"8 Fights Every Couple Should Have Before Their Wedding Day" is an article written by Cori Russell in Americanchronicle.com. She says: "...any unresolved issues during your engagement are clues to future marriage woes. The bottom line - discuss potential challenges and disagreements now, not after you’ve cut the wedding cake."

This seems like very sounds advice to me. I never understood couples who recognized that their were important things they didn't see eye-to-eye about, but ignored them. It's like couples who are unhappily married who decide that having a baby will save their marriage.

Ms. Russel's 8 fights (as summarized and edited by thegoldenrulesoflife.com):

1. Address any petty grievances you both may have ignored until now. These can be any little nagging thing from not leaving your cell phone on to leaving the toilet seat up. if it bothers you now, it won't bother you less because you are husband and wife.

2. Someone’s gonna have to scour the shared bathroom in your new dwelling… You'll soon find that they key to marital bliss is agreement on whose task is whose. Don't assume that your spouse-to-be's habits will change to accomodate yours or that the other person will just see what needs to be done and take care of it.

3. If you want to have kids, it is not enough to make sure your bride- or groom-to-be also wants kids. You have to discuss timetables and such things as whether one of you is going to be a stay-at-home parent. if having someone at home with a young child is important to you, just because you make more money don;t assume yoru spouse is going to give up their career because it may make fiscal sense.

4. Discuss religion. Please. Not just how you will identify yourselves (not to others, necessarily, but to yourselves) but where you will worhsip (if at all) and the big one...if you are not the same religion, how will your children be raised?

5. Can you speak openly about sex? Sex and Money (coming up at #7) are two HUGE issues. Your sex life will ebb and flow. You both won't feel the same way at the same time. Can you discuss it? And as Monica suggested on Friends to Joey when he wasn't allowed to have sex for two weeks: "Can you just be there for her?" (and that, Ladies, works both ways).

6. Your bodies will change. What are your expectations for each other? Personally (and this is my thought not Ms. Russell's) I think you each have a responsibility to remain attractive to each other. It is that simple. What that means will change over time (so be understanding) but being married isn't a license to suddenly become someone different from the person your spouse was attracted to before you got married.

7. MONEY! The biggest thing couples clash about. Ms. Russell suggests practicing full financial disclosure. Excellent advice. The bottom line is financial decisions affect both of you now. What you do with your money and, sometimes more importantly, when you do it. Do you pay bills as soon as they come in or do you wait till the last possible moment? Do you save for the future or live for today? Many successful couples have one person handle the finances. That doesn't mean make all the decisions. But pay the bills, monitor your accounts and balances...that kind of stuff.

8. And,  last but not least...the in-laws! What level of family involvement are you each comfortable with? In many ways, it seems to me that while this is one of the biggest issues, it seems perhaps the least likely to jump up and bite you on the you-know-what once you are married. Chances are, if one or both of you spends a lot of time with your family, this has come up before now. In any event, this is a tough issue. Be sensitive.