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In every marriage or serious relationship, there will be difficult and stressful times, some caused by outside events and some caused directly by you or your spouse. It can be healthy and helpful to visit with a marriage counselor to sort out these trouble spots. A counselor offers a neutral ear. There's a place for venting to a friend who will always take your side and there's another place for receiving beneficial and neutral advice. A counselor can also create an atmosphere in which you and your partner will be more open, more honest, and more tactful with each other. How do you know if you need a counselor? Read on for some of the telltale signs:

• What time of year do you want to get married? Are you set on a holiday wedding? Or, perhaps, springtime nuptials? Do you want to get married outside or do you envision a church setting? These are all questions to ask yourself right before you spend a nice afternoon with Google to make sure the location in your head is compatible with the other criteria you've laid out for your wedding day.
• What's the weather like? If you're planning a destination wedding, it's likely the setting is just as important as any other detail. Meaning, if you want a Mexican beach wedding, the weather will be crucial to a happy day. If you want an Irish celebration you'll want to avoid getting married in April -- an unpredictable time of year there. Weather.com is a fantastic resource for all brides-to-be and the site offers regular e-mail updates for the location of your choice.
• How easy will your wedding be to plan? The Internet has made planning a destination wedding much easier these days, but you still want to be sure the place you have chosen has a variety of things you will need for a destination wedding: local and professional vendors, accommodations (hotels, lodges, etc), a nearby airport. You not only want your wedding planning to be as stress-free as possible but you want your guests to enjoy their time there with few headaches.

Well, it would be a bit less than ideal if your mom and his mom actually bought the same dress for the wedding, but what about similar dresses -- say they both wear the same color dress? Is this bad? Some people think the bride's mother picks her dress first and it's the groom's mom's responsibility to make sure she steers clear of anything similar. Others think color coordinated moms make for better wedding photos. Sometimes this kind of thing makes for some competitive feelings between the moms. What do you think?

Is there no end to the magic of Disney? Frogs become princes, elephants can fly, and diamond rings appear out of...trash. While vacationing in the land of Disney, Paul Campanales accidentally threw away his wife's three platinum and diamond engagement, wedding, and anniversary rings when he trashed a cardboard container where she had put the rings for safekeeping overnight. Unlike the guests, rubbish at Disney World has its own roller coaster ride that culminates in a steep drop off into the trash compacter -- from which there is no return. However, when the housekeeper at the Wilderness Lodge realized that the trash had not yet gone to the compacter, he rallied eight hotel staff members in protective clothing to search the trash until they recovered the rings. Going through individual bags of what must be some of the most unmagical trash in the world, the rescue effort took less than three hours. Needless to say, the Campanales were relieved and grateful, especially Mr. Campanales, who was perhaps spared from spending eternity in Ursula's evil underwater lair. As Mrs. Campanales said, "That's five-star service."