Premarital counseling or seminar workshops

One on one sessions (3) with our deacon. I think the last session is mostly wedding details and planning, though. The first two are counseling, and the first is next month. Not sure what to expect.

Husband and I saw a marriage counselor (no relation to any church) for about 8 sessions. It was worth every penny.

I think every couple should be MANDATED to go to at least 5! So many people asked if my husband and I "had problems already" when I mentioned our counseling sessions. We went because we thought it would be a good thing to do.

The therapist is extremely helpful in making sure you have all those "tough" conversations before you commit. I think with the ring to be engaged, premarital counseling needs to begin almost immediately. SO many couples do not talk about the "hard" issues enough (religion, money, who will stay home with a child/not stay home if children are your goal, moving for work, holidays with family, etc etc) that it blows me away.

It was a great way to see the ways in which I was mistreating my then fiance. A therapist is an awesome third party that I think is essential to really diving into potential relationship road blocks. Sure, friends are good as soundboards, but a therapist does not care who is "right or wrong".

I learned a lot about myself in therapy. I have done therapy individually previously in college for anxiety and an eating disorder, so I wasn't sure how doing it as a couple would be. Luckily my husband was very open to the experience and we both gained from it. A lot of times we would be driving home or continuing our conversation after the session.

Honestly? Enjoy it. Be honest. This is the time to do it.

Aurelia is spot on.

We have an option of a weekend retreat with multiple couples or a 7 week course that is about an hour meeting each week working one on one with a couple.

I heard it helps you communicate as couple.

We are definitely going to do premarital counseling. Our minister actually requires it, but he doesn't require that he be the one to do it. Since he is a close friend of both of ours, we decided that it may put him in an uncomfortable situation to have to tell one of us that we are wrong. So we are having another minister who would be more impartial do our counseling sessions (not sure how many sessions, yet). We agreed to do two additional sessions with our officiating minister, as he had a few things he just wants to mention before our wedding.

We had to do a couple different classes as we are getting married in the Catholic Church. I found them to be helpful and they gave us the opportunity to talk about some things we may not have without it.

Thanks everyone for sharing your experience. I love the wedding planning but think it's important to invest in our marriage overall.

We did a similar thing for premarital counseling! We got married outside at our venue and our officiant was non-denominational, but I still really wanted to do some pre-marital counseling. DH is Catholic and I'm Lutheran, but we don't belong to a specific church. We found a non-denominational church that offered a workshop for couples, mostly targeted to engaged couples. It was a Friday evening and then most of the day Saturday which worked much better for our busy schedules than a class we had to go to every week. DH thought it was going to be a waste of time, because we have a strong relationship and we rarely argue. However, we both ended up happy that we did it and even DH said it was good haha! Overall, it confirmed things that we are already doing right and reminded us of things we knew but sometimes forget.

Our pastor is having us do 6-7 sessions with him before our wedding which I was happy about even though we have gone through lists of things to discuss before marriage (it's my fiance's 3rd marriage). It's very helpful I think to have an outside perspective and bring up some points maybe we hadn't thought about. I don't think you can do enough to prepare for marriage! There's some great books out there - he's having us read "Be Good to Each Other". I have also read "The Five Love Languages" and "The Meaning of Marriage" if you're interested!

We started seeing a counselor when his delinquent son moved in with us to help deal with him. The son turned 18 and left, but we still go to help communicate better. In addition to that, our minister requires six hours of pre-marital counseling. We've had a meeting, but our first session is not until April.

We will have a minimum of 5 one on one sessions with our Pastor starting next Monday. Our church requires the counseling, but we are not in any way opposed to going. Our Pastor will determine if he thinks we should have further sessions after completing the initial sessions.

We'll have some sessions with our officiant. Everyone I know who's done one on one or small-group counseling has found it really useful. I'm not so sure about big seminars, though.

Before we found our officiant, I talked my fiance into going to a one-day seminar on couples' communication - in our state you get a huge discount on the marriage license fee for completing it. We walked out after an hour. It was aimed pretty low and the videos were just painful to watch. But I guess someone found the paperwork I'd already filled out and turned it in, because a week later our marriage certificate coupon came in the mail! Score.