START YOUR MARRIAGE
THE SMART WAY
Do you want the 5 year plan or the 50-year plan for your marriage? When it comes to your most valuable relationships, an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.
Do you want the 5 year or the 50 year plan?
START SMART IS A COMPREHENSIVE
PREMARITAL EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
START SMART
(Grant Funded - NO COST)
Through our Federal HEART Grant, engaged couples can go through a 6-week course covering topics like finances, parenting, communication, conflict, expectations, hobbies, career, compatibility, and so much more! This class, usually $199, will be offered at no cost to you. Click on "Grant Funded" classes below to find a Start Smart class near you.
START SMART
(Private)
This option allows couples to go through 5 sessions with a mentor as well as take an in-depth, premarital inventory driven by current research that provides a unique profile of a couple’s relationship, measuring their strengths and growth areas in 13 critical categories needed for a successful marriage.
The couple can use our list of trained coaches to identify a mentor couple to go through mentoring sessions to process Start Smart inventory answers and workbook exercises through targeted discussion. *Please note: Couples should select a mentor before taking the inventory. Live the Life does not assign mentors.
Through the mentoring, you will be taught specific communication and conflict resolution skills crucial to a healthy marriage.
A professionally printed workbook will be shipped to you. The workbook is packed with innovative exercises and meaningful content regarding expectations, finances, personalities and perspectives, sexuality and intimacy, communication, and conflict resolution.
UPCOMING CLASSES
Choose below from a list of classes.
"Grant-funded" events are government sponsored and free of charge.
"Private" events are managed by local venues and will have a cost per couple.
Locations For Start Smart
Click on the button beneath our staff members to email them about Start Smart
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PANAMA CITY
PANAMA CITY
START SMART: MARK AND MISTY
"I cannot express to you how much our Start Smart premarital counseling with you and your precious wife have helped us not merely survive these past 6 years but have enjoyed the past 6 years. We were so blessed to have started our marriage with the wisdom and tools you taught us."
Jessica
"TWO PEOPLE, TWO LIVES"
A section from the article "The case for premarital education, even if your partner is your soulmate"
For Grady and Allison Wright, who live in Pensacola, Florida, that conversation in a marriage preparation class started with exploring how their upbringings shaped their expectations about marriage. The son of a Reformed Presbyterian pastor, Grady, now 22, grew up in a family where his mom took care of most of the chores, so he said he expected the same from his wife. Allison, 24, on the other hand, wanted a husband who did more around the house. Their sessions with a mentor couple through the Florida-based Start Smart program helped the couple address the gap in their expectations. “It could have caused a lot of conflict had we not communicated about it,” Allison said.
At Start Smart, couples can choose a “happily ever after mentoring” option, where they select a mentoring couple and go through up to five individualized sessions, or opt for a four-hour class, where they learn conflict resolution, go through a personality assessment and interact with others in a group setting. “Do you want the 5-year plan or the 50-year plan for your marriage?” the program’s website asks.