Can this Greek marriage go the distance? Find out in this passionate and dramatic romance by USA TODAY bestselling author Lucy Monroe! First came passion, then came vows… What comes after “I do”? Greek tycoon Andros Kristalakis knew that his white-hot whirlwind romance with Polly could end only one way—with her wearing his ring! He offered her his world of unbelievable luxury while he ruled his family’s business empire. But that was all he could give. Now pregnant Polly has revealed that for the past five years she’s secretly craved more! With his marriage on the line, Andros must choose—because closing the distance between himself and Polly will mean destroying the protective barriers he’s long fought to keep intact… From Harlequin Presents: Escape to exotic locations where passion knows no bounds.
The wedding is planned, but are you spiritually prepared for your wedding day? Trusted relationship author Gary Thomas coaches engaged couples on how to grow closer to the Lord in the days leading up to the wedding as a means of preparing them for all the days after the wedding. Engagement is bursting with promise, hope, joy, and anticipation of all kinds. It can also be one of the busiest times your life. For some, planning a wedding, with all the decisions involved, can feel less like the exciting onset of marriage and more like a tedious to-do list. Amidst the busyness, this devotional is designed to encourage and guide you through the spiritual priorities and challenges that lie ahead in order to grow a joy-filled marriage filled with love, grace, and God's blessing. In addition to helping you celebrate the joys of marriage and become radically connected as you create an even deeper passionate relationship, this lovely book also provides encouraging entries that will help you deal with common issues such as: Building physical and emotional intimacy Repairing trust Celebrating differences Being a team player Managing finances With a special section on the marriage vows and thoughtful meditations for the bride and groom, Preparing Your Heart for Marriage will help you grow in your relationship as a couple on your journey from “me” to “we.”
"I Do! I Do! The Marriage Vow Workbook" is an inspirational resource for creating compelling vows for your marriage, civil union, commitment or recommitment. Endorsed by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., author of "Getting the Love You Want" and cocreator of Imago Relationship Therapy, this workbook will help you craft vows that will serve you not only during the ceremony itself but throughout your lives together. As a result of reading "I Do! I Do! The Marriage Vow Workbook," completing the exercises and writing your marriage vows, you have the opportunity to (1) awaken to the deepest reasons for joining your lives in marriage, (2) envision what you want most from your life together, (3) initiate a ritual to sustain your marriage for many years to come, and (4) create a loving, committed partnership that's truly ideal for both of you. You may wish to buy two copies of "The Marriage Vow Workbook"-one in which each partner can work through the exercises. Also makes a great gift for an engagement or bridal shower!
A companion to the popular website APracticalWedding.com and A Practical Wedding Planner, A Practical Wedding helps you sort through the basics to create the wedding you want -- without going broke or crazy in the process. After all, what really matters on your wedding day is not so much how it looked as how it felt. In this refreshing guide, expert Meg Keene shares her secrets to planning a beautiful celebration that reflects your taste and your relationship. You'll discover: The real purpose of engagement (hint: it's not just about the planning) How to pinpoint what matters most to you and your partner DIY-ing your wedding: brilliant or crazy? How to communicate decisions to your family Why that color-coded spreadsheet is actually worth it Wedding Zen can be yours. Meg walks you through everything from choosing a venue to writing vows, complete with stories and advice from women who have been in the trenches: the Team Practical brides. So here's to the joyful wedding, the sensible wedding, the unbelievably fun wedding! A Practical Wedding is your complete guide to getting married with grace.
"Disarmingly honest, beautifully insightful. Crack open Vow and prepare to be quickly carried away by Plump's vivid prose, so-close-you-can-hear-it voice, and suspenseful storytelling skills." -- Redbook magazine
Seven essays celebrating the beauty of the imperfect marriage. We hear plenty about whether or not to get married, but much less about what it takes to stay married. Clichés around marriage—eternal bliss, domestic harmony, soul mates—leave out the real stuff. After marriage you may still want to sleep with other people. Sometimes your partner will bore the hell out of you. And when stuck paying for your spouse’s mistakes, you might miss being single. In Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, Ada Calhoun presents an unflinching but also loving portrait of her own marriage, opening a long-overdue conversation about the institution as it truly is: not the happy ending of a love story or a relic doomed by high divorce rates, but the beginning of a challenging new chapter of which “the first twenty years are the hardest.” Calhoun’s funny, poignant personal essays explore the bedrooms of modern coupledom for a nuanced discussion of infidelity, existential anxiety, and the many other obstacles to staying together. Both realistic and openhearted, Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give offers a refreshing new way to think about marriage as a brave, tough, creative decision to stay with another person for the rest of your life. “What a burden,” Calhoun calls marriage, “and what a gift.”
Choosing whom to marry involves more than emotion, as racial politics, cultural mores, and local demographics all shape romantic choices. In Marriage Vows and Racial Choices, sociologist Jessica Vasquez-Tokos explores the decisions of Latinos who marry either within or outside of their racial and ethnic groups. Drawing from in-depth interviews with nearly 50 couples, she examines their marital choices and how these unions influence their identities as Americans. Vasquez-Tokos finds that their experiences in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood shape their perceptions of race, which in turn influence their romantic expectations. Most Latinos marry other Latinos, but those who intermarry tend to marry whites. She finds that some Latina women who had domineering fathers assumed that most Latino men shared this trait and gravitated toward white men who differed from their fathers. Other Latina respondents who married white men fused ideas of race and class and perceived whites as higher status and considered themselves to be “marrying up.” Latinos who married non-Latino minorities—African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans—often sought out non-white partners because they shared similar experiences of racial marginalization. Latinos who married Latinos of a different national origin expressed a desire for shared cultural commonalities with their partners, but—like those who married whites—often associated their own national-origin groups with oppressive gender roles. Vasquez-Tokos also investigates how racial and cultural identities are maintained or altered for the respondents’ children. Within Latino-white marriages, biculturalism—in contrast with Latinos adopting a white “American” identity—is likely to emerge. For instance, white women who married Latino men often embraced aspects of Latino culture and passed it along to their children. Yet, for these children, upholding Latino cultural ties depended on their proximity to other Latinos, particularly extended family members. Both location and family relationships shape how parents and children from interracial families understand themselves culturally. As interracial marriages become more common, Marriage Vows and Racial Choices shows how race, gender, and class influence our marital choices and personal lives.
In Veil and Vow, Aneeka Ayanna Henderson places familiar, often politicized questions about the crisis of African American marriage in conversation with a rich cultural archive that includes fiction by Terry McMillan and Sister Souljah, music by Anita Baker, and films such as The Best Man. Seeking to move beyond simple assessments of marriage as "good" or "bad" for African Americans, Henderson critically examines popular and influential late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century texts alongside legislation such as the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and the Welfare Reform Act, which masked true sources of inequality with crisis-laden myths about African American family formation. Using an interdisciplinary approach to highlight the influence of law, politics, and culture on marriage representations and practices, Henderson reveals how their kinship veils and unveils the fiction in political policy as well as the complicated political stakes of fictional and cultural texts. Providing a new opportunity to grapple with old questions, including who can be a citizen, a "wife," and "marriageable," Veil and Vow makes clear just how deeply marriage still matters in African American culture.
