Ten Habits of Happy Couples

Happy couples know that the real relationship begins when the honeymoon is over.  They know that unless you maintain the garden of love, its beauty will wither and die.

1.  Go to bed at the same time.

Remember the beginning of your relationship, when you couldn’t wait to go to bed with each other to make love?  Happy couples resist the temptation to go to bed at different times.  They go to bed at the same time, even if one partner wakes up later to do things while their partner sleeps.  And when their skins touch it still causes each of them to tingle and unless one or both are completely exhausted to feel sexually excited.

2.  Cultivate common interests.

After the passion settles down, it’s common to realize that you have a few interests in common.  But don’t minimize the importance of activities you can do together that you both enjoy.  If common interests are not present, happy couples develop them.  At the same time, be sure to cultivate interests of your own; this will make you more interesting to your mate and prevent you from appearing too dependent.

3.  Walk hand in hand or side by side.

Rather than one partner lagging or dragging behind the other, happy couples walk comfortably hand in hand or side by side.  They know it’s more important to be with their partner than to see the sights along the way.

4.  Make trust and forgiveness your default mode.

If and when they have a disagreement or argument, and if they can’t resolve it, happy couples default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.

5. Focus more on what your partner does right than what he or she does wrong

If you look for things your partner does wrong, you can always find something. If you look for what he or she does right, you can always find something, too. It all depends on what you want to look for. Happy couples accentuate the positive.

6. Hug each other as soon as you see each other after work

Our skin has a memory of “good touch” (loved), “bad touch” (abused) and “no touch” (neglected). Couples who say hello with a hug keep their skin bathed in the “good touch,” which can inoculate your spirit against anonymity in the world.

7. Say “I love you” and “Have a good day” every morning

This is a great way to buy some patience and tolerance as each partner sets out each day to battle traffic jams, long lines and other annoyances.

8. Say “Good night” every night, regardless of how you feel

This tells your partner that, regardless of how upset you are with him or her, you still want to be in the relationship. It says that what you and your partner have is bigger than any single upsetting incident.

9. Do a “weather” check during the day

Call your partner at home or at work to see how his or her day is going. This is a great way to adjust expectations so that you’re more in sync when you connect after work. For instance, if your partner is having an awful day, it might be unreasonable to expect him or her to be enthusiastic about something good that happened to you.

10. Be proud to be seen with your partner

Happy couples are pleased to be seen together and are often in some kind of affectionate contact — hand on hand or hand on shoulder or knee or back of neck. They are not showing off but rather just saying that they belong with each other.

Happy couples have different habits than unhappy couples. A habit is a discrete behavior that you do automatically and that takes little effort to maintain. It takes 21 days of daily repetition of a new behavior to become a habit. So select one of the behaviors in the list above to do for 21 days and voila, it will become a habit… and make you happier as a couple. And if you fall off the wagon, don’t despair, just apologize to your partner, ask for their forgiveness and recommit yourself to getting back in the habit.

If there was one key to happiness in love and life and possibly even success, it would be to go into each conversation you have with this commandment to yourself front and foremost in your mind, "Just Listen" and be more interested than interesting, more fascinated than fascinating and more adoring than adorable.

Getting Married in Maui

Getting married on Maui has to be one of life's best experiences. I know, because my wife and I had a Maui wedding. In fact I asked my wife if she would "Maui me?" What better question can a guy ask his fiance? First you are going to take her to Maui and then you are going to "Maui her!" Maybe that's why I went with a company with that same unique name: Maui Me.

You can't go wrong with Maui Me Weddings. Susan, their booking agent, has been planning and coordinating both big and small weddings on Maui for over 15 years. So she knows all of the ins and outs about what to do and what NOT to do to get yourself a great Maui wedding. I highly recommend that you give her a ring at 800-856-3270.

Also, check out the great and exhaustive Maui wedding packages that the company offers. They really have a lot of Maui wedding services to offer. If you don't see what you want, be sure and ask Susan about it anyway as not everything is always on their website. Talk to Susan and I'm sure you won't want to use anyone else.

And BTW, Susan also has great travel ideas and accommodations that she can book for you. She has her own travel website so you can get some information from that as well which is located at Hawaii Travel.

Maui Wedding Packages

The best way to save money for your Maui wedding is to select the Maui wedding package that's just right for you. Now there are a lot of companies with a lot of different packages so I'll recommend the two which I feel have the most to offer.

If you want your choice of more extensive Maui wedding packages for this link to the Maui Me website. They are a higher end (but still very inexpensive) wedding company which gives awesome personalized service based upon 15 years of experience. They also have a nice page which compares the packages and shows you what's in each to help make your decision easier.

If you want a simpler and less expensive wedding let me recommend to you Affordable Maui Weddings. This website is quick and to the point and it has a lot of photos showing many of their past weddings. While the packages are not nearly as extensive in what they offer as with Maui Me, still you definitely like their prices if you want a cheap wedding. Their affordable Maui wedding packages are prices as low as anyone on the island.

Maui Weddings

Maui weddings are the most popular weddings in all of Hawaii. Did you know that more tourists come to Maui for their wedding than to any other Hawaiian island? It's true. In fact, there are more Maui weddings than all of the others combined. That just shows that many couples realize how exciting a Maui wedding really is.

To experience your very own Maui wedding let me offer you a few helpful suggestions. First, contact and book your Maui wedding coordinator BEFORE you book your flight and make your reservations for your hotel or condo accommodations. Why is that important?

