Questions to Ask Before Marriage (LDS)
Questions to ask before marriage for Latter-day Saint (LDS) couples, grouped for several conversations ahead of a sealing: where each of you is with the church and the temple, Sundays, callings and standards at home, tithing and money, children, both families and the wedding day, and trust.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Faith
Where are you with the church right now, week to week?
Why ask it
Activity and belief are not the same thing, and engaged couples often assume both from attendance. A person who can describe the parts that feel like duty as well as the parts that feel like conviction is telling you something you can build on.
What are you sure of in the gospel, and what are you still working out?
Why ask it
A testimony given in the usual phrases tells you little. Better is one thing they would stake a decision on and one they hold loosely, in their own words. Be ready to give yours the same way, since a one-sided version of this turns into an exam.
Do you hold a current temple recommend, and is there anything that would need resolving before a sealing?
Why ask it
Asked plainly and early, this spares you both a hard discovery a few weeks before the date. It is not a request for a confession, and the details belong with their bishop. What matters to you is whether something could move the timeline, and whether they would tell you if it could.
What does being sealed change about how we treat each other on an ordinary day?
Why ask it
Eternal language can raise the standard for a Tuesday evening, or it can make leaving unthinkable however things are going. Listen for which one they reach for. Someone who talks about effort means the first, and someone who talks only about permanence may mean the second.
Have you prayed about marrying me, and what did the answer feel like?
Why ask it
Answers get described as anything from a clear impression to a steady absence of doubt, and some people never have a moment they can point to. Ask how they tell an answer from wanting something badly. If one of you feels sure and the other does not yet, that is worth saying before a date is set.
Have you received your own endowment yet, and if not, when do you want to go?
Why ask it
Going for the first time in the week of the wedding puts two large days very close together, and some people would rather have a few weeks between them. Ask who they want beside them that day. If you have been and they have not, resist describing how they ought to feel about it.
Is there anything in your patriarchal blessing that shapes what you expect from marriage or a family?
Why ask it
You are not asking to read it, and many people keep theirs private. A line about children, a mission or a kind of work can sit behind an expectation for years without being spoken, though, and hearing it is fairer than guessing at it.
How did your mission change you, or if you did not serve, how do you feel about that now?
Why ask it
Both answers carry weight. Some people came home changed in ways they have never unpacked, and others are still defensive about not having gone or about coming home early. Either can color how they talk about obedience, authority and their own worth.
Would you want to serve a mission together once our children are grown?
Why ask it
It sounds a long way off, and it reaches into decisions made much sooner: how hard you save, when you stop working, how near the grandchildren you plan to live. One of you may have assumed it since Primary while the other has never considered it. 'I do not know yet' is a fine answer at this stage.
How do you handle questions about church history or doctrine that do not have tidy answers?
Why ask it
Some people study, some set it on a shelf, and some cannot bear the question being raised at all. The third is the one to notice. If a hard question of yours ever needs saying out loud, you would want to know now whether you could say it at home.
When a church leader gives counsel you find hard to accept, what do you do with it?
Why ask it
Ask for a real instance: a conference talk, a policy, a request from a bishop. Whether they obeyed first and understood later, or waited until they had prayed it through, is how they will expect the two of you to respond the next time it happens.
If one of us stopped attending or stopped believing, what would you do?
Why ask it
Ask it while it is hypothetical. Some people would stay and work out a new kind of Sunday, and some would treat it as the end of what they agreed to. Follow with the practical half: who takes the children to church, and whether tithing still gets paid.
If we both pray about a decision and come away feeling differently, what do we do then?
Why ask it
It happens to faithful couples, and without a plan the disagreement can turn into a charge that one of you is not listening to the Spirit. Can they picture waiting, or going with your answer, or being the one who got it wrong?
Daily life
What will Sundays and church commitments during the week look like for us?
Why ask it
Add up the hours: meetings, ministering, temple trips, youth activities. Couples who never total them can be surprised by how little of the week is left, and then the argument is about a late dinner when it is really about the calendar.
If one of us were given a calling that took most evenings, would we accept it, and have you ever said no to one?
Why ask it
Someone who would never say no may be describing years in which the family absorbs whatever is asked. Someone who has declined, or asked to be released, and can tell you how that conversation with the bishop went has a limit you can plan around.
