Intentional Love: Premarital Cruise Retreats
Begin your marriage the way you hope to live it — connected, intentional, and fully present.
Join us for a weeklong premarital retreat aboard a safe & affirming cruise, where meaningful relationship work meets rest, romance, & adventure.
Imagine learning, growing, preparing, and connecting during the day — then walking hand-in-hand to dinner, the spa, or a sunset on deck at night. Therapy and vacation don’t have to be separate things. Here, they support each other.
Gottman Intimacy & Emotional Safety
Guided exercises that deepen trust, friendship, and physical connection — helping you talk openly about desire, expectations, and what keeps closeness alive over decades.
Prepare/Enrich Premarital Curriculum
A research-based framework that helps you understand strengths, stress points, communication styles, finances, family expectations, and long-term goals — giving you language for conversations most couples never think to have.
Practical, modern tools for dividing responsibilities, emotional labor, and invisible tasks so your life together feels collaborative instead of overwhelming.
Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play System
Workshops are primarily small group and experiential
Get wedding-ready with your partner(s) and an amazing group of soon-to-be-wed couples/constellations! Our group-formatted retreat turns marriage preparation into an unforgettable experience. Enjoy the energy of learning, discussing, and celebrating together. You’ll leave empowered with tools, new friendships, and a supportive community to help you navigate your big day and beyond.
I personally lead each retreat, bringing over ten years of experience as a licensed professional counselor with a background in marriage and family therapy. My style is warm, affirming, and down-to-earth — creating a space where you can be honest, playful, reconnect, and grow together. My goal is simple: to help you enjoy each other deeply and build skills that keep the little things from creating distance. Supported by a small, caring team, every detail is designed to feel intentional, relaxed, and genuinely fun.
Expert Facilitation
Your love is beautiful, and it deserves to be celebrated in safety. We welcome LGBTQ+ relationships, monogamous couples, polyamorous groups, and allies. Our premarital retreats are curated to be a fully inclusive, affirming, and safe space for people that are queer, trans, and allies to honor their commitments.
Safe and Supportive Space
Who these retreats are for
This cruise retreat series is designed specifically for engaged couples who want to enter marriage with clarity, intention, and a deeper understanding of how they work as a team. There will also be future dates that focus on couples who want to reconnect, realign, and deepen intimacy — even years into marriage.
They are for relationships who value thoughtful conversation, emotional awareness, and shared responsibility—and who recognize that a strong partnership is built not only on love, but on communication, equity, and mutual care. You may already feel deeply connected and simply want to strengthen your foundation, or you may be noticing areas where expectations, stress, or unspoken assumptions could use more attention.
This experience is well suited for couples seeking a secular, research-informed approach to premarital preparation—one that honors individuality while supporting partnership. It’s for those who are open to guided reflection, meaningful dialogue, and practical tools they can continue using long after the weekend ends.
Couples of all genders and sexual orientations are welcome here. LGBTQ+ couples, allies, and community members are an integral part of this retreat space. Couples in monogamous or ethically non-monogamous relationships are invited to participate in a way that respects their agreements and relationship structure, without judgment or assumption.
Above all, these retreats are for couples who want to be intentional about building a marriage that feels sustainable, equitable, and aligned with who they are.
A Week at Sea: What Your Experience Might Feel Like
Each retreat blends meaningful guided work with spacious time to explore, rest, and enjoy the cruise. Sea days include approximately five hours of facilitated group learning and connection. Port days and evenings remain open for adventure, integration, and couples or group fun.
Because space is intentionally limited, all couples begin with a short consultation to ensure this retreat is the perfect fit.
🚢 Embarkation + Engagement Celebration
Settle into your cabin aboard Adventure of the Seas , unpack, and exhale. That evening, join us for a private Engagement Celebration & Welcome Party — a relaxed cocktail hour where you’ll meet the other couples, set intentions for the week, and toast the beginning of this next chapter together. A joyful, low-pressure evening designed to help everyone feel safe and welcomed. You’ll leave knowing names, faces, and feeling like you’re part of something special.
🌊Sea Days: The “work”, if you can call it that
We begin with immersive group work focused on relationship foundations: communication patterns, shared values, and building emotional safety. Expect guided conversations, interactive exercises, and practical tools you can use immediately.