Well, if you book your accommodations on the opposite side of the island from where you will be getting married, this will make your task of getting to your wedding much more difficult. And wouldn't you really want to get your Maui wedding planner's suggestions as to the best places to stay when it comes to being close to the beach where you'll be getting married? The west side of Maui is quite crowded and there is only a two lane highway coming around the pali (the cliffs) on the way to the south side of the island. Most of the best beaches are on the south side, and that is likely where you'll want to get married. If there is an accident on that highway coming around the west Maui mountains they often block the road and you won't even be able to leave the west side (and you'll miss your wedding!).

So it is a wise idea to talk to a professional wedding coordinator like Susan Craft before you book anything. Susan has been planning Maui weddings for over 15 years and she also has a lot of experience booking travel, hotels and condos for her couples, so she knows the best (and cheapest) accommodations that will give you the most bang for your buck.

So check out her website at Maui Me and you can also take a look at her Hawaii travel website here. She can be reached directly (toll free) at 800-856-3270. You can also check out her discount Maui weddings here.
.

Eloping Maui

Eloping to Maui will probably be one of your most romantic decisions ever. There is definitely something to be said about just leaving the friends and even your family behind and escaping to the beautiful weather of an incredible Maui adventure just for the two of you.

Let's face it, when it is just about you two, it is more romantic. No family to complain and tell you what they think you should do. No friends tagging along when you would rather be alone. You don't want to have to entertain your family and friends and that's why eloping on Maui is such a great idea for so many couples.

Now if you are worried about what your family will say if you leave them behind, I would make absolutely certain that you hired a Maui wedding company that can give you some great photography as well even as a video of your wedding and the romantic time afterwards as you wait for the sunset. Then when you get home you can show your family the images and the video of what you experience so that they can enjoy your joy as well.

So if you're planning to get married by eloping to Hawaii, I recommend that you go with one of the great Maui wedding companies that are available. If you want a more extensive wedding, I would recommend that you check out Maui Me, which is a full service Maui wedding company. If you want a fast and inexpensive Maui wedding I would recommend that you check out Affordable Maui Weddings. Check out some of the beaches that are available at: Maui wedding beaches.

Maui Beach Weddings

Maui beach weddings are the most popular weddings in all of Hawaii. There is nothing that compares with getting married on one of Maui's incredible beaches, most of which face into the western sky where the best sunsets can be viewed.

Just imagine yourself standing on a pristine beach with the smell of flowers in your hair and in your bouquet, while the sun slowly sinks towards a golden horizon. As the waves lap on the sandy beach, a minister ties your knot, and the two of you enjoy the ambiance of this romantic setting while your photographer and/or videographer catch all of those intimate moments in this uncrowded beach setting. Truly romantic. And memorable for a life.

A few years back, I made this my own reality, having my own Maui wedding on the beach. We had a minister, a bouquet, haku lei for my bride plus two leis for both of us, sparkling apple cider and a wedding cake, incredible photography along with a videographer who captured unbelievable footage and put it all into a great video. What more could I have asked for with a small Maui beach wedding.

If you want to make this your own reality, as I did, let me recommend that you go with the same company that I used for my own wedding. It is Maui Me Weddings, and they can get everything you want for your wedding big or small, elaborate or simple. Take a look at their Maui wedding packages which are full of value and great services. And while your looking at their site, take a look at some of the extra island wedding services that they offer.

Beach Weddings in Hawaii

Beach weddings in Hawaii are extremely popular. In fact, if you want a beach wedding, there is probably no place on earth more exciting than Hawaii. Any Hawaiian island is great for a beach wedding, although some are simply better than others. Let's take a look at each of the major islands and discuss how they are for beach weddings.

The Island of Oahu (where Honolulu is located) is the busiest of all the Hawaiian islands. With more than a million people crammed onto this isle, you can imagine that it tends to be crowded. The beaches tend to have a lot of people on them. For this reason, finding a good location for a more intimate beach wedding location tends to be a bit of a problem. Oahu has just become too commercialized for my tastes.

The Big Island of Hawaii is truly big. If you try to drive around it, you will discover that it takes a long time, and you will often not even see the ocean because you'll be so far from it. Hawaii doesn't have a lot of great beaches. They are few and far between. What it has most are rocky cliffs and impassable shorelines. So it is difficult to find good beaches where you can do a wedding. The Kona Coast is probably the best place for a wedding, but even there, you'll want to be aware of the air quality issues. Because Hawaii has an active volcano, the island often has a lot of vog (which is volcano smog) hanging over it. Whether you can see it or not, it will impact your ability to breath comfortably.

Kauai is a small island that receives a lot of rain. Most of the cities and beaches on Kauai are situation on the east, north and south sides of the island. On the east the current is dangerous and you want to swim there with caution. Other than the fact that it rains a lot, you want to be aware that the best place to have a sunset beach wedding in on beaches that face into the west (where the sun sets). And Kauai is just not set up very well for that.

Maui is, by far, the best island for beach weddings in Hawaii. It has more and better sandy beaches on the south and western sides of the island that are facing right into the setting sun. I've experienced thousands of sunsets on the beaches of Maui and I can tell you that they are almost awesome. It is only rare that you get a poor sunset on Maui.

If you do decide to have a beach wedding in Hawaii you'll be happier if you go to Maui. I would recommend two places for you to check out if you want to be married on a beach on this island. First is Maui Me Weddings, which is a company that can give you great more customized weddings. The second is Affordable Maui Weddings which has a website with probably the best prices on Maui. Either way, you'll want to check out Maui's incredible beaches.