of the last wedding rehearsal I attended are blurry, obscured by the veil of tears that flowed freely from the minute I set foot in the chapel. Seared in my heart, however, are the memories of the bride and her father both weeping, exchanging joyful glances as they practiced their walk up the aisle for the following day, toward a bridegroom equally radiant and also overcome with emotion. The tears as the Maid of Honor presented the bride with a spiritual bouquet from friends and family; as the couple stood hand in hand, the words of their vows nearly ready to burst forth from their lips; as the priest showed them where they would kneel, saying, “this is one of the only opportunities of your life to be this close to the consecration.”

Photography: Visual Grace

A wedding feast is truly that--a banquet, a taste of heavenly joy. It wasn’t until this particular rehearsal that I considered the deep significance of the hours preceding the feast, as well: if a couple’s actual wedding day is anticipation of eternity, then the rehearsal has the potential to be anticipation of the anticipation. A few hours where the distance between heaven and earth seems not so far, and when excitement over the union to come is so palpably real. Quality time with the bride and groom in a more intimate setting than tomorrow’s reception; time to worship and rejoice.

My constant crying at this rehearsal was like being pushed out of myself to the very surface and heights of life.

I found myself surprised by how emotional I still felt the following day at the wedding Mass, struck all over again with beauty and tears. I hadn’t been emptied yet. I cried again during the procession, the vows, the dedication to Our Lady, their first kiss as man and wife. During their first dance to Matt Maher’s “Set Me as a Seal,” during toasts and during a bubble-filled departure. I cried the first time I visited their new home. I teared up again each time someone asked me what the wedding was like.

What is it about this love that made me constantly overflow, unable to contain myself?

It’s become my belief that every couple takes on particular charisms, gifts of the Holy Spirit, that develop and flow forth from their love: the gifts of hospitality, of empathy and suffering for others, of service, of creativity. At this wedding, for me and for so many other guests, there was the gift of tears. A love so visible and free, as if no one else were in the room, it felt nearly impossible not to be pierced.

The Gospels illuminate the significance of tears. The sinful woman who bathes the feet of Christ with her tears, whose sins are forgiven; Jesus’s own weeping over the death of Lazarus. Both instances convey a preconception shattered--that mercy is conditional, and that Christ’s humanity doesn’t show sorrow, respectively--and a wall come down.

Crying is an invitation; letting others see us as we are and inspiring resolve, a moving forward. Something raw, something anointed.

A wedding feast, then, where bride, groom, and guests find themselves in tears is an occasion of true seeing, of meeting each person where they are. Pure and holy love leaving a long-term imprint on those who witness it.

If the tears come on your wedding day, let them. Whatever charisms you and your spouse are gifted with, embrace them. Ask the Father to reveal to you the gifts he wishes to share with his children and your wedding guests, with you as the instruments. Cry out his love, outpoured and unfettered.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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Editors Share | Participating in the Mass

At the start of a new year and a new season of the liturgical calendar, we consider ways to refresh our habits and live each day with intention. Today, the Spoken Bride team shares some of the practices that shape their preparation for and engagement during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

PHOTOGRAPHY: KELLI SEELEY PHOTOGRAPHY, seen in Alana + Stephen | California Air Force Wedding

Stephanie Calis, Editor in Chief & Co-Founder

In this season of raising young children, my husband and I have had to adjust our expectations of what we hope to “get” from the Mass, and I think after several years we’ve reached something of a sweet spot. In doing so, my view has shifted to the reality that Mass is, in fact, not about getting, but about gift: Christ’s free, faithful, total, and fruitful sacrifice poured out and re-presented to us at every liturgy. I have to remind myself that even on days when I miss every other word of the homily or when my baby tries to escape under the kneelers over and over, Jesus is truly present and desires to enter into my life and vocation in such a specific, intimate way.

That said, I do make efforts to devote myself to worship and prayer. As I approach the altar for communion, the song “Sanctuary” frequently echoes in my head, underscoring for me the beautiful nuptial significance of the sacraments and helping dispose me to receive the Eucharist. The thought of humbly approaching the altar, walking toward the Bridegroom, is so moving to me.

My husband and I try to take turns handling and praying with our kids after communion, so that we can each have personal prayer and reflection time. We sometimes alternate taking them outside immediately after Mass, as well, to give each other additional time to pray in the chapel. Since college, I have always prayed after Mass the St. Michael prayer (which my parish now says collectively, before the final blessing), a prayer to St. Raphael for friends and family members and their future spouses, and have renewed my consecration to Mary.

Jiza Zito, Creative Director & Co-Founder

My family arrives early, brings missals, and says a prayer of thanksgiving after Mass. I try to go to confession at least twice a month with my husband or as a family, and to daily Mass at least once a week.

Andi Compton, Business Director

I meet with my Gospel Group weekly and we read the Sunday Readings and discuss the readings, upcoming feast days, and liturgical living. I am an Every Sacred Sunday drop out—at this season in my life with five kids, including a newborn, I just can’t remember to bring books and take time to write notes. But I do use the Laudate app to keep up with the readings whenever I’m in the cry area and a book isn’t available. Our goal is to make it to confession once a month. Our two oldest can now receive reconciliation and it’s so important to us to model us admitting that we are sinners in need of forgiveness by going regularly.

Honestly, during this season of my life, I constantly feel like I’m not doing enough because what I plan to do is interrupted by my actual life. I’ve learned to think of these interruptions as opportunities to offer up for our family’s salvation and any other intentions I can think of. At Christmas Eve Mass I was really wrestling with all my emotions of the process of bringing the whole crew to Mass (baths, getting dressed, leaving too late, parking far away, walking through the crazy parking lot, not finding seats, dealing with usherettes on power trips) but when the Eucharist was held up and the priest said “Behold, this is Lamb oh God…” a very clear voice in my head saying “This is why.” So even if you’re in a season where you can’t do all the things you desire in your prayer life, know that you can find Jesus exactly where you are.

Mariah Maza, Features Editor

There are many little habits I have started to acquire that allow me to prepare better and go deeper into the great gift that is the Catholic Mass. I am not perfectly consistent yet, but I find that my spiritual life is much stronger when I am more intentional about them.

Something new I am doing this year is using the Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal to pre-read the readings at home on Sunday or Saturday, take notes, reflect, and prepare spiritually for my upcoming week. I also use the journal to take notes during the homily! I haven’t received any weird stares yet.

