Engaged Couple Interview with Priest

So, you’re getting married in the Catholic Church and you’ve booked a meeting with the parish priest. You may be wondering: What questions will the priest ask? We’ve got you covered below! Welcome! We’re really glad you’re here and are honoured to be part of your journey to marriage. The Catholic Church is a community…

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Pandemic Weddings – Keeping our Eye on What Matters 

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For those who had a wedding planned this year, the disruption imposed by Covid19 has created all sorts of complications, frustration and additional expense.  Last week, a young man from New Zealand called us. His fiancé lives in Canada and neither country will permit the other to enter for a wedding. Fortunately, they discovered that they could meet in France, get married there, and…

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Romantic Love: Feeling or Choice?

From Hollywood to Cleo, the cultural representations of Romantic Love are clear: it’s a spontaneous feeling of attraction and affection for another. And like all feelings, we don’t choose it: it’s something that just happens to us. We spontaneously ‘fall’ into love and we are powerless to prevent it. To be sure when it strikes,…

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Are you ready for marriage?

ready to get engaged||Should we get Engaged?||

So, you’ve been dating for a while. How do you know if you’re ready for marriage? Before you have the ‘forever conversation’, consider these signs to discern if you are ready to commit, should wait a little longer, or should quit now. Marriage Readiness Check List 1: Self-growth You help each other to be better…

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How to deal with Wedding Mayhem

|Wedding Plans drive you Crazy

Weddings these days are fraught with stress for engaged couples. Dealing with family expectations, full-time jobs and a wedding industry on the make are some of the unwelcome realities in the attempt to host a unique and memorable event for some 200 plus guests. It’s enough to send any couple eloping and indeed many now…

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Knot Yet! #5: Responsibility Phobia

What comes first, maturity or the responsibility? In the world of adultescence, the absence of the necessity to be responsible, delays maturity. Most of us look back at adolesence and shiver – it’s a tough time developmentally when the young person is reaching for independence but doesn’t quite have the mental resources to cope with adulthood. Many…

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Engaged Online Goes Live

There’s great excitement here as we activate SmartLoving Engaged Online for public access. We’ve been working on the platform for three months and are very pleased with the result. There are still a few things for us sort out and no doubt lots of troubleshooting challenges in the days ahead, which is why we are…

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The Soul Mate Quest

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Chasing ‘Happily Ever After’ It sounds so romantic: ‘Destiny’ has each of us perfectly matched with someone with whom we will form an instant rapport. All we need to do is find that special someone and bliss will surely follow. All our heartache, all our problems will be history as we lose ourselves in the…

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The Wisdom of a Prenup??!

Recently, we’ve been reflecting on prenuptial agreements and we think there’s some merit to them. Gasp! Surely, they can’t be serious you think. Can they really be suggesting something that so conspicuously undermines the sacred meaning of Catholic marriage? Actually we are, but not the stereotypical kind of prenuptial agreement between a wealthy aging male…

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What if Your Soul Mate Doesn’t Exist?

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An article by Danielle Ayers Jones who puts the spot light on the obsession of looking for “the one” (Also see The Soul Mate Quest) Six months into my relationship with Josh, I began to feel some intense angst. I struggled knowing for certain if he was “the one.” I longed for a word from…

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