text: Getting Married? Start Right, Stay Connected by Imago Center | Articles | PC & CC
  Your task is not to seek for love,but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.Rumi
  By Imago Center | 09-01-2010	As they say in the classic Mastercard advertisements:
  Wedding Dress? $2,000 Catering? $4,000 Rings? $2,000
  Happily Ever After? Priceless.
  In the case of the Imago Center's Premarital Seminar, "Start Right, Stay Connected" it's more like $350 per couple, materials included. We still consider it priceless.
  Couples put all sorts of time, effort, and money toward everything from finding the right engagement ring, to meeting each other's families, to moving in or finding a new house for life after the ceremony. The engagement period is meant to help the couple prepare for a meaningful (and fun) ceremony with friends and family. This time can bring many challenges: high-running emotions, acute decision making, and differences of opinion may be stark. Charlotte and James are at odds over whether more money should be spent on wedding aesthetics or the food and party. Greg and Vincent want their friends to play major roles in their ceremony, but don't want to offend their families. Marco is frustrated that Eunice is late to all of their wedding planner appointments. And Lisa and Jen keep changing the wedding registry behind each other's back. How can Imago help?
  Imago theory is based on the belief that a successful relationship is one in which two individuals embrace romance, power struggles, challenges, and transitions with the goal of healing old wounds, stretching into our best selves, and growing both personally and as a couple into wholeness.
  Wow. How to get started? We suggest "Start Right, Stay Connected." Research shows that many couples wait an average of six years in an unsatisfactory stage before they begin to address their problems and consider couples counseling. Why not put some work in on the front end of a committed relationship, preparing yourselves for the years ahead?
  In our eight-hour seminar, based on the well-known work of Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt and their book "Getting the Love You Want," couples enjoy an interactive day – with other premarital couples – where they learn about relationship stages, discuss reactivity and defensive behaviors, learn the Imago dialogue, consider pre-ceremony challenges, and create a relationship vision for their future together.
  We hope premarital/ceremony couples will join us, and that parents will consider giving their child and his/her future partner this seminar as an engagement gift. After all, it's priceless.
  The Imago Center of Washington, D.C. presents "Start Right, Stay Connected," a one-day premarital/commitment Seminar for couples several times per year. The cost is $350 per couple (includes materials). The seminar is taught by two Imago professionals. Please contact Cindy Bare for more information: cindy.bare@imagocenterdc.com.
  Not just the wedding, the marriage
  TagsPremarital
  Before beginning therapy couples often worry about whether or not counseling will "work" for them and their issues. Ginny Graham helps clients shift from what she calls "the once-and-for-all-magic-wand-approach" for solving life problems to one grounded in a more realistic process of change. "An important step for all of us to keep in mind in our efforts to improve our relationships," she says, "is that doing so is an ongoing process.