In preparation for receiving the Eucharist again the next time I am at Mass, I strive to make daily (if not multiple times a day) spiritual communions. There are many different prayers you can chose from to “make” a spiritual communion. I pray, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

When my husband and I are driving to Mass together, we pray St. Ambrose’s before Mass prayer in the car. I keep the paper with the prayer on the visor above the driver’s side, so I never have to think about remembering it; it is always there. I also try to listen to Christian or sacred music or ride in silence.

Additionally, I find it much easier to focus my Mass time when I arrive at least 10 minutes early to say hello to Jesus and tell him what my intentions for the Mass are.

For several months now, I have been accountable for attending daily Mass on Thursdays. A dear friend agreed to go to morning Mass with me on Thursday, and then we get coffee together! This makes sure I show up instead of making an excuse or sleeping in, and it cultivates a beautiful friendship founded on faith and virtue (and coffee).

During Mass, whenever I am about to enter the communion line, I pray in my head, “Mama Mary, prepare me to receive your Son in a way that does not desecrate His most holy body.” It can be so easy for me to get distracted right before I get up receive the Eucharist or while walking in line. I forget that I am walking the wedding aisle to my Bridegroom. So I call upon Mama Mary to clear my head and keep me focused on the sacrament.

When the priest raises the Body and Blood after consecration, I pray “my Lord and my God, thank you Jesus.”

I try not to go more than two weeks to a month between confessions. Getting over the “public shame” of staying in your seat during communion if you are not properly disposed to receive has also been transformative for my conscience and my soul. It also increases humility and my desire to get to confession so I can receive in a state of grace at the next Mass.

And finally, I veil at every Mass, in adoration chapels, and in the church when I go to confession, because those are all places I am in the presence of the Eucharist. Veiling has been immensely transformative for me. It changed my interior dispositions during Mass and even transformed the outward way I dress inside and outside of church. I am in love with this tradition the Church offers us as women.

Stephanie Fries, Editor at Large

I love to volunteer as a lector at Mass as a way for me to serve in our community and to engage more intimately with the readings. I am re-building a habit of bringing a small notebook with me to Mass so I can note specific readings or excerpts from the homily that I want to reflect on again at home. I strive to consistently pray a prayer of Thanksgiving after Mass, “for the beauty of this day and the sacrifice of your son.”

Mary Wilmot, Social Media Manager

My family and I have recently started attending a Latin Mass parish. I know this is not the case for everyone, but we are blessed that we are relatively close to two parishes that offer the TLM (one of them is the parish we were married in!). My husband and I both have experienced great fruits since attending consistently.

We like to prepare by making sure we have the readings handy during Mass. We currently use the missal and leaflets that are offered at our Church since we don’t have our own Missals yet. It is one of my goals for 2019 to acquire our own though! In a pinch, the Laudate app on my phone has been helpful as it has all the daily readings and prayers of the Mass.

After communion, I like to pray the Anima Christi prayer, and I also try to kneel and pray in silence. It can be tough with two small children though. We each get up with one of the kids at least once during the Mass due to someone needing to go to the bathroom or getting too fidgety. When I get frustrated, I try to remind myself that this is just the season of my life right now. Quietly explaining the parts of the Mass or pointing our candles, the Crucifix, or statues seem to help draw their attention to the Mass. My kids also seem to prefer to sit closer to the altar so they can see. Getting to Mass a little early makes this possible and gives us some extra prayer time. We sometimes also bring in a couple books or quiet toys. We try to go to daily Mass a couple times a week at a few different parishes nearby, too.

Outside of Mass, we pray a family rosary together every night. It has become part of our routine before the kids go to bed and it’s so nice to have those 15 minutes of quiet and peace together. The kids definitely fidget and sometimes fall asleep before we finish, but it definitely feels like it brings peace and order to our day, no matter how the rest of the day has been. In addition, I try to go to the confession at least once a month. My goal for this year is to add in at least 20-30 minutes of spiritual reading in during the day, as well.

Let Something New Pursue Your Heart This Year.

STEPHANIE CALIS

You know the ones. The quotable movie lines, the Top 40 songs, the recent Apple launches you’re vaguely aware of and just nod along with when they come up, never having exactly experienced them yourself. Does this ever happen in your spiritual life, as well--a feeling that one day you should get around to a deeper look at some of the Church’s rich offerings you’ve only ever sort of known about?

As this new year unfolds, this opportunity to encounter the Lord in a new way, I encourage you to dive into a piece of spiritual reading or the life a particular saint, perhaps one you’ve long intended to get acquainted with, and let it lead your heart where it will.

Photography: Zélie Veils

For me, this happened with the writings of John Paul II. Growing up, I loved the idea of love, thanks to a steady diet of Disney magic and romantic comedies. My high school youth minister occasionally mentioned the Theology of the Body and its powerful message, yet I put away the basic catechesis on a mental shelf, not considering it compelling or relevant to my current life.

Fast forward to college, and I realized my younger self’s concept of romance was little more than infatuation when compared to what it could really be. Saint Pope John Paul II introduced me to another view, and I fell in love with love for real.

Along with my boyfriend at the time, I attended a summer retreat in Allenspark, Colorado, where the Pope stayed when he came to Denver for World Youth Day in 1993. On the outside, much about our relationship looked happy and holy. Yet my heart had never experienced deeper unrest, in everything from physical boundaries to problem-solving to the voice I could never quite silence; the one that questioned whether even sacrificial love should feel like a constant weight.

That relationship wasn’t meant to be, but I’m certain the Father’s hand led me to that holy ground in the Rockies. There, I was introduced for the first time to Love and Responsibility, the book on sexual ethics and human dignity that John Paul wrote during his years as a cardinal. The person, he wrote, is meant to be loved, and things are meant to be used, yet so often we get it backwards. His observations on romance, sacrifice, and the ways we stumble in them were like reading a narrative of my relationship.  As I came to see it was built on sand, I grew aware of a hunger, an ache, I hadn’t even realized dwelled in my soul. It was a longing for authentic love, rooted in truth.

Months passed before I had the courage to end that relationship. All the while, though, I just couldn’t--and didn’t--want to put out that fire the Pope had lit in my heart. I started reading all I could about his take on love, sexuality, and chastity. It felt like putting on glasses I hadn’t known I needed. Here were the eternal, ancient truths of the Church, spoken in a language so immediate and insistent, so suited to the current culture and my own life. In my relationship, I’d been hiding so much from myself, my friends, and God. I was ready to become more fully alive; to take off the masks. One of JPII’s personal mottos, duc in altum, calls upon Jesus’ exhortation to “put out into the deep.”

