Wedding Advice from Suzanne and Max Toy

Wedding Advice from Suzanne and Max Toy

(Friends of your Mom & Dad)

Dallas, Texas

Marriage is a constant work in progress.  It's a forever-unfinished painting – always adding color, or going back to add details, or completely removing pieces that don't work and re-doing it.  Its richness comes from the combination of color, textures, and light, bringing their differences together to create an ever-new masterpiece.

So here are some tips. Some, Suzanne and I are still working on, and some you may have to work on the rest of your lives, but tips nonetheless;

1. Listen carefully to each other.  Seek first to understand before trying to be understood.  When you are wrong, say you are sorry.  When you are right, keep quiet.

2. The marriage knot is not a half-hitch knot.  Plan and live as to stay married forever.

3. Never go to sleep angry. If you must go away for a moment to understand your feelings, then always come back. Keep talking until you get over it or forget why you were mad.

4. Be best friends, date often, and laugh liberally.

5. Never embarrass, criticize, or correct one another in public; try not to do it in private, either.

6. Remember one of life's ironies: We are least lovable when we need love most.

7. Don't expect perfection. It doesn't exist. However, two imperfect people can make a perfect marriage.

8. On days when you don't like each other very much, try to remember that you still love each other very much. Pray for the "good days" to come again, and then act as if they already have.

9. Tell the truth, only the truth, and always with great kindness.

10. Kiss for at least 5 seconds every day without fail.

11. Place God at the center of your relationship, and seek to love unconditionally, like he does.

12. Be content with what you have materially, honest about where you are emotionally, and never stop growing.

13. To love someone is to wish them the best, even when they don’t deserve it; always wish each other nothing but the very best.

14. Arguing in not about winning.  Speak softly when you argue.  Whisper when you fight. Hurtful words can be forgiven, but they can never be taken back.

15. Seek to understand the other's expectations. “What role do you want me to fill right now?”

16. Show by your actions as well as your words that the person you married comes first in your life.  Let nothing and no one come between you.

17. Remember that you're in love.  Kiss in elevators.  Hold hands in movies.  Lock eyes across a crowded room.  Say, "You are beautiful and I love you."  Then say it again.

18. Never miss an anniversary, a birthday, or a chance to make a memory.  Memories may not seem important now, but one day you will treasure them.

19. Take care of business. Stand behind your word, pay your bills, change your oil, cut your grass, and call your mother.

20. As a couple – give yourselves away.  Teach Sunday school.  Coach Little League, Feed the homeless.  Talk to strangers.  Pick up trash.  Make something beautiful of your life together.

21. Be an interesting person, each of you on your own. Do what you want.  Lead your own lives.  Follow your own callings.  But always save your best for each other.

And in the end, you will know that you were better together than you ever could have been apart.  It will make the world a better place for you and your children.

Finally, every once in a while, take time to write a letter of advice to a newlywed couple. It will remind you of how much you love your spouse.

Be blessed,

Suzanne & Max Toy

Genesis 2:23-24

The man said,  “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

“Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry.” -Tom Mullen