How would prayer, scripture study and home evening actually run in our house, and who leads them?
Why ask it
Everyone agrees these matter in principle, so ask for the schedule. The answer usually contains an unstated assumption about who organizes, reminds and prepares, and that is the part worth naming before it becomes a habit.
What does presiding in a home mean to you in practice?
Why ask it
Interpretations differ widely inside the church, from full partnership to a final say. Try it on real cases: who decides where you live, who handles the money, what happens when the two of you cannot agree. The cases tell you far more than the word does.
How would you want priesthood blessings to be part of our home?
Why ask it
The person who would ask often feels awkward asking, and the person who would give one can feel unequal to it, so each misreads the other's silence. Name the occasions: an illness, a new job, the start of a school year. Then say whether you would rather offer or be asked.
How often do you want to go to the temple once we are married?
Why ask it
Every week is easy to promise when the temple is fifteen minutes away and nobody needs a babysitter. Their habit before they met you is a better guide than the intention. Check as well whether going separately would count for them, because with small children that is often the only way.
How strictly do you keep the Word of Wisdom: caffeinated soda, energy drinks, the gray areas?
Why ask it
Practice varies on caffeine, energy drinks and how closely the counsel on food is read. Neither of you is there to grade the other. The reason to compare is practical: better to learn now than later that one of you is uneasy about what is in the fridge.
What do you do at a work dinner or a family party where everyone else is drinking?
Why ask it
Work dinners, coffee meetings and relatives with wine are ordinary life. Some people order a soda and stay late, some leave early, and some make a point of explaining. Whether they can be in that room at ease, and leave everyone else at ease, will matter at every wedding and office party you go to together.
What do you do and not do on a Sunday, and do you expect the same from me?
Why ask it
Go case by case: shopping, eating out, sports on television, homework, a shift at work. The second half is the part that matters most, since a standard you never agreed to turns into quiet judgment across the sofa.
What would we not watch, play or listen to in our house?
Why ask it
Film ratings mean different things from country to country, so talk about content instead: violence, language, what a show treats as funny. Ask whether the rule still holds when a roommate, a sibling or a guest picks the film. Two people who draw the line in different places can share a house if neither keeps score.
How do you feel about wearing the garment day to day, and how much of that do we talk about?
Why ask it
Each of you may have assumed the other's practice matches your own, and one of you may not have been endowed yet. Exercise, hot weather and what gets mentioned to friends or family are where a difference usually shows. It is easier to hear as a description now than as a correction after the wedding.
How many of your close friends are outside the church, and how would you want our home to feel to them?
Why ask it
Someone whose whole circle is the ward and someone with a mixed one will plan very different Saturday nights. Listen for whether those friends are simply friends or are thought of as prospects, because guests can tell which they are.
Who cooks, who cleans and who keeps the calendar in our house, and does that change when a baby comes?
Why ask it
Start with who did these jobs in the house each of you grew up in, and whether that looked fair from the inside. An even split between two students can collapse the week one of you is home with a newborn, so agree now to redraw it then.
With work, callings and the ward calendar, which evening each week stays ours?
Why ask it
The evening for the two of you is the first thing to disappear, and nobody ever decides that it should. Pick the night and say what is allowed to bump it: a sick child, yes, and a last-minute meeting, maybe not. Time alone is a separate need, and wanting it is no complaint about the marriage.
How much do your politics follow from your faith, and could you live with mine landing somewhere else?
Why ask it
Members of one ward vote in every direction, each fairly sure the gospel points their way. Between the two of you, the test is whether a disagreement stays a disagreement or becomes a verdict on the other person's faithfulness. Try one live issue and see which it is.
Money
What are we each bringing in financially, and who is going to run the budget?
Why ask it
Put the figures on the table: student loans, other debts, savings, credit. A summary given in place of a number is worth a second, gentler ask. Whoever ends up keeping the budget should be chosen for it, not left with it.
Does every paycheck go into one account, and how much can either of us spend without asking?
Why ask it
Shared, separate, or a shared account with an allowance each can all work, as long as both of you chose the arrangement. Name the amount, since one person's small purchase is another's week of groceries. If the money is pooled, tithing comes out of one pot, so the next question follows straight on.
