Our Story:

            Picture this; my heart is racing as I see all the guests being seated. I am all alone now at the top of these red wood stairs. My father enters the room and we begin to walk down the aisle. I walk softly upon the delicately laid rose petals. I look up and there is my soon to be husband. Right before I reach him at the end of this slow walk, I know absolutely that this moment was meant to happen precisely as we are. I am only 22 years old, and my husband is 23 years old. At this moment age is merely a number. This is the happiest moment of my entire life.

Should Age Dictate Marriage?

           To begin, I wanted to paint a brief picture of our wedding day to get you started and open to the idea of our wedding day. As a disclaimer, I am not an expert and I am merely sharing my ideas on marrying young. There is no single person that can tell you the right time to get married. I feel like there is a bad stigma around marrying young. Some things I hear constantly, “you will grow apart from each other”, “you are not mature enough to get married that young”, “what’s the rush?” Well there really was no rush, but we couldn’t think of a single reason not to get married at the age we did. My real question is why should age dictate when you get married? If you are always planning your life out, you might miss the opportunity that’s right in front of your face.

5 Reasons to Get Married Young:

Reason 1: There is No Guaranteed Tomorrow.

• There is no guaranteed tomorrow. Let the first topic be the one that really smacks you in the gut. Life is not guaranteed. This one hits close to home for me. My husband and I talk about how glad we are that we got married when we did. We got married in September of 2016, shortly after my grandpa became extremely sick. I believe this was his last real event that he was able to attend. He passed away just over two months later.
• When we originally were picking our wedding date, we had thought about waiting another 7 months and getting married the following May. If we would’ve waited, my grandfather wouldn’t have been there to see us get married and be a part of this special day. This changed how we viewed life. We needed to live in the moment, and not worry about creating this perfect timeline. Truly there is no perfect timeline, there is no guarantee that we get a tomorrow, we need to appreciate every minute that we are given. Appreciating for us was really about leaning into our emotions and listening to them.

Reason 2:It’s not easy, but you’ll grow together.

• Let me be the first one to say it’s not easy. We can’t pretend to paint a perfect picture. What I can tell you is that it’s the most fun you’ll ever have. When we got married, we actually never had lived together. So once the honeymoon was over we had to figure out life very quickly. We had zero ideas on what being a real adult was like. The first time our pipe under the sink broke, it took us way longer than I will admit fixing it. It took many YouTube videos, several phone calls to my father, our entire tool kit, some swear words and lots and lots of time to fix it. The end result is that we worked together to find a solution. Then and now, we continue to grow together. We’re young and although we change individually, we also change in our marriage and have progression there too. The fun is that each time something breaks, or we have a new crazy idea for our house, we do it together. Trust me when I say neither one of us are carpenters, but we will learn how to be. There is a stigma that you should wait to get married until you are done changing, and you know yourself fully. I would argue this is false. Again, it goes back to some of my earlier points. If you say, for example, you won’t get married until you are the age 35, trust me you will still be changing as a person. Your better half should encourage you to better yourself, as they do the same. This really keeps the marriage always “fresh”.

Reason 3: You’ll Appreciate Your Life More When You’re Older.

• Let’s next talk about appreciation of life. Getting married young can be finically challenging. My husband had his career and schooling completed already. However, I did not. In fact, I am still in school. Sure, it would be nice to both be done with school and be able to afford the more frivolous items in life. Instead of buying things that make us happy, we make sure to make each other happy, or instead of going out to dinner, we will cook together at home and try out a new recipe. We rent a movie rather than go see one. It could be staying home, and not spending thousands on a trip. We are always trying to communicate and spend time with each other. Trying to enjoy playing monopoly even when it’s the end of the night and all you want to do is relax and watch TV, we still do this. No, it’s not a child’s game. It’s a chance to communicate with your spouse instead of focusing on mindless television. All of this time, that might seem like we are “poor” in life, actually makes us “rich” emotionally. We will continue to appreciate all of this relationship building into our later years. We know how to break it down to the basics and work on what is truly important.

Reason 4: You’ll Never Stop Dating.

• Moving into our next topic let’s talk about dating. Don’t worry, I’m not crazy, I know we’re married, but why does the dating have to stop? Why should the little surprises, or fun ideas come to a halt just because you’re married? I’m going to tell you it doesn’t, and it shouldn’t have to. It’s easy to fall into a rut, to continue with normalcy in our everyday life, and get into this routine that you have without even knowing it. Being young you’ll crave that new experience, so do it together. Create that date. Small or large, cheap or expensive, just do it. I hear older couples constantly say this is the key to marriage. So, start young, keep dating each other always. Keep surprising each other. Surprises don’t have to be big. It can simply be grabbing their favorite candy bar while you’re at the grocery store or watching a movie of their choice tonight. Plan a surprise picnic, go on that evening walk, do something together. Bottom line is don’t be afraid to ask your spouse out on a date. Being young means you can be creative and keep astonishing each other.

Reason 5: You’re Too Immature.

• Lastly, I want to talk about some assumptions. I heard this statement from several different parties, that being young and immature will cause issues in marriage. That you have not experienced enough life to make a conscious decision for the rest of your lives. You might be wondering why I included this because it’s something that’s negative. I included this because, you can say that you beat this statement. You are working as a couple to become mature. I will be the first to say that I was immature when we got married. Before I got married you couldn’t even walk into my room without stepping on every piece of clothing I own. Now when you walk into our house, I cringe if anything is out of place or laying on the ground. I have grown into the adult I have always wanted to be, I owe this all to my wonderful husband. Don’t let the negative voices bring you down, instead turn those into challenges. Beat the odds and become the person you knew you always could be.

The Take Away Message…

In the end, after I have looked at all of this, the real take away message is that I nor anybody else can tell you when the perfect time to get married is. There is no set age, or requirement. I encourage you that when you feel like you are ready then jump right into it. Don’t worry about stigmas, or if you are too young. Marriage is fun and challenging. Marriage is the best part of your life. The only advice given here is not to get caught up in worrying about what others will think. Take every minute in and relish in the joys of marriage and a full heart. Create your case now! Thank you for reading, if you are interested in learning more about our The We Spot community find us on Facebook.