Okay, so my parents say that they don't want me to get married until after I graduate or else they won't come to the wedding. They say there is no way I'll be financially prepared, no matter what numbers and scholarships I show them. I can't prove I'm ready by making it on my own next year, either, because "ready" to them is "having a bachelor's" at least. I've already heard from a few people that having gotten married in college turned out great for them, and I was wondering how many more out there felt the same way, and why. My fiancee and I really feel it is in our best interest to have the wedding next summer, and his parents think that that is great, but mine are not budging from their position; I feel like it's just become a "who can be the most stubborn" thing. I realize that I'm only 18 (though I'll be 20 by the date we're planning to get married), and that age is probably a factor, but I'm looking for any reasons to or to not (any advice is welcome) get married during college.

Thanks for all your help!

EDIT: I decided to include a poll just so I could get an idea of the number of married couples here at Rolla without relying solely on replies.

Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't get married at 20 whether I was a billionaire with a PhD or a high school dropout bum working at mcdonalds. It just seems too young.

I tend to agree with devil here. While getting married is a very good thing IMO, I also think there are maby things that you will want to do without having to take a new husband/wife along for. I have met very few females with the same tastes as me, in terms of activities/hobbies/things I want to do at least once.

Hey, I'll be the first to say it's all very situational. I got married the summer after I finished my first year of grad school. My wife is two years older than me and she graduated with her master's one year before we got married (we got married the summer of '05). She was able to spend that year of being unmarried and graduated to save up money for the wedding. She would have prefered to get married the summer before (I wanted to wait) but I'm not entirely sure she thought it thru all the way.

Anyways, it's totally up to you. If neither of you are graduated (i.e. not making much money), it won't be easy. My wife is a teacher and I'm a grad student and we're actually managing to save quite a bit of money, but still less than I had hoped. I can only imagine how it'd be if one of us wasn't working or both even.

Just keep in mind that once you get married, lots of "unspoken" expenses will creep up on you. I understand that now I'm an independent person but I must admit I wasn't fully ready to have my parents (and her parents) say "all the insurance, etc is now your business." Mind you, I've been lucky with my parents basically paying for all that shit up til I got married, but it's still surprising to realize Health insurance will be like $100 a month, car insurance is around $500 every 6 months, you'll be splitting rent and utilities only "2 ways" or "1 way" depending on how you think about it.

I'll also throw out there that having a long engagement is quite nice (I was engaged for ~1.5 years). It gave me plenty of time to get "most" of my single-guy mindset out and plenty of time to get accustomed to the idea of being married soon.

Not a lot of advice there, more of a story. If you'd like to talk in more detail, I'd be more than happy, just send me a PM.

I agree with sonicpulsar. Everyone's situation is different. In my case, my wife and I got married my soph/junior year (transfered, dont ask). I was 21 and she was 18 but we had dated for 4 years. Both of our parents were all for it but it is not the easiest thing in the world to keep up with all the scheduling when both of you are working full time and taking classes full time. Especially when a little one (or two) comes along. I now have two boys and let me tell you its very difficult when kids enter the picture. My advice would be for both of you to think about why you want to get married when you do instead of waiting till after graduation and if you're both on the same track (which it seems like you are) then go for it, but wait on the kiddies of course. If you're not quite on the same track then waiting might be better for you. Again, it all depends on your individual situation. A little soul searching seems in order.

Hope I was some help.

If your parents are saying they don't want you to get married because you haven't graduated, that's just plain ign'ant. I'll be getting married this summer, I'll barely be 21, but I'll have graduated. My fiance will be 20 and not have graduated. In fact she might have to switch majors when we move. We would have gotten married earlier (probably) had we lived in the same town (she's in Columbia). Anyway, my advice is to wait a bit before you decide a date. That will give you time to decide what you really want. If your planned wedding date is ~1.5 years off, just wait 8 months to decide. Then if you still want to have it then, do it. (10 months is really plenty of time to plan a wedding, my sister did one in 5 days...) Tell your parnts that you are getting married then, and it is really important that they be there. If they don't come... well then they're not very good parents in my book.

Well, since we're all sharing our personal experiences, I'll do mine. My fiance and I have been dating for 3 years. I'm finishing my MS degree this May and have a job lined up when I get out. She has 2 more years in med school up at UMKC, then several years of residency after that.

We decided our best bet was that I wanted to know where my next real paycheck was going to come from before I asked her to marry me. Hence, when I got the job lined up, we decided to get married. Our wedding is coming up in July. It's going to be nice that we have a real income to start paying her loans off with and to get her through her first couple years of residency ($30,000/yr residency salary with $300,000+ loans accruing interest doesn't work very well). I don't think it would have worked very well if we tried to do it before I graduated and had all the expenses our parents try to help us with all shoved on us as well as everything else.

On the flip side, are my parents. They got married my dad's senior year in college and my mom's junior. They had $1000 to their name. My mom packed all her belongings in my dad's trunk after the wedding. They got married in Delaware, and had to be back at school in Michigan (Kettering, formerly GMI Institute) the next Tuesday. They drove to their honeymoon (one night at Niagra/Toronto) and then continued to school. After my dad graduated he got a job in Lansing (2 hours away from GMI) and my mom finished her last year, seeing eachother most weekends. Now they're comfortable and wouldn't have changed anything. So I guess it can work.