A few years later, recently engaged, I found myself on a Theology of the Body retreat with my coworkers. I was familiar with the Pope’s series of audiences on creation, salvation, and the nuptial intimacy found in each vocation from a college study group, but had never delved deeply in.

For the second time in my life, everything I thought I knew about love fell away, replaced with John Paul’s blazingly beautiful vision of the human person; of love as a complete and unrestrained gift of self. His words were literally life-giving, and awakened in me a desire to live out that self-gift in all of my relationships, most especially in the one I’d have with my husband-to-be: the relationship that would sanctify me and bring me to Christ. I felt remade under this new lens.

Encountering this great saint’s writings and principles painted for me the clearest, most whole, most hopeful vision of who we, as humans, are: beloved daughters and sons; a revelation of the Father’s great love. His words have shown me to myself.

What about you? It’s become apparent in my personal prayer life that certain verses, prayers, and saints have seemingly chosen and pursued me at the times I most needed them. Some of those invitations have been whispers: constant, repeated mentions of a certain prayer, book, or person over months or years. And some have been shouts: instances where intercession and answered prayers ring clear and true. Who are the holy men and women who’ve been knocking at--or, alternatively, crashing through--the door of your heart lately?

Sit in the quiet and observe if any particular saints or writings surface. Consider whether any individuals, devotions, or books have been recommended to you more than once, from more than one person. Or perhaps there’s a particular aspect of the Catholic faith you’ve always wanted to dive into. As a new year unfolds, I sense an expanse of open space in my soul; a decluttered state of thirst. I desire to be filled. Satisfied. May my heart--and yours--find newness, discovery, and a deeper intimacy with Christ in these coming months.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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Let Our Lady Bring Your Relationship to Life.

STEPHANIE CALIS

My dreamer of a high school self would frequently lie awake at night counting the qualities I wished to find in my future husband. I hoped he’d be, in no particular order, funny, creative, musical, a reader, from a big family, and--naturally--handsome.

As time passed and my spiritual life developed in college, I found my desires evolving. Meeting, and marrying, a man of deep faith started to push qualities like “good cook and dancer” from the top of my unofficial list. Specifically, I prayed that my husband would have a relationship with Our Lady.

Photography: Horn Photography & Design, seen in Kate + Adam | Winter Garden-Inspired Wedding

I am blessed beyond measure to have found all these qualities, and more, in my husband Andrew. When we started dating, he told me how taking up the practice of a daily rosary the previous summer had brought order and peace to his life during a time he knew he’d wandered from the path of virtue he so deeply strove for. Starlit rosary walks around our college campus quickly became a ritual we loved.

The clarity I sensed through our prayer was like a thinning of the veil between the earthly life and the divine one. Total wonder and trust in the Father’s goodness. We talked often about our shared sense of healing from past relationships and such a certainty and purity in the start of our relationship. Months later, it was after a rosary walk, before a statue of Our Lady, that Andrew proposed. We chose a line from the Memorare, "before thee we kneel"--a reflection of the utter abandon to her care found in the prayer--for the inscription in our wedding rings.

To me, there is nothing more attractive, more admirable, and more masculine than a man in love with the Blessed Mother.

She is so alive, truly showing a man how to love his bride.

She herself is the embodiment of a bride--humble and small, yet a pillar of strength; pure beauty; sexual integrity; a magnification of the Lord’s goodness. I imagine she lived a rich emotional and spiritual life that models the love spouses are called to: ardent and pure-hearted devotion to her husband, abiding tenderness for her son, an emptying to the depths of her being at the foot of the Cross.

St. Louis de Montfort described devotion to Mary as being "Our Lady's slave," an image that's understandably uncomfortable across four centuries and an entirely different culture. To be honest, I was unsettled when I was introduced to the term--at the time, I was just learning more about the Catholic faith and was considering Marian consecration, and the thought of slavery made me skittish. To discover that Our Lady wanted to chain me to her for eternity didn't exactly seem loving, let alone pleasant.

I'm glad I heard out the context and explanation of the language, and am grateful for the grace of developing a devotion to her and making a consecration with my husband. Now, when I think of being chained to Our Lady, I no longer envision a burden or a literal ball and chain.

Instead, it brings me deep comfort to know my husband and I are forever tethered to her. It's impossible for her to let us go, even if we try. By grace alone, she's always pulling us back to her and into a deeper love for her son.

Our Marian devotions have absolutely deepened our prayer lives, yet I suspect the graces flow most abundantly when we fall short. 

The daily opportunities to serve and sacrifice in marriage, the arguments, all the moments my husband and I aren’t just sitting there, holding hands in prayer--she keeps us close, and intercedes for us still.

How can you, as a couple, cultivate your own deeper devotion to Mary? Whether you’ve never had a relationship with her or whether you made a consecration years ago, she invites us from wherever we are. Consider habitually praying a decade or more of the rosary with your fiancé or husband, hanging an image or icon in your home, celebrating Marian feast days with Mass and a date night or gathering, and discerning Marian consecration.

In all her perfection, it might seem difficult to relate to Our Lady on a human level, but when I feel down on myself, knowing I could work harder at living out my vocation to marriage, I try to remember that she was and is entirely human. Alongside her, and with her prayers, we ourselves become fully alive.

We love hearing your own experiences of saintly intercession. Share your experiences with inviting Our Lady into your relationship! Do you have any Marian traditions? Any stories of how she's shaped your love story?

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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Newlywed Life | Accepting Imperfection

STEPHANIE CALIS

My prayer during my engagement was earnest and intense, if not terribly varied. Most of my petitions revolved around the hopes I had for my marriage:

Prepare me to be a good wife. Prepare him to be a good husband. Slay my selfishness, Father, and help me make a gift of myself. Help us have long, happy, life-giving years together.

I was determined to make marriage make me better, not for my sake but for the sake of the man I loved.

Over the course of a year, I made my way through Venerable Fulton Sheen’s Three to Get Married, highlighting entire pages with his meditations on love and sacrifice. Sheen frequently notes the that even in all the beauty of married life, God alone satisfies our deep ache for completion, asking questions like, “How can one love self without being selfish? How can one love others without losing self? The answer is: By loving both self and neighbor in God. It is His Love that makes us love both self and neighbor rightly.”

