The venue is booked. The guest list has been debated. You’ve probably discussed flowers, food, budgets and seating plans more times than you care to remember.
But somewhere between planning the wedding and counting down to the big day, there’s a question we don’t ask couples nearly enough: how are you preparing for the marriage itself?
It might sound surprisingly serious for one of the happiest periods of your life. But that’s exactly the misconception Twogether UK wants to change.
Created for happy, committed couples, Twogether isn’t about fixing a relationship that’s struggling. Instead, it’s about giving couples the time and space to understand each other better, have the conversations that can easily get missed and enter marriage feeling even more connected and prepared for the life they’re building together.
As Lisa Daniels, Founder of Twogether UK and a trained counsellor and coach, explains:
“Wanting to prepare doesn’t mean something’s wrong. It means you’re actually looking at the marriage, not just the day. So much energy goes into the wedding celebrations, when the thing you’re really signing up for is the fifty years or so after it.”
We prepare for everything else. So why not marriage?
Think about the other big things we decide to do in life.
Want to get fit? You might hire a personal trainer. Having a baby? Antenatal classes are practically part of the preparation. Starting a new career? We train, learn and seek advice.
Yet when it comes to marriage, one of the biggest commitments many of us will ever make, the expectation is often that two people simply work it out as they go.
Marriage preparation itself isn’t a new concept. Historically, when the majority of weddings took place in churches, some form of preparation or conversation around married life was often built into the journey towards the wedding.
As ceremonies increasingly moved beyond religious settings, that touchpoint became much less commonplace. Twogether is bringing the concept into the modern relationship, without the religious requirement, formality or assumption that there must be a problem to solve.
Instead, think of it as an investment in something you already value.
“The couples who come to me are usually doing really well already,” says Lisa. “They’re just the ones who’d rather get ahead of things than learn the hard lessons later. Caring enough to prepare for the marriage, not just the wedding, is exactly the point.”
Your wedding planning might already be telling you something
Here’s where things get interesting: planning a wedding can actually give you a pretty good preview of how you operate as a couple.
Budgets need agreeing. Families have opinions. Priorities differ. One person might desperately care about something the other considers completely irrelevant. Throw in a guest list disagreement and suddenly you’re negotiating, compromising and communicating under pressure.
Sound familiar?
Rather than seeing those moments as wedding planning annoyances to get through, Lisa suggests paying attention to how you navigate them.
“The argument about the guest list or the seating plan isn’t really about the guest list. Notice how you’re arguing, not just getting through it. Who backed down? Did you actually hear each other? That stuff repeats itself later with the bigger things, money, in laws, kids.”
Maybe one of you goes quiet when there’s conflict. Perhaps one person automatically gives in. Maybe one family’s opinion consistently carries more weight.
None of these things automatically signal a problem. They’re simply patterns, and recognising them gives you an opportunity to understand each other better.
“Treat the wedding as the practice round, not the whole game,” Lisa adds. “Because it is one day, and the marriage is everything after it.”
The conversations we think we’ve already had
Most couples heading towards marriage understandably feel they know each other pretty well. Many have lived together for years before getting engaged.
But knowing how your partner takes their coffee and knowing exactly how they envisage your shared finances working in ten years’ time are two very different things.
Money is one of the biggest areas where Lisa sees couples making assumptions.
“People assume they’re roughly aligned because they’ve never actually sat down and said the numbers out loud.”
Then there are children, careers, intimacy, culture, faith and family.
Whose family gets Christmas? What role will your parents have in your lives? What happens if a parent needs care in the future? What would happen if one of you needed caring for? How do you each think about saving, spending and financial independence?
They aren’t necessarily first date conversations, and they’re probably not what you fancy discussing over Friday night dinner either.
But avoiding a conversation doesn’t make the subject disappear.
“Nobody wants to be ‘that couple’ arguing about hypothetical future kids or a savings account before they’ve even walked down the aisle, so it just gets left,” says Lisa. “Then it comes up anyway, except now you’re years in, it’s a real decision instead of a hypothetical one, and there’s a lot more riding on it.”
The aim isn’t to agree on absolutely everything. It’s to know where each other stands and learn how to navigate the areas where you don’t.
What does marriage preparation actually look like?
If the words marriage preparation have conjured up an image of sitting in a room while somebody analyses your relationship, think again.
Twogether has designed its six session programme to feel relevant to modern couples and the lives they’re actually building.
Every couple works through three core areas: communication styles, values and finances.
They then choose three further sessions together based on what feels most relevant to their relationship. These can include areas such as family and in laws, intimacy, faith and culture, and blended families.
That personalised element is important. No two relationships are exactly the same, so preparing for marriage shouldn’t be a one size fits all exercise either.
It’s also intended to be something couples can actually enjoy doing together, a chance to step outside the whirlwind of wedding planning and focus entirely on the two people at the centre of it.
Perhaps this belongs on the wedding checklist after all
There’s something quite lovely about reframing marriage preparation.
Not as counselling. Not as something reserved for couples who are struggling. And certainly not as an admission that you don’t know what you’re doing.
Instead, it can simply be another part of intentionally choosing each other.
Because you can have a brilliant relationship and still learn more about the person you’re marrying. You can communicate well and still discover better ways to handle conflict. You can be completely committed to one another and still realise there are conversations you haven’t had yet.
As Lisa puts it:
“Nobody’s done this exact relationship before, so of course there’s stuff you haven’t figured out yet, and that’s even if you already live together.”
We spend an extraordinary amount of time making sure the day we get married feels right.
Perhaps preparing for what comes after deserves a place on the list too.
Meet Twogether UK at The National Wedding Show
Twogether UK will be joining us at The National Wedding Show, where couples can meet the team, discover more about the programme and start thinking about what preparing for marriage could look like for them.
Twogether will also be giving away two full marriage preparation programmes as part of a prize draw at the show.
Follow @letstalktwogether on Instagram to discover more, or visit the Twogether UK website: www.twogetheruk.co.uk