How do you work out a full tithe: on income before tax or after, and on gifts or student aid?
Why ask it
Members settle this for themselves, and two people who have each paid faithfully for years can turn up with different arithmetic. It starts to matter the day the money is joint. Agree on one method before the yearly tithing declaration with the bishop, where you will answer as a household.
How do we handle tithing and fast offerings in a month where money is short?
Why ask it
Here principle turns into arithmetic. For some people tithing is paid first and everything else is cut to fit, and for others it is weighed against the rent. Find out which each of you is, and whether a different answer from you would be heard as a failure of faith.
How do you feel about debt: student loans, a car, a credit card, a mortgage?
Why ask it
Most people raised in the church have heard the counsel to stay out of it, and they apply that very differently. For one person it means no card balance, for another it means renting until the house can be bought outright. Go through the four one at a time and find out which would keep either of you awake.
Where are you in school or training, and what do we live on until we are both finished?
Why ask it
Couples who marry as students often plan the reception in detail and the rent hardly at all. Work out the monthly figure, who earns it, and whether either set of parents is expected to help. Help of that kind usually arrives with opinions, so count those as part of the price.
How much do we want set aside for a bad stretch: savings, food storage, or both?
Why ask it
Preparedness is taught often enough that you will both be in favor, so ask for an amount and a shelf. A few months of expenses and a few weeks of food is a different project from a year of wheat in the basement. Whoever cares more will end up doing the work, and should say so.
What kind of work are you heading toward, and what would it ask of the family: long hours, travel, moving?
Why ask it
Put this to both of you, including whoever expects to be home with children for a stretch. A finished degree and a skill kept current make it easier to earn later, whether by choice or because something has gone wrong.
What are we willing to spend on the reception, and whose money is it?
Why ask it
The sealing carries no fee, which leaves the reception, the clothes, the photographs and two families' guest lists as most of the budget. Settle on one figure between you before either set of parents offers money. An offer often comes with a guest list attached.
Children
How many children do you picture us raising, and when would you want the first?
Why ask it
Expectations here can come as much from family and ward culture as from personal conviction, and the two are worth separating. Each of you give a number and a rough year, then say how firm it is.
How do you feel about family planning and spacing children?
Why ask it
The church leaves this to the couple, so the thing to hear is whether they see it as a decision for two or expect one of you to make it. Having no view still sets a default, and the default falls hardest on whoever is pregnant.
If having children turned out to be hard, what would you want us to try?
Why ask it
Treatment, adoption, fostering and stopping are all choices faithful couples have made, each with a cost in money and in years. Talk about the ward as well: a congregation built around families can be a painful place to wait, and you will need to agree on what you tell people who ask.
Would either of us pause school or work for children, and which of us?
Why ask it
Here the general agreement about family life becomes one person's degree or career. Say whose, for how long, and what the household lives on while one income carries it. If the answer has been assumed and never chosen, this is the place to say so.
What happened in your house when a child broke a rule, and would you run ours the same way?
Why ask it
Ask who handled it, how calm it was, and whether church standards were given as the reason. 'I turned out fine' may be true, and may also mean they have never looked at it closely.
How do we teach our children the gospel without turning it into pressure?
Why ask it
What worked on each of you, and what backfired? The testimony a child was pushed to bear, the parent who only ever asked about church, the family scripture study everyone dreaded. People repeat the method they were given or swing hard against it, and you should know which is coming.
If our eight-year-old was not sure about being baptized, would we wait?
Why ask it
Eight is the usual age, and in many families the date is fixed for the month after the birthday with every relative invited. Whether your partner hears a child's hesitation as something to respect or something to talk them out of shows how much weight they give a child's own choice.
Would our children play on a team with Sunday games?
Why ask it
Here a Sabbath standard meets a child who is good at something. Families in the same ward land on different answers, and whichever you pick, someone will ask you to explain it. Better to decide before a coach and a ten-year-old are both waiting.
What do you expect of our teenagers: seminary, youth activities, when they can date?
Why ask it
Add phones, curfews and Friday nights to the list. Underneath it is what happens when a sixteen-year-old pushes back, and whether one of you turns into the enforcer while the other stays the easy parent.