Somehow, this point got obscured in the elation of my engagement. It felt impossible not to imagine that, despite our human weaknesses and the inevitable arguments and inconveniences, marriage would be a perpetual state of transcendence. The heights.

And in many ways, it really has been. I try to stay aware and thankful of the fact that my marriage has been a purifying gift, with many moments of scarcely believable joy and true communion. Yet as I anticipated these days I once only dreamed of, I still created an elevated ideal of what I thought marriage would be--and, more specifically, how I would be.

I thought love would drown out any voices of self-doubt in my mind. I thought gratitude for my husband would make petty bickering simple to resolve. I thought no matter what lay ahead on the exterior, that the interior--the particular relationship and bond I’d share with my husband alone--would be untouchable.

As with any great love, there’s a heady early stage filled with infatuation and good will. Even for those of us aware of this tendency, it’s hard to avoid that rush. Without intending to, I’d become infatuated with marriage itself, idealizing it, and idealizing who I wanted to be as a wife, in my hopes for perfection.

After our wedding, I found myself wrestling with my worth through a season of unemployment and loneliness in a new town, annoyed when my husband did chores differently than me, and resentful that exterior issues like in-laws and long-distance holidays still cast frustration on my overall happiness.

I wanted to be the best wife I could be, and ended up misinterpreting “best” as “never dissatisfied.”

It wasn’t my husband’s doing. Never in our relationship have I felt on less than equal footing with him, and never has he been less than affirming and consoling when I’ve needed his tenderness and strength most. It was my own self I had to confront. Just as my veil was lifted at the altar on my wedding day, I was forced to see the me that resided beneath the veil of my ideals. The lifting of that veil, and the opportunity to contend with the fact that, despite my efforts, I couldn’t be a perfect wife--nor was I called to be--was painful.

I became so aware of my shortcomings in a way I hadn’t been before getting married. Seeing how I reacted to irritations and trials in relation to another person were like a mirror to a version of myself I’d never seen before. The image wasn’t the one I’d always hoped to see.

But who you are in your vocation isn’t just the person you or your spouse sees reflected back at you. Who does the Father see?

In all my concerns, all my desires to be the best I could be at marriage, my focus was so narrow I often forgot to welcome the channel of grace. I forgot to invite the Lord to form me alongside my inferior human designs, to welcome the formation that hurt. And ultimately, to trust that even in my imperfection, he loved me the same. It’s the same kind of love spouses are called to bear to one another--the holy one’s own face--and the kind of love I received time and again from my husband.

During a recent storm of anxiety and self-contempt, a therapist showed me an image with three concentric circles. The outer ring was labeled facade, encompassing the people, things, achievements, sensual things, and tendencies to pride and vanity we might attach ourselves to in the world. Within it was a circle called defects, including our failures, past sins, disappointments, anger, and means of escapism (food, materialism, sex, or substances). The center circle read core, and listed who every child of God is and is made to be: Beloved. A temple of the Holy Spirit. Full of grace. Holy. A new creation.

These three circles, she said, together make up our spirituality. While we, and others, can see the facades and the defects--surrounded by our idols, the things we desire to be or what we want the world to see--God’s transforming, radical love, his vision of us, quite literally cuts to the core.

He sees the us in that center circle, not discounting the imperfect parts of us, but never withdrawing his love in spite of them. Knowing this, it’s like having permission to let the idols topple. It’s natural, and good, to desire becoming your spouse’s closest earthly example of excruciating love. It does take three to get married, though, because peace lies in knowing you aren’t doing it alone and, moreover, knowing the Lord wants us to become more and more an embodiment of his love in our vocation.

Imperfection is a part of us, but it’s not who we are. Our identity doesn’t lie in our shortcomings or in the masks we wear. It lies in who we are: his daughters and sons.

Images by Rae and Michael Photography, as seen in How He Asked | Jocelyn + Cheyne

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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Newlywed Life | When You Aren't Able to Have a Cocoon Period

STEPHANIE CALIS

I clearly remember the hours spent on the phone with my husband-to-be during our long-distance engagement. At some point, at least several times a week, we’d express how much we missed each other, following our unintentional script: “I can’t wait until this time is over and we can see each other every day.” “Me neither. We won’t have to say goodbye anymore! Instead, it will be goodnight.”

Photography: Karly Jo Photography, seen in Vendor Spotlight | Karly Jo Photography

Short of a handful of work-related trips and bachelor and bachelorette weekends each, my husband and I have been blessed with the opportunity to come home to one another almost every day of our marriage, a gift we try not to take for granted. Having friends in the military, ministry, and the corporate world, we’re aware that for some couples frequent travel and separation is the norm, not the exception.

What will your own living and time situation look like after your wedding day? Being able to insulate and fortify your marriage in its early days--a “cocoon period” wherein your relationship and its boundaries are a top priority--is an incredible grace. But if by necessity or circumstance--school, a job requiring regular interstate trips, selling a home, or otherwise--you and your spouse aren’t able to be together daily, your marriage certainly isn’t doomed. Where some opportunities are absent (namely, the ease of spending significant amounts of time together as husband and wife--and it’s alright to find this difficult and undesirable), others present themselves. But only with the Father’s hand.

I recently talked to two friends, a couple married six years who spent the first six months of their marriage living in two different states as one spouse completed her PhD and the other established his business. I find their devotion to prayer, theology, and liturgical living so inspiring, and as we chatted about their advice for married couples who are frequently separated, it appeared clear to me that some of the very habits established during their time apart later flowed into the habits they maintain still, now together each day and with their children.

Here, their tips for couples experiencing temporary long-distance marriages.

Invest in your prayer life as a couple.

My friends told me when they shared their forthcoming situation with their pastor during engagement, he urged them to develop habits of regular prayer, both individually and as a couple. Going so far as to schedule specific times to pray is very helpful for accountability--they committed to praying on the phone before work each morning, using this prayer for married couples, followed by spontaneous prayer and intentions.

If necessary, get creative with your time and schedules.

Making time to chat each day was a priority for my friends, one that involved a well-worth-it effort to align their schedules across different time zones and responsibilities. Depending on your situation, this might look like one or both spouses waking up an hour earlier or talking during meals or work breaks.

