Kristie Lorette - Your Second Wedding: How to Handle Issues, Make Plans, and Ensure its a Great Success

A few years back we lost our beloved pet dog Bear, who was not only our best and dearest friend but also the Vice President of Sunshine here at Atlantic Publishing. He did not receive a salary but worked tirelessly 24 hours a day to please his parents.

Bear was a rescue dog who turned around and showered myself, my wife, Sherri, his grandparents Jean, Bob, and Nancy, and every person and animal he met (well, maybe not rabbits) with friendship and love. He made a lot of people smile every day.

We wanted you to know a portion of the profits of this book will be donated in Bears memory to local animal shelters, parks, conservation organizations, and other individuals and nonprofit organizations in need of assistance.

Douglas and Sherri Brown

PS: We have since adopted two more rescue dogs: first Scout, and the following year, Ginger. They were both mixed golden retrievers who needed a home.

Want to help animals and the world? Here are a dozen easy suggestions you and your family can implement today:

• Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter.
• Support local and no-kill animal shelters.
• Plant a tree to honor someone you love.
• Be a developer put up some birdhouses.
• Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them.
• Make sure you spend time with your animals each day.
• Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products.
• Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home.
• Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides.
• If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices.
• Support your local farmers market.
• Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

Five years ago, Atlantic Publishing signed the Green Press Initiative. These guidelines promote environmentally friendly practices, such as using recycled stock and vegetable-based inks, avoiding waste, choosing energy-efficient resources, and promoting a no-pulping policy. We now use 100-percent recycled stock on all our books. The results: in one year, switching to post-consumer recycled stock saved 24 mature trees, 5,000 gallons of water, the equivalent of the total energy used for one home in a year, and the equivalent of the greenhouse gases from one car driven for a year.

Introduction

Congratulations on getting engaged and planning your wedding! Welcome to the ranks of those planning their second wedding or maybe even their third, fourth, fifth, or eighth wedding, Elizabeth Taylor style. The great thing about planning a wedding is that each event is its own event, which means that no two weddings are ever alike. Whether this is your first time getting married, but your spouse-to-be is doing it for the second time around, or it is a second time for both of you, this wedding should reflect your personalities, your relationship, and your love.

Although the majority of first timers do not enter into the union of marriage with the plan to get a divorce, it happens. When a couple is planning their wedding, no one imagines a time when he or she will not be with the person standing next to him or her at the altar. However, statistics show that this is not always the case. According to www.divorceguide.com , 50 percent of American first marriages end in divorce and 65 percent of second marriages end in divorce. And, divorce is not always the culprit. You also could have found your second true love after the death of your first wife or husband early in your married life. If you are a widow or widower, marrying the second love of your life can be more emotional because the loss of a spouse is different than when you divorce. Some people feel a sense of guilt or betrayal toward their first spouses, even though the spouses are gone, because they took their vows for life and death. What you have to learn is how to allow yourself to move on and have the happiness you deserve and that your first spouse would want you to enjoy.

If your first marriage ended in divorce, then you ideally have learned lessons on what does and what does not work in a marriage. You are also a different person now than you were the first time around. You might be older and wiser now, or you might know yourself better than you did when you chose your first spouse. All of these lessons and changes in life alter who you are as a person and whom you choose to spend the rest of your life with. Take the lessons you have learned from your first marriage and apply them to making your second marriage even better. Even if you are a widow or a widower, you can draw from the experiences of your first marriage to ensure your second marriage is just as happy, or even happier, than your first marriage. The primary thing to keep in mind is that each relationship is different, and you need to enter into your second marriage treating it as its own separate entity.