Do you expect our sons and daughters to serve missions, and what if one did not want to go, or came home early?
Why ask it
The expectation falls differently on a son than on a daughter, so take each in turn. Then picture a child home after four months. What a parent says first in that conversation is remembered for a very long time, and it helps to have agreed on it years ahead.
If one of our children left the church, or came out to us, how would you want us to respond?
Why ask it
A hard question and a fair one, since your answers determine whether a child would tell you at all. Notice whether they answer with a rule or with a relationship, and whether they can picture staying close to someone who chose differently.
Family
Were you raised in the church or did you join it, and what was Sunday like in your house growing up?
Why ask it
A convert, a child of converts and someone from five generations of members can mean different things by an active family. The Sunday they describe, down to who got everyone out of the door and what happened after church, is usually the one they will try to rebuild or avoid. If one of you joined alone, ask what it cost with your own family.
What did your parents' marriage look like, and what do you want to do differently?
Why ask it
Most inherited expectations about roles, money and who apologizes first come from here. What they can criticize, they have at least looked at. What they describe as simply normal is more likely to turn up unannounced in your own house.
Which of our decisions will your parents expect to be consulted on?
Why ask it
Money, housing, wedding plans and the timing of children are the usual pressure points. Ask who would deliver the news if you decided against a parent's wish, because whoever it is will be doing it repeatedly.
Who in your family is not a member or not active, and how are things between you?
Why ask it
The way they speak about a brother or sister who left is a fair preview of how they would speak about you. Is that relative still close, still invited, still mentioned warmly, or handled as a problem to be fixed?
Who in our families will not be able to attend the sealing, and how do we include them?
Why ask it
A parent or a best friend waiting outside is one of the sorest parts of a temple wedding. A civil ceremony beforehand and a ring ceremony afterwards are both used, and the rules on timing have changed over the years and differ by country, so ask your bishop how it works where you live. Make the decision as a couple, early, and tell both families together.
How long an engagement do you want, and what is setting the date?
Why ask it
Short engagements are common in the church. Check what is actually choosing the date, though: the two of you, a semester, a lease, a temple's calendar, or the strain of waiting. A few extra months cost little when the answers on this list are good, and tell you a great deal when they are not.
Where do we spend Christmas and the other big holidays, and which baby blessings, baptisms and farewells do we travel for?
Why ask it
A large family produces an occasion most months, and every one of them is described as the one you cannot miss. Sort out which truly are, and settle the first Christmas now. Otherwise the family that asks loudest wins by default and the other one notices.
Do you want to live where there are a lot of members, or would you settle somewhere the ward is small?
Why ask it
Near family in a large ward you get help with children and a ready social life, along with more people holding a view on how you live. In a small branch you will both be needed every week. Find out which they grew up in, and whether they are choosing it or getting away from it.
If either of us has been married or sealed before, what has to be settled first?
Why ask it
A second sealing goes through church leaders and works differently for men and for women, so ask your bishop what applies to you and how long it takes before you fix a date. The rest is practical: children, a former spouse, support payments, and what the first marriage taught the one who was in it.
What do you think we will owe our parents when they are old: visits, money, a room in our house?
Why ask it
In a big family the caring tends to land on whoever lives nearest or is seen as the dependable one, so ask which sibling that is in theirs. If it is the person you are marrying, the job comes with them. Say now what you could and could not give.
Trust
What do you do when we are in conflict: go quiet, push, or bring someone in?
Why ask it
A self-description is less use here than the story of your last real disagreement, so go back over that one together. Then ask who hears about your arguments. A parent or a bishop who knows about a fight before the two of you have finished it becomes part of it.
When one of us really hurts the other, what has to happen before it is mended?
Why ask it
For some people forgiveness is immediate and the subject is closed, and others need to see changed behavior over months. Mismatched, one of you ends up feeling unforgiven and the other permanently on trial.
Would you see a professional counselor with me, or only a bishop?
Why ask it
A bishop is a lay volunteer, usually with a full-time job of his own, and a serious problem between a couple may be more than he is trained for. Someone who rules out a licensed counselor, or would go only if a leader sent them, has narrowed your options before you need them.
Is there anything in your history you would want me to know before we are sealed?