Know your limitations, however, and prioritize each other’s well-being--my friends decided to impose a rule of no evening Skype calls on weeknights, because they’d both be too willing to stay up too late.

Find things to do together from a distance.

Reading the same book, watching the same show, or even making the same recipe can help you feel connected across the miles.

Try to see each other as much as possible.

As time and finances allow, it’s worth making efforts to see one another often. This might involve certain sacrifices; my friend, for instance, decided to live with family during his time apart from his wife, and the money they saved in rent went to plane tickets, instead.

Expect an adjustment when you’re reunited.

The end of your time apart will surely be one of great joy. Bear in mind it will also be a big move for at least one spouse, with many changes: living with someone new and adjusting to a new location, job, and community. Give yourselves times to ease into the transition, in the form of taking a few days off from work and taking things slowly before overloading yourselves with social commitments.

A temporary long-distance marriage probably feels more unfair than a long-distance engagement; after all, the contentment of significantly more time together is a privilege of becoming husband and wife. Yet opportunities for your sanctification and the strength of your relationship do exist; gifts even in a less-than-ideal situation. If you have or will experience frequent separations from your spouse, be assured of our prayers, and be sure to share the practices that have helped you on your journey.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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Cultivating a Heart for Your Single Friends

STEPHANIE CALIS

I remember the first time I felt it. I’d just helped send my sister off to prom--nine years later, her date would become her husband--giddy with admiration for her beaded dress and lack of preoccupation with her looks. Three years before, I’d reluctantly attended my own senior prom, feeling the weight of expectation that it was what you were supposed to do, supposed to feel emotional about, at the end of high school. No one asked me. My dad dropped me off.

Photography: Kelli Seeley Photography

I felt it again the day an old friend called, breathlessly sharing the story of how she’d gotten engaged hours earlier on a snow-covered bench. At the time, I was navigating the waters of serious dating for the first time, aware my current relationship was diminishing my spiritual life and sense of who I was, yet too fearful and passive to do much about it. Where, I wondered, was the man I’d marry, and when would it be my turn?

Those stirrings in my heart had a name: an ache. My heart was beating; I was alive; and it hurt.

Sometimes, it was physically painful to sit on the floor of the chapel, eyes glazed before the tabernacle and desperate for the road to my vocation to present itself. I shared in the joy of my sister and my friends as they experienced the wonder and recognition of meeting the men they’d say yes to, forever. I was sincerely glad for them; not envious, just...sad. Something was missing. I struggled not to idolize marriage, knowing my ultimate fulfillment and truest home for my longings lay not in a spouse, but in the Father’s love. Yet all the same, I longed.

Then I found myself engaged, scarcely believing a man as sacrificial, tender, and endlessly fascinating as my fiancée was even a reality, let alone someone who would choose me. Those whispers of the ache came back, in the form of empathy for several close friends enduring recent, and very raw, breakups.

I remembered the feeling that my dating life had existed in an entirely different world than that of my engaged friends, and feared I’d now be the one inflicting pain on women I loved who were currently single.

As a result, I stayed close-lipped for a while about my excitement and planning experiences with certain friends, concerned oversharing would be hurtful. Until my best friend looked in my eyes and told me not to be worried. She was happy for me, she insisted, and my sharing the details of wedding plans didn’t lessen that happiness.

It takes a woman of great strength and selflessness to say something like my friend told me; someone of pure good will and an ability to enter into the joy of another as if it were her own. My friend gave me such a gift that evening, not only in her other-focused love for me, but in her honesty.

For weeks, I’d wondered what she was feeling as she ordered a dress, planned my bridal shower, and listened to my minimally detailed stories about registry scanners and accessory shopping, all while weathering a storm of uncertainty after what seemed like a promising relationship suddenly ended. I was anxious, constantly wondering if it was too self-important of me to even have the worries I did. As it turned out, directness was so much clearer--so obvious; so much simpler--than speculation and anxiety.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, unsure of how much of your engagement or newlywed life to share with your single friends, I recommend a heart-to-heart. The only way to be sure is to communicate. Ask your friend what sort of involvement in your plans is helpful, what’s difficult, and how she’d like to participate. Chances are, she’ll feel honored you asked, free to be honest with you, and ultimately, sincerely excited about your forthcoming marriage.

Conversations like these can be mutually uncomfortable. But on the other side lies greater comfort than ever, each of you more in tune with the other’s heart and feeling the unspoken freedom and permission to share your thornier emotions. Additionally, the practices of taking time during your engagement to spend quality time with friends who are single and interceding for them, placing your trust in the Lord’s timing with regard to their own vocations, bear only good fruit.

“...love always communicates itself, that is, love listens and responds, love is found in dialogue and communion.” - Pope Francis

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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Newlywed Life | The Growing Pains of New Marriage

STEPHANIE CALIS

My husband of two weeks sat beside me on the floor, bowls of black beans and rice before us and backs against our first Ikea couch. We ate, surrounded by an enamel Dutch oven, new and velvety towels, down pillows, gilded picture frames. The stuff of a wedding registry checked off. But without chairs to sit on for dinner.

Photography: Dan Zeller Photography, seen in Bridget + David | Summer Picnic-Style Wedding

Married at 23, with one of us in graduate school and the other commencing a job search in a new town, my husband and I began our wedded life absorbing the paradox of having just experienced the most elegant, special occasion of our lives--and all the generous gifts and photogenic dazzle it entailed--followed by a season of surprisingly unglamorous trials: extreme simplicity and a tight budget, arguments over whether dishes should be washed before bed or the following morning, equivocating over daily habits and routines, struggling to comprehend an NFP chart.

Before the wedding, we’d spent hours of our long-distance engagement on the phone, dreamily anticipating when we’d be together daily and no longer have to say goodbye for weeks at a time. We eagerly devoured spiritual literature on marriage, knowing even when emotion abandoned us from time to time, pure willpower and sacramental grace would sustain our love. It seems naive now, yet I still imagined we’d sail painlessly into marriage, our newlywed bliss drowning any minor frustrations.

Minor frustrations, however, often felt major, compounded by our financial situation and search for community four hours away from friends and family. Even in the genuine euphoria of finally being husband and wife, we bickered. I felt guilty, knowing material concerns and disagreements over trivial matters like whether to roll up the toothpaste tube were nothing; that the foundation of our love felt truly solid and that even with certain deprivations we still had much compared to some. I wish I could go back and tell myself it’s alright to have felt this way.

