After the vows

When Contessa and John Desser exchanged wedding vows before 300 guests in Destiny Christian Center in Centralia, Wash., 16 months ago, they approached marriage with a thoroughly modern blend of romanticism and realism.

"We knew that every day isn't going to be a dozen roses," Contessa says, explaining that both of them grew up in divorced homes. They even attended premarital counseling sessions to prepare for their life together. "We were planning our marriage," John notes, "not just our wedding."

So when they celebrated their first anniversary at an 18th-century inn in Virginia last fall, they found themselves reflecting on the early months of their marriage with considerable satisfaction.

"It was a great first year," says John, a lobbyist. "There were some difficult times, but the way we chose to deal with them will make every year hereafter even better."

After the wedding gown is put away, the thank-you notes are written, and the romantic whirl of the wedding gives way to the routine demands of everyday life, an age-old task begins: blending two lives and two sets of hopes and dreams.

For every generation, the first year involves basic adjustments: learning to share space and time, and learning to think in terms of "we" instead of "I." But for 21st-century newlyweds, four major social changes are altering the marital landscape when the strains of Lohengrin fade away:

• Many couples have lived together before saying "I do."

• A majority have two careers.

• Many are marrying later than their parents did.

• And a greater number, like the Dessers, come from divorced homes, making them simultaneously more wary of marriage and more determined to make their union succeed.

For couples who live together, the first year of cohabitation often resembles the first year of marriage, but without the honeymoon aura that can ease post-wedding transitions. Just ask Heather and Josh Cole, who lived together for three years before marrying last March.

"The first year was pretty rough," Heather says. "We had to figure out who's going to cook and who's going to clean." After they resolved some of those questions, they began talking about getting married.

Josh, recreation director for the town of Walpole, Mass., describes that period as "a constant report card: Who did more apartment cleaning? Whose family got the most attention on holidays? Who is more invested in the relationship?" They attribute some of that early friction to the impermanence of an unmarried relationship.

"There was nothing there except that we had signed a lease together," says Laura, who handles media relations at Bentley College near Boston. "There wasn't security."

Then they said "I do" before 90 guests at First Baptist Church in Salem, Mass., in a ceremony conducted by a minister who is a friend of Josh's family.

"I'm surprised how much things changed with the wedding," Josh says, relaxing with Heather in the dining room of the 1901 house they bought four months ago. "Now we're on the same team. We're closer than I thought we would be."

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