Why ask it
Open and voluntary is the point, so ask once and leave room. Debt, past relationships, a repentance process, a hard stretch of mental health: what they choose to bring shows what they consider yours to know. Offer your own answer too.
What habit have you had to fight, and is it behind you or still going?
Why ask it
Name some categories so they do not have to: what they look at online, gambling, spending, a prescription, food. Ask who else knows. Someone who has worked on a thing with a bishop or a counselor and can talk about it plainly is easier to trust than someone who insists there was never anything.
How do you think about depression or anxiety: something to pray through, something to treat, or both?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone says both, so move to what they did the last time they were low, or what their family did when someone was. That shows whether a bad year of yours would be met with help or read as a shortage of faith. If either of you is in treatment now, this is the moment to say it.
Has a doctor told you anything about your health that I should hear before the wedding?
Why ask it
A condition that is managed, a diagnosis they are waiting on, something that runs through the family: none of it has to change the plan, and all of it is better heard now. It bears on insurance, on work and on having children, and how those work depends on where you live. Thank them for telling you before you ask anything else.
Where is the line for you with friends of the opposite sex: lunches, rides, private messages?
Why ask it
Church culture carries unwritten rules here that one of you may keep strictly and the other has never heard of. Lay them side by side without mocking either set. The agreement that tends to hold is about secrecy more than any particular activity: nothing either of you would hide.
How will we talk about affection and intimacy once we are married, especially if we want different things?
Why ask it
Couples who have kept strict boundaries before marriage can arrive with very different assumptions and no practice at discussing them. The part to settle now is the talking: that either of you can say not tonight and be heard without it being taken as rejection.
What would make you leave a marriage, sealed or not?
Why ask it
'Nothing ever would' usually means they have not pictured violence, contempt or years of deceit, and no promise obliges a person to stay where they are in danger. Knowing the real limits makes it safer to raise small problems early. Follow with what each of you would want tried before it came to that.
Working through these before a sealing
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to run the conversations
Three or four questions at a time
These are heavy topics and the useful thinking happens afterwards. Spacing them over a few weeks also shows you how each of you behaves when a conversation is left unresolved overnight, which is worth knowing.
Stay inside one group for a while
The list runs in six groups: Faith, Daily life, Money, Children, Family and Trust. Faith comes first because those answers change how you hear the rest. Finish a group over a few sittings before you move on, so that an evening about tithing does not swerve into an evening about in-laws, and leave Trust until you have had a couple of easy ones.
Answer before you ask
Going first on tithing, children or callings gives up the advantage of hearing them first, and that is the point. It keeps the evening from becoming a worthiness interview one of you is conducting.
Separate church culture from personal conviction
Much of what a couple assumes is required comes from a ward, a family, or a region rather than from doctrine. When an expectation surfaces, ask where it came from. Some of them turn out to be negotiable.
Where couples find real differences
- The total hours church commitments take, and who is expected to absorb them at home.
- Money: tithing in a hard month, debt brought into the marriage, and whether one income is the plan.
- Timing and number of children, especially where family expectations differ from yours.
- How each of you responds to unresolved historical or doctrinal questions.
- How much access parents and leaders have to the inside of the marriage.
- The wedding day itself: who can be in the sealing room, and what is planned for the relatives who cannot.
Getting help before and after
Ask what any preparation course actually covers
Marriage preparation classes vary widely in whether they address conflict, money and expectations or stay with doctrine. If yours does not cover the practical ground, cover it yourselves and bring the unresolved parts to someone qualified.
Agree on a counselor now, not during a crisis
Deciding in advance who you would both accept, and whether cost is a barrier, removes one argument from a moment when you will not have the patience for it.
Talk to a couple ten years ahead of you
Ask a married couple you both respect what surprised them in the first two years. Specific answers about money, callings and in-laws are more use than general encouragement.
Reasons to slow the timeline
- A date set before the two of you have discussed money, children and what activity means to each of you.
- Either of you assuming the other will become more observant, or less, after the wedding.
- Family or ward pressure that makes the timeline feel fixed and the questions feel disloyal.
- A disagreement being deferred on the grounds that the sealing will resolve it.
- Any topic that cannot be raised without one of you treating the question itself as an accusation.