It wasn’t until a few months in, when my pride was mercifully stripped away that I could see these growing pains as a gift. Offerings from the Father to burn away our faults and, like iron in a fire, sharpen one another in virtue. The irritations of adjusting to a shared life didn’t immediately disappear. But suddenly, what seemed like obstacles in the way of love became opportunities to love.

My husband and I discussed expressly thanking God for any frustrations we felt with our situation or one another, knowing when we accept his invitation, all things are transformed and love disinterested in the self is all the more possible. “This is the very perfection of a man,” wrote Augustine, “to find out his own imperfections.”

Whatever your crosses as a newly married couple, consider this permission to struggle, and even to find the struggle discouraging. Welcome it all the same. There were times, in those early weeks of my marriage, a lie crept in that the grace of the sacrament just wasn’t working for us. I know now that difficulty doesn’t mean grace isn’t at work. It means that it is, and is ours to embrace.

The first steps of any journey can be the hardest, not least of which the steps on this pilgrimage to heaven. You aren’t alone, though. In flesh and in spirit, united to you entirely, is a second person--and a third.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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The Royal Wedding and its Insights Into Evangelization

STEPHANIE CALIS

Unlike some of my friends, I didn’t closely follow the royal wedding for months in advance. Not out of disdain, but simply out of having other interests, I’d never really heard of Meghan Markle or watched her TV show, and I generally associated Prince Harry with the wilder, more controversial antics of his youth. Until it all became impossible to ignore.

In the days preceding the wedding, the lead stories on seemingly every news outlet and style blog I follow involved Meghan and Harry: how would they incorporate American rituals into a traditional English ceremony? What musical selections would they choose? Would Meghan wear the Queen’s signature nail polish shade? Before I knew it, I was drawn in, growing in appreciation for what seemed like a genuine, natural love, with sense of equality and mutual admiration between the two.

What was it that made someone like me, who’d been mostly indifferent to the royals, so intrigued by their nuptials? And what made so many others, the world over, feel the same? Particularly in our culture where marriage is received with cynicism, and in light of Harry’s mother, Princess Diana’s disillusionment with her own marriage--her lack of a fairy-tale ending after the original televised royal wedding--our obsession suggests there remains something captivatingly hopeful about the union of man and wife.  

On some level, there’s a realization that marriage still means something big, and we want to see relationships flourish and succeed. Love is worth rooting for, and commitment through good times and bad merits respect even from skeptics.

In the days after the wedding, I found myself scrolling through photos and clips of the service, attire, and family portraits. For those of us who aren’t duchesses, Meghan and Harry’s witness to love and service offers some valuable insights into how we can be witnesses, too.

As faithful Catholics whose wedding guests might or might not be in a similar place spiritually, the desire to evangelize through your wedding Mass and celebration is a natural one. In concrete, sensory ways, like incense, music, the readings, and a program that explains Catholic traditions in a clear, charitable way, that’s possible. I admired how the royal incorporated songs and a sermon from American Christian traditions without much fanfare, simply letting these inclusions speak for themselves. A concrete, yet humble witness. In an even more radical way, the Catholic faith has its own way of speaking for itself, stirring the soul to pay closer attention to the whispers, the longings, deep within.

Consider, as well, all the less obvious, unspoken ways the truth, beauty, and goodness of your marriage can, and will, also shine forth: treating each guest with attention and graciousness; meeting them where they are; exhibiting a spirit of reverence and resolve through prayer and worship simply by being your authentic selves; waiting until after the wedding to move in together. When you lead with the heart, prioritizing relationship over argument, your family and friends become well-disposed to receive, and can look past differences of opinion as their experiencing you and your beloved entering into marriage speaks to God’s grace.

The day after the royal wedding, sin and evil still existed in the world and our culture remained as politically fractured as ever. The wedding, however, stopped so many of us in our tracks for a moment and invited the world to step back from its brokenness and division. In the same way, your wedding day won’t heal yours or your guests’ every wound. Yet with beauty, virtue, and purity of heart, it can testify to something powerful and real without a word.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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Embracing the Easter Season, Even Through Struggle

STEPHANIE CALIS

I inhaled the richness of lilies and incense. A riot of color bloomed along the altar. Familiar words washed over me: prayers over humble bread and wine, taking me out of time. To my right, the image of Jesus beckoned, rays shining forth from his heart. Blood and water; the stuff of true life. As I bowed my head, tears came.

Because I wasn’t feeling much of anything. A little anxiety. But mostly nothing.

Photography: An Endless Pursuit, seen in Robyn + Greg's Easter season wedding on Divine Mercy weekend

Matt Maher’s “Christ is Risen” echoed through my thoughts on Divine Mercy Sunday: O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory?

Right here, I thought. That’s where they are. I still felt that sting of death, and felt it strongly. Now halfway through this Easter season of tremendous glory and promise, I find myself, this year, lacking in joy and doubting the Father’s promises of the Resurrection. Specifically, a fear of death and a preference for this earthly life over the next have pervaded my heart for months.

Though our life is far from perfect--everyday busyness, sleepless nights with toddlers, chores we can never quite keep up with--I count myself abundantly blessed by my husband and our beautiful children, and by our relative lack of major hardship at the moment. It’s a life so precious  I’m scared to let go of it and be separated by death.

When I pray to be made holy, to reach my heavenly home, the back of my mind hastily and shamefully adds, but please not yet, Father.

Where, then, does someone who desires eternal life, but not yet--I desire it selfishly, on my own terms--find consolation in the Resurrection? In my current state, the thought of eternity cuts me to the core. It brings me not hope, but worry that all I hold close on earth will be lost to me in heaven. I wonder what I’ll miss out on, and more significantly, who I will miss out on.

Of course I’m aware, intellectually, that my soul’s fulfillment will be found in the presence of God. Theoretically, I will want for nothing at the heavenly wedding feast. But theory can be hard to wrap your head around when your heart’s so agitated. Surrendering such gifts to the Lord, trusting that they are impermanent and not mine to determine, feels...reckless. An abandonment I seek, but don’t yet feel strong enough for.

As I make my way through this spiritual storm--one in which, in spite of myself, I remain confident will end in a heart more united with Christ’s--I’ve realized the shortcomings of my thinking. I say that my circumstances, while fortunate, are imperfect. In the realest sense of the word, they’re unfinished. And that’s the point.

