From YA Weekly
What Kind of Marriage Will You Have? 3 Ways a Temple Marriage Is Different
A temple marriage is more than just a location for a marriage.
Years ago, while in graduate school, I invited some classmates to my daughter’s baby blessing. Later, in our home, one of my classmates noticed a picture of the Salt Lake Temple and asked what it was.
I replied, “That is where my wife and I were married.”
He then exclaimed, “Wow, how much did it cost to rent that wedding chapel?”
As someone not of our faith, my friend saw the temple as simply the location of our marriage. While understandable from his perspective, I worry that sometimes we, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, mistake a temple marriage as just a “place” where a marriage happens.
A temple marriage is not merely a venue; it’s a pattern for marriage, “established and maintained” according to God’s “divine design.”
So, what makes a temple marriage so unique?
1. Unique Preparations
Temple marriages begin with unique preparations. These preparations begin long before spouses meet, and they continue throughout the relationship. Each spouse comes closer to Christ through making and honoring the covenants of the temple endowment.
President Russell M. Nelson (1924–2025) taught:
“Individual worthiness to enter the Lord’s house requires much individual spiritual preparation. …
“I testify that such preparatory work brings innumerable blessings in this life and inconceivable blessings for the life to come, including the perpetuation of your family unit throughout all eternity.”
Striving for temple worthiness helps us gain the spiritual maturity to establish an eternal marriage, safeguarding us from the threats endangering marriages today.
2. Unique Patterns
A temple marriage is different because it involves unique patterns of daily living. These patterns emerge from a covenant marriage relationship that invites spouses to love, serve, and communicate in ways that differ from some marriages today.
Temple marriages are founded on regular patterns of prayer, scripture study, church attendance, temple worship, and service in callings. These patterns, given to us by the Lord, help create loving and lasting marriages.
“The new and everlasting covenant of marriage” (Doctrine and Covenants 131:2) involves husbands and wives working together as equal partners, loving and caring for each other and for their children, honoring their marital vows with complete fidelity, and faithfully fulfilling family responsibilities.
3. Unique Promises
When we’re sealed in the temple, we promise to build a higher, holier marriage. In return, the Lord promises that our marriages and families can endure beyond death. President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, shared that “it is through the sealing covenants in the temple that we can receive the assurance of loving family connections that will continue after death and last for eternity.”
These covenants are unique to the temple.
President Jeffrey R. Holland, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, shared this when he rededicated the St. George Utah Temple, where he and Sister Holland were sealed: “We need to try to be outside the temple the way we are inside the temple. … We need to remember the pledges and the promises and the hopes and the dreams. If we could take those outside the temple, we’d change the world.”
The promises and blessings of the temple can indeed change the world—starting with our own marriage and family relationships.
Begin with the End in Mind
In his first address as prophet, President Nelson spoke from the annex of the Salt Lake Temple and taught: “We want to begin with the end in mind. … The end for which each of us strives is to be endowed with power in a house of the Lord, sealed as families, faithful to covenants made in a temple that qualify us for the greatest gift of God—that of eternal life.”
What a glorious truth to contemplate! Heavenly Father’s plan provides all His children with the opportunity for eternal marriage, family sealings, and eternal life with Him. While none of us know the exact timing of when we will personally receive these blessings, we can faithfully “wait upon the Lord” (2 Nephi 18:17) and trust in His promises.
I urge you to prepare now to receive the promises and blessings of a temple marriage. Those blessings can be yours.
So, my friends, what kind of marriage will you have?