Getting engaged and married is such a fun time. I would even argue that it is the most anticipated and exciting time of your life. There’s just something so special about finally finding the one that you will spend the rest of your life with that makes you look forward to whatever life may throw at you. Now you have your best friend by your side to go through it with you. If I’m being completely honest, you really don’t realize just how hard marriage is going to be because of these new rose-colored glasses you are now wearing.

There are also so many emotions that go along with getting married. Aside from the absolute joy that you are now experiencing from finding your soul mate, there very well may be some other feelings trying to creep in as well. Like anxiety. Or doubt. Or being overwhelmed. These feelings are normal, so instead of just trying to ignore them, I think it’s important to educate yourself on what will make a marriage work so that you can limit these feelings as much as possible.

One way to do this is to attend Pre-martial Counseling through your church (if you attend one). This is a really great way to safeguard your marriage before you even enter into it. It’s a way to make sure that your marriage will be lined up with biblical principles. Another way to get great advice on marriage that you know you can trust is to read marriage books. I loved doing this when I was engaged, and even before I got engaged. I want to share with you 8 books that I read before I got married. These books were full of helpful advice that made me feel more prepared to walk down the aisle, confident in my decision to marry Tommy.

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1 | Preparing for Marriage

Tommy and I each received a copy of this book from our pastor during our pre-marital counseling. It was a really great book to go through to help us get on the same page about things that we wouldn’t have thought to talk about or ask each other. Some topics that it covered were Household Chores, Finances, Purity, Conflict Resolution, and Sex. The way the chapters were set up were that you read a little section about whatever the topic for the chapter was, answered the questions, and then at the end of each chapter you met with your fiancé and did a Couples Project, where you would go over your answers together and answer more questions together. It was super fun to set dates and do the couples project together. Each chapter made me super excited to get married.

2 | You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity

This was such an awesome, eye-opening book. It was super convicting (as I shared in this recap of it) because it goes into so much detail about how marriage is for God’s glory. Francis Chan is a great pastor and author and he really challenges you that marriage is only secondary to God and his call on your life. He reminds you that you should love God first and use marriage to glorify him, not ourselves by pursuing the American Dream. It was a really great book and definitely helped me set my priorities for getting married straight.

3 | Love and Respect

I’ve talked about this book so many times on my blog because it is just that good. (I shared here where I wrote a whole book review on it, and again here recently when I shared about something I learned from the book in another blog post.) This book is full of knowledge about what men and women need from each other, which is biblically based.

4 | The Mingling of Souls: God’s Design for Love, Marriage, Sex, and Redemption

I absolutely loved this book. I read it while we were in the Bahamas on vacation before I was even engaged and it taught me so much. Matt Chandler is a pastor from Texas, who I love listening to because he’s got so much wisdom but is also really funny. He is also like that in this book, while he goes through studying Song of Solomon in the Bible. It was so good I’m planning on reading it again.

5 | For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men

This book is similar to Love and Respect in the sense that it teaches you what men need from their wives. It was a really fun read because it literally does exactly what the title suggests. It teaches you all about how men operate and it has been read and approved by men so it is definitely accurate. 😉 This book could really be a good read for anyone honestly. It’s very interesting.

These next few books I would say are more helpful for girls who haven’t yet met their husbands or are not engaged yet, but are still really helpful if you have. They are just geared more toward helping you while you wait for God to answer your prayer for a husband, while the books above are more about marriage wisdom.

6 | Praying for Your Future Husband: Preparing Your Heart for His

This was the first marriage book I ever read back in 2012. This was a time when I was really struggling with waiting on God’s timing for dating and this book really encouraged me through it. It’s a light read, but was really fun to pray over my husband before I even knew him. It also encourages you to write letters to your husband to give to him once you are married, which I did also and it was a super special time. If you are single and waiting for God to answer your prayer to bring someone into your life to date, this book is for you.

7 | When God Writes Your Love Story

This was another really encouraging book that I read while waiting on a husband. It gives you plenty of wisdom for what a biblical marriage and dating relationship should look like. It’s really helpful because it reminds you how important it is to wait on God, and that it is so worth it in the end.

8 | Lady in Waiting: Becoming God’s Best While Waiting for Mr. Right

I loved this book because it took the focus off of waiting and onto myself and how I can prepare to be my best. This was the most helpful thing I did while waiting for a boyfriend because sometimes just focusing on waiting made it impossible. When I could do something active, like prepare my heart to be a wife, it made the waiting more bearable. This book is more of a devotional type book, rather than just a quick read with other people’s stories or advice. It’s a more hands-on type book, so if you are really struggling through the waiting, this might be a huge help to you.

I hope these books will help you on your journey to becoming a wife. I know they really did for me, no matter what stage of life I was in, whether I was single as a Pringle, dating but just not quite ready to be married, or engaged and waiting to say “I Do”, these books were huge encouragers for me. They set up realistic expectations of marriage and encouraged me to wait on God above all else, even when it felt like I couldn’t wait another second.

What books do you recommend that helped you with marriage? I’m always looking for more to read.