The Lord isn’t done working on my heart yet. He’s not done with yours, either.

If your Easter season has felt similar to mine, whether because of the stresses of engagement, a recent loss, tensions in your relationship, a literal lack of new life as it relates to your fertility, or otherwise, know I am there beside you. I’m trying daily to embrace this tension, rather than push it aside, to silence it, and miss an opportunity to be loved by the Father in this particular way. 

Just this past Sunday, I felt myself coming back to life, no small matter in these weeks centered on triumph over death. It struck me that in this year’s reading cycle, we hear Jesus’s same words on consecutive Sundays: Peace be with you.

He speaks to us first as he revisits his disciples for the first time, allowing Thomas, in Thomas’s doubt, to feel his wounds, and again after the walk to Emmaus.

We are invited to experience Christ in the flesh; incarnate. We are invited to reject fear--John describes the disciples’ fear as they hid, locked in a room, after the Resurrection and Luke recounts their terror and uncertainty at meeting the risen Jesus--and walk headlong into the ocean of peace and mercy he wishes so fiercely to surround us with.

I listened again to the Eucharistic prayers and prepared for my own encounter with Jesus’s body and blood. The altar, the surroundings, the Divine Mercy image were all the same as before. But this time I was a little different. Not yet fully delivered of my worry and my desire to cling to the things and people of this life, but on the way. My own road to Emmaus where, at the end, Christ will meet me in a breaking of bread. Self-gift and recognition.

Sorrow, even at Easter time, is alright. Give yourself permission to feel your aches fully, knowing feelings, though human and important, aren’t everything. Whether we feel it or we don't, the fact remains that we are daughters and sons of a reckless, undying love.

No matter what’s in your heart, particularly in light of your wedding and marriage, thank the Father for bringing you close to his heart. Cry out to him. The Cross signifies both agony and ecstasy. It’s so hard when all we can feel is the former, but it's not the end of the road. In whatever ways you are called to rise, you have my prayers.

Peace be with you.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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Newlywed Life | 4 Ways to Have a Prayerful Honeymoon

STEPHANIE CALIS

The morning following our wedding, my husband and I went to Sunday Mass, ate breakfast at a diner where we were given a free piece of pie, and spent the next eight hours in the car en route to Wilmington, North Carolina. We spent the next week exploring the gardens, downtown, and beaches of this beautiful seaside town. Its small-city feel, with its mix of opportunities for culture and relaxation, suited us perfectly. Simplicity.

Before marriage, I’d listened with awe to my friends’ stories of running through the streets of Rome in wedding attire, eager to get a good spot in the sposi novelli section of the Pope’s weekly audience. Their trips sounded amazing, yet I knew that immediately following our wedding, time and budget constraints would mean a Roman honeymoon just wasn’t a possibility for us. I felt at peace with this fact and, moreover, was excited for a slower-paced trip that I knew suited our temperaments.

Even in the absence of international travel and a papal blessing, though, my husband and I talked about maintaining a disposition to prayer on our first-ever trip together. If you and your spouse-to-be are among those graced with the opportunity for a honeymoon in Rome, it will surely bear fruit in your new marriage. Yet it would be a misperception to believe Rome and the Vatican are the only locations where you can enjoy your first days as husband and wife in a deeply spiritual way.

If your honeymoon plans are stateside or if you’ve chosen another country or type of trip for your getaway, know that your choice is an equally worthy one and that it’s possible to have a prayerful, intentional honeymoon no matter where in the world you and your beloved are.

Here, our recommendations for bathing your honeymoon in a spirit of prayer.

Chase the Eucharist.

Commit to daily Mass, or even a daily holy hour, for the duration of your honeymoon. Depending on your destination, you might make one parish your home base, or prefer to explore different churches in the area. The Mass Times app is a valuable tool for finding Masses and Adoration, even internationally, and might surprise you with new--or old favorite--saints to whom you can pray in a particular way. The parish my husband and I frequented during our time in Wilmington was named for Saint Therese, whose intercession played a major role in our relationship. Coincidence?

Read a spiritual book together.

Diving into new-to-you reading during this sacred time, like Elise and her husband did, offers not only material for contemplation, but an experience to remember your trip by and refer back to in the future. See recommendations from us and some of our brides here.

Develop a prayer routine.

Newlywed life, particularly on your honeymoon, offers significantly more time together than you’ve had in the past, including time for prayer first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. Use these first days of your marriage to expand upon the prayer rituals you employed while dating and engaged, or create a routine for the first time. Rest, however, in the fact that there’s no pressure to have everything figured out by the time you head home. Developing a spiritual intimacy takes time, and the Church offers such depth and richness of options that suit you and your spouse, ranging from rote prayers and devotions, spontaneous prayer, lectio divina, music, and the Divine Office.

Consider a mission statement for your marriage.

This might sound official, but it doesn’t have to be! Men and women called to marriage are tasked with the mission of bearing Christ’s love to the world through their love for each other and, God willing, for their children. Taking time to converse about your hopes for your life together and ways you’ll live out your particular call to marriage can act as a touchstone for your vocation: principles to live by, words to turn to during dry or difficult seasons, and a succinct reminder of your path to heaven. A mission statement for your marriage puts into words the universal truth of the married vocation, in a way specific to you and your beloved. You might write your own statement, or you might turn to a particular word that arises in your hearts or a quote from Scripture or a saint.

I have to admit that my husband and I have never officially done this ourselves, but over time, there have been two quotes we’ve consistently turned to that express our relationship; ones that encapsulate the standards we strive to hold ourselves to in our marriage. One is “freedom exists for the sake of love,” from the old translation of Saint John Paul II’s Love and Responsibility, and the other is Saint Teresa of Calcutta’s exhortation that each of us “be the one” to quench the thirst of Jesus on the Cross, in the form of daily acts of love and prayer.

We love hearing about your own journeys and the ways, small and large, you enrich your spiritual life with your spouse. If there are practices that helped you look to Christ on your own honeymoon, be sure to share them in the comments and on our social media.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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The Limits of Pre-Marital Inventories

STEPHANIE CALIS

As a middle schooler, my love for personality quizzes took root in magazines and a young internet. There was something so satisfying about being told what flavor of lip balm best suited my style, which boy from Harry Potter was my soulmate, and what future tattoo I should get.

A few years later, my penchant for quizzes took a more serious turn when I took the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory for the first time on a youth group retreat. Reading through each bullet points describing INFJs, I thought, that’s me. That’s me. That’s me.

