6 Important Things To Do In Your First Year Of Marriage

The first year after the wedding is a special time for your marriage. You have the spirit of optimism and infatuation on your side so be sure to use that to your advantage! How you live will start to set the tone and the habits that will characterize your relationship for years to come. So spend some time thinking about what is most important to you. We tried to orient our lifestyle towards spending the most amount of time together. Check out these key things to do in your first year of marriage.

Before we get there, I just want to point out that even the Bible advises setting apart this first year to build into your marriage. Look at Deut. 24:5:

If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married”.

Enjoy this special time with your lover!

Set boundaries with media and entertainment

Cut out as much media consumption as you can in your first year of marriage. This will free up many hours of your day to spend on other (more meaningful and memorable) adventures. When Eunice and I first tried this, we were really bored. But after a while, we started to get creative. Try new hobbies together. Talk to each other. Experiment and explore what you both love to do. We found so many wonderful date spots in our city and got to know our community more! Don’t waste this first year glued to a screen!

Keep your time table open

In this crazily busy age, people hardly have time for a marriage anymore. Don’t jam-pack your life with too many other things – responsibilities, independent hobbies, friend dates, etc. Free up your schedule for your spouse. Eunice and I did not commit to any large church ministry responsibilities in our first year. And we preferred exploring hobbies and meeting friends together. We used this time to build into each other. We got to know each other’s’ habits and quirks. I believe this has allowed us to serve and love others better even now.  

Cook together

After you get married, you’re an independently functioning adult so you’re going to have to learn how to cook. What better way than to masterchef-it-up with your spouse in the kitchen? If you succeed, there is a good food to be had. If you don’t, that’s many hilarious stories to be told in the future – how can you go wrong? Eunice and I had this fun challenge where we would pick a new ingredient to cook with every month. Some of those ingredients are now in our usual diet (we’re crazy for plantains!).

Travel together

The first year of marriage is the best for travelling. Writing from the perspective of having a toddler and a baby on the way, you have so much freedom to go places when it’s the two of you. Travelling together teaches you a lot about your significant other – like how they respond to new experiences and stressful situations. Travelling the world was never at the top of our priority list but we enjoyed mini-adventures all the time. Plan a spontaneous day trip, pack the weekend duffle for the cottage, or book a week in a new city!

Open your house to lots of people

This was one of the best things we did in our first year of marriage. There were many occasions where we had friends over to talk, play board games, share meals, pray together, and study the Bible. I think opening up our home was exciting because we just moved into our apartment and none of our friends had their own places yet. Eunice and I loved hosting and bringing people together over food. At one time we fit over 10 people in our stuffy little place!

Get close to an older couple

This was a good piece of advice we got from our premarital counselling sessions. Walking through the first year of marriage with an older couple is a big confidence booster. They can help you navigate some challenges that you might face or give you new perspectives on your circumstances. Even just hanging out with older couples can inspire you to guide your marriage in a certain direction. Eunice and I had a number of role models that we hung out with on a semi-regular basis. Highly recommended!

So those some key things to do in your first year of marriage. We wholeheartedly commend them to you. What about you? What fun things did you do in your first year of marriage?