My thoughts: give it some serious thinking. Remember that marriage is just a public statement of your vows that hopefully you two have already made to eachother in private. There are some great reasons to get married... but not really many that make it necessary to rush into it. Make SURE that you are able to financially support yourselves, because I'm sure you don't need the extra stress of living in a cardboard box to go with schooling. But if you feel you truly are ready and capable, don't let your parents stand in your way. Accept their opinions, consider them honestly (they have gone through MUCH more life than us), and make the decision that is right for you two.

And make sure you have a long engagement for his sake. Me and Sonic were out all night 365/year partying before his wedding.

Yeah, Jon's told me about your family after I've talked about this with him. Anyway, Kathryn and I have been dating for 3 years this upcoming May 1st. We've been engaged for about 8 months now, and will have had almost a two year engagement by the time we plan (at this point) on getting married. Here's my take on the situation: I'm not mad that her parents are opposed to our getting married early. Seriously. However, what bothers me to no end is the demeaning and rude way they treat both myself and their own daughter. If you recall, this is the family that pulled a knife on me.

/Sidetrack

Anyway, they want to know that we're financially responsible. Fine, I throw numbers around and explain the fact that I know there are unexpected (very large) expenses and we'll need to save, so we're getting out of the dorms (God bless Res. College, but $5500 a year is way too much, even if Rolla is paying for it for me), working full time, and working towards our degrees. We will have no (yes, you read that right, no) debts strictly speaking from college expenses (unless the government arbitrarily decides to cut off our scholarships) and at this point Rolla is paying for us to go to school. Above all else, we realize the world isn't going to bend over for us. We know it will be tough (but you know what, getting married at anytime will be a major shift, regardless of when it takes place). My dad was 21 and my mom was 18 (two months out of high school) when they got married (and ironically moved to Rolla), and their lives turned out pretty damn good.

But nothing is good enough for her parents. "You never know what could happen." Well, damnit, that doesn't just apply to marriage and shouldn't be a deterrent to getting married. The one thing that truly makes me mad above everything else is the fact that they make petty threats to Kathryn, like, "Your father won't walk you down the aisle." Seriously? Because we're not getting married the same time you guys did?

Ah, but I'm ranting. I've tried, and tried, and tried to befriend my future in-laws, and every attempt to no avail. When they've attacked me personally, I blew it off, after I called the cops because their other daughter drew a knife on me and they consequently blamed the situation on Kathryn, I let it go, but there comes a point when something has to be done. My in-laws are alienating my fiancee. Kathryn wants nothing more than for everyone to be happy, and it breaks my heart when ever I see anyone hurt her, but for her own family to give her no support when she so desperately needs it is absurd. I'm tired of their crap, their petty insults, their conniving, manipulative behavior, and above all their treatment of their own daughter. I love Kathryn with all of my heart, and, by God, if we've decided to get married, that's what we're going to do, regardless of her parent's behavior.

I took a couple of Sundays off over the summers so it was closer to 363/year.

I don't have anything useful to add here. It just blows my mind all the young people who are married or engaged. Thats just because I haven't been in a long term relationship yet (probably because I was not outgoing at ALL during high school or most of college, plus the choices of college didn't help).

I'm not demeaning it by any means, it just suprises me how many people seem to be getting married before or the second they are done with college. It'll be quite some time before I'm married, I'd say 3-5 years at the minimum. But, thats just because I don't have any prospects at the moment.

Good luck with your situation. That would really suck to have parents being that unsupportive (even if it is only on the one issue).

Spudgunr, it'll sneak up on you.

In the space of two years, I met, shunned, noticed, liked, dated, engaged, and married the love of my life. We were engaged for a whole 4 months, after dating for 1 year.

Once you know who you are going to marry (and once you understand that marriage is for life) I think the question is: why wait? It's just going to cause problems.

We had a similar situation, I was a senior (22) and she was a sophomore (20). Her parents didn't want us to get married until both of us graduated. We promised that she would finish school. We (respectfully) told them we had made up our minds. We had a financial plan, and had saved up enough for a small wedding and didn't need mommy and daddy's money to get married. They saw that we were going to get married, and they didn't want to be left out. So they threw a huge wedding and now they're glad they did.

If your own parents (especially the parents of a girl!) are threatening to not come to your wedding, they're bluffing. There's no way your parents are going to miss out on your wedding. If they would willingly miss it, they're coldhearted bastards and you're better off without them.

That said, money is going to be a huge issue.

It's not like living with a roommate, where your expenses are about 2/3 what they would be living by yourself. It costs more than living by yourself. You don't know what crazy stuff you'll have to pay for. Unless you both have jobs on top of school, don't even consider it. I'm all for getting married young-ish, but honestly, if you don't both have jobs, it's gonna suck.

So right when seek went down I had this whole long thing typed out, so heres the short version.
1. They are bluffing about not coming to the wedding.
2. I f you are financially set go for it
2.a. I got married in December, but my wife works full time and is not a student. Sometimes money is a little short but It has been great and I wouldn't change a thing.
2.b. I think it is good for a couple to start out with not alot of money (so long as they can at least scrape by) It makes you work together to make it, so you appreciate each other alot more.

I think thats the short version, if I think of something I missed, I'll post again later.

your parents are deff full of shit. they just want you to feel guilty

Take it from me...if this woman is the real thing then it will last. No point in rushing it.

And yet