This short paragraph seemingly nailed exactly who I was. As an awkward teenager, the comfort found in reading about who you are, and discovering there are enough others out there with your same tendencies to categorize them into a personality type--the feeling that maybe I wasn’t as unusual or as much of an outsider as I sometimes felt like--was not to be underestimated.

I know now that the sense of deep recognition I felt speaks to every heart’s cry to be known. We desire to be understood; to be told we aren’t alone in certain weaknesses and struggles inherent to our personality--even when the one telling us is an inanimate piece of paper or computer tab.

Fast forward to my engagement, when my husband and I took the inventory in the book The Temperament God Gave You at our sponsor couple's recommendation. Specifically, they asked us to consider what aspects of our temperaments, upbringings, and spiritual lives might be a source of contention in our future marriage. I happily complied.

My husband, however, was suspicious. He didn’t want who he was to be put into one of several boxes, he said, nor did he believe a book could tell us everything we needed to know about ourselves and our relationship. I half-seriously wondered to myself if his not liking personality inventories would be a source of contention. Truly, though, my husband was on to to something.

Unlike inanimate text that, insightful and knowing as it may be, is meant for thousands and can’t personally interact with us, the living God does know us, so intimately and particularly. He knows each person as so much more than a designated personality type or set of letters. In that fullness of who we are, we are loved.

It’s this love spouses are called to reflect to one another. For the first time, I began to consider what we were like simply as we were, rather than what we were like according to tests and inventories.

I’ve realized these materials do warrant critical thinking rather than blind acceptance of their results. If, like us, you are given inventories like the temperament test or FOCCUS as part of your marriage prep, it can be helpful to approach them with an open, yet critical mind and to consider how you might deal with potential concerns.

One drawback that arises from these inventories, for instance, is the false perception that you’re locked into your weaknesses: hearing a dead-on description of myself in the temperament test, in both my strengths and struggles, initially led me to believe I struggled with complacency, laziness, and following through on things because that was simply my temperament; who I was. In reality, I can see now that personality descriptions aren’t there to tell us who we are and then let us be. Instead, they can serve as a means of bringing to light vices and struggles we can become more aware of, in the hope of improving upon them.

Moreover, when you and your beloved fall into seemingly opposite personality categories, or if your inventory highlights opinions or areas of your lives in which you majorly differ, anxiety over your compatibility might arise. Bear in mind that marriage preparation isn’t intended to test how right you are for one another, but to offer tools that enrich your discernment and encourage communication about topics you might never have discussed previously. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in seeking peace over unrest, in whatever way that looks like in your relationship.

Being told who you are by a test is fun, and can provide you with new language and a new lens to understand you and your beloved’s identities within a certain set of qualities. Yet ultimately, our deepest, truest identity comes from Christ. We are loved and willed into existence, we are conformed to him, we are made for love--all of us, no matter what combination of letters makes up our personalities.

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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The Language of Complementarity

STEPHANIE CALIS

After my conversion--largely shaped by the future St. John Paul II’s Love and Responsibility and Theology of the Body audiences--but before my first serious relationship, I thought the “rules” of pursuit, along with men’s and women’s unique and complementary roles in it, were totally clear: men should pursue and initiate, and women should receive. It was simple, until it wasn’t.

PHOTOGRAPHY; AN ENDLESS PURSUIT

The first time my now-husband Andrew asked me out, I said no. I’d recently ended a long relationship and knew I should take time to recharge spiritually and emotionally. At the time, we’d been friends for months, and I knew deep in my heart we would one day be married. He was perfectly understanding of my wanting to wait before we began dating, and said to tell him when I was ready.

None of my spiritual books had prepared me for this. The ball was squarely in my court, put there in a way entirely respectful and well-intentioned on my husband’s part. But I worried: I was more than comfortable having our feelings for each other out in the open, yet suddenly I was in the position of pursuing, rather than waiting to be pursued, as I discerned the proper time for us to date.

Conversion is a funny thing. It sweeps you up in divine romance, in all its goodness and beauty, then forces you to reconcile all that romance with reality.

In my case, I felt bound by the TOB-inspired nature of complementarity: as a woman, how could I tell this man I was ready to walk into what I hoped would be forever, without stepping outside the boundaries of what I thought was feminine?

As we began dating, that question of how to be feminine arose again during the times I wanted to take his hand first, the times I didn’t mind driving for our dates, and the times I wanted to treat him to coffee on my dining hall plan. Then, without my noticing, the questions started fading into the background. Simply as we settled into each other and forged an identity as a couple, an easiness and peace took over.

Like many goods that might initially seem like rules, the language of pursuit and complementarity now seems more to me, in reality, to be a roadmap to a flourishing relationship. At its root, pursuit is about freedom: allowing man and woman to each become more fully who they were created to be.

And while it’s true there are inherent and good differences between men and women, it’s also true each person is uniquely, unrepeatably made. The ways in which each of us lives out those differences speak to our individual strengths and virtues, and reality doesn't always fit neatly into spiritual boxes.

What I’ve come to realize, through the subtlety born of time and maturity, is that femininity doesn’t always mean always being the asked, never the asker; always the pursued, never the pursuer; always the comforted, never the comforter. It doesn’t mean being afraid to argue or voice strong opinions.

It means loving my husband, in his uniqueness, in the specific way only I can. Like any language, that of the complementarity between man and woman can feel foreign at times as you navigate the different seasons of your relationship and come to know the other more deeply. Through serious dating, followed by engagement and marriage, I’ve realized I should never take for granted that I’ve won my husband’s heart. He still deserves the best of me, and for me to express my love in the ways that speak most deeply to who he is.

Have you ever been in a situation like mine, overanalyzing the “man’s role” and “woman’s role” in your relationship? I encourage you to take the pressure off of yourselves. Simply by striving to give of yourselves and receive the other in the inherently unique ways men and women do so, you are living out your masculine and feminine identities. Make it a goal to be the best, most vulnerable, most honest version of yourself with your beloved, because when you’re living in the truth, you see who you really are--who you already were, all along.

Three weeks after he first asked, I was ready, at least for the moment, to put aside convention and go out into the deep. I sat on a bench outside our college library and asked Andrew to ask me out again. In that question, I wasn’t bound by rules; I was free. A true yes always is. "For freedom Christ set us free..."

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About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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