Your wedding ceremony is one of the most important events of your life and marks a major milestone. It is a day filled with hope and promise, dreams and expectations. It is a time invested with raw emotion, lots of love, anticipation, and perhaps a little nervousness.

As a wedding planner and photographer, it is an honor and a privilege to be a part of such an important and intimate time in people’s lives. It is also a huge responsibility which requires conscientious commitment and dedication to giving each and every couple only my very best effort. The same can be said for the couple regarding marriage. It is a huge responsibility which requires conscientious commitment and dedication to giving each other only your very best effort.

For the couple, the wedding is the easy part. The wedding ceremony is merely the doorway for a couple embarking on the challenging journey of combining two lives into one. After the honeymoon in paradise is over, after you return to your everyday lives, the real work begins. Successful relationships don’t just happen—they take consistent effort from both partners to create a loving and harmonious union.

It is my wish and prayer for you that your marriage not only last your lifetime, but also be one of continuous loving harmony. Marriage can be used as a vehicle to greater self-awareness, for the healing of old wounds, and for developing a deeper compassion for all of life. It is in this spirit that I offer the information on this webpage.

In the following section are books on relationships and marriage dedicated to helping you navigate the sometimes uplifting, sometimes challenging path of marriage, along with links for ordering these books on Amazon.com.

In the next section is an article written by Eve Eschner Hogan. Among her many talents are relationship book author, relationship advisor, and author of a weekly relationship column in the Maui Weekly newspaper. At the bottom of the page is a link to Eve’s website.

May your marriage be blessed with a lifetime of love, harmony and joy!

Shasta Rose

Happily Ever After Starts at the Beginning

Article by Eve Hogan

I have performed hundreds of weddings and have come to the conclusion (completely unverified) that you can tell a lot about the dynamics of the marriage by how the couple behaves while getting married. One wedding I performed involved a couple that already had a child. While the groom focused on his friends in the audience, the bride focused on their baby and neither of them appeared to be aware of the other. Their marriage only lasted a few years. Sometimes the bride and groom don't appear to have any awareness about what they are saying as they repeat their vows; rather a glazed over, deer-in-the-headlights look is in their eyes.

Here are some wedding-and marriage-tips that can help:

Be cognizant of what you are agreeing to-be sure that the vows truly reflect the meaning of your commitment.

“For better for worse” doesn't mean, “until you cheat on me.” And “In sickness and in health” doesn't mean, “I'll stay with you as long as you are young, attractive, healthy and active.” So, if what you really mean when you get married is that this is a conditional agreement, be clear about it. If what you really mean is “I'll be with you until you break our vows” or “I'll be with you as long a it is fun and easy” or “I'll love you until you gain weight, “discuss this with your partner and make sure that marriage is what you really want to do. After all, there really isn't a lot of point in getting married if you aren't serious about doing the work. And if you have valid conditions (and yes, there definitely are some), be clear going in as to what they are. “I'll stay with you as long as we are both contributing to a low-drama, zero-violence, harmonious and respectful, drug-free household” may actually be more in alignment with what you really mean. Read the entire article >>>