Then we do some work that is deeply practical and surprisingly fun. This part of the work prevents years of resentment. Through guided activities and honest conversations, you’ll design/build upon a partnership that feels equitable and sustainable. You’ll clarify expectations around household labor, money, family, and invisible mental load — before they become stressors.
And we can’t forget about intimacy! You’ll be learning how to stay erotically connected over a lifetime—through seasons, stress, aging, and change
As part of your onboarding packet, you’ll be able to let us know your favorite cruise activities that you prefer not to miss. We’ll strategically take breaks to make sure that even the daytime fun is not interrupted.
By dinnertime each day, you’ll already feel more aligned and connected — and the rest of the evening is yours to enjoy the ship and friendships you’ll likely be forging.
🌴 Port Days – Integration + Adventure
These days are intentionally unstructured even though there’s still available support. Take your new skills into the real world — explore, play, rest, and create memories together. Practice what you’ve learned while ziplining, wandering cobblestone streets, or relaxing on the beach. Think of these days as real-life practice; simply experiencing your relationship with new tools, clarity, and confidence. Many couples find that the conversations flow a little easier and the connection feels a little steadier. Not because anything was “wrong,” but because you’re moving through the week with more intention.
For couples wanting extra support, you may choose to schedule a private session or invite me along for concierge-style guidance during an activity or excursion.
As a wedding gift from me, to you: An engagement photo session that can be organized on the boat or at a special port location as well as enough spa credit to each enjoy a luxurious massage!
🚢 Sailing away into wedded bliss
By the end of the week, you won’t feel like you’ve been in therapy — you’ll feel prepared.
Prepared for the stress of wedding planning.
Prepared for real-life logistics.
Prepared for the quiet, everyday parts of marriage that matter most.
You’ll have inside jokes from the week.
New friendships.
Shared clarity.
And the quiet confidence that you chose to start your marriage intentionally.
You’ll leave with a clear sense of how you want to show up for each other — not just on your wedding day, but five, ten, and twenty years from now.
You may be asking, why therapy at sea? Why invest in premarital work?
Planning a wedding asks a lot of your time and attention. Building a marriage deserves the same care. Most premarital counseling happens in short weekly sessions, woven into already full lives. Important conversations begin, pause, and wait for the next opening on the calendar. Insight arrives—but momentum is hard to hold. The work competes with work, planning stress, and daily responsibilities.
A retreat offers something fundamentally different. By stepping away together, you create a rare kind of focus. For a few days, your relationship becomes the center of attention—not something squeezed in between meetings or postponed for later. Without the usual start-and-stop rhythm, couples are able to go deeper, connect more fully, and make meaning in real time. This immersive format allows space for thoughtful reflection, guided conversation, and practical skill-building to unfold naturally. Instead of rushing through topics, there is time to sit with them—to notice patterns, ask better questions, and understand one another more clearly. Insight doesn’t have to be remembered later; it can be integrated immediately.
The retreat setting matters, too. Surrounded by the natural beauty of water and beautiful shorelines, built in activities and excursions meant to bring about laughter and connection... couples are invited to slow down, breathe, and reconnect—not just intellectually, but emotionally. Creating core memories together supports regulation, presence, and perspective, making it easier to have conversations that feel grounded rather than overwhelming.
This experience is not about fixing what’s broken. It’s about strengthening what matters most before life speeds up again. It’s about building shared language around communication, responsibility, and expectations—so that when challenges arise, you already know how to meet them together. A relationship retreat is an investment in your future partnership. The time, attention, and intention you bring into these few days can shape years of shared life, offering clarity, confidence, and a deeper sense of alignment as you move toward marriage.
Who these retreats are NOT for
This retreat is not the right fit for every couple, and that clarity is an important part of creating a meaningful experience for everyone involved.
These retreats are not designed for couples seeking faith-based or religious premarital counseling, or for those looking for a purely social or unstructured getaway. It may also not be appropriate if one or both partners are unwilling to actively engage in the process or are attending primarily to meet an expectation rather than from shared interest.
Couples navigating acute relationship crises, unresolved ongoing infidelity without accountability, or concerns related to emotional or physical safety may benefit more from individualized support before participating in a group retreat setting.
This experience works best for couples who are ready to show up with openness, mutual respect, and a willingness to reflect together. If you’re unsure whether this format is right for you, a consultation conversation can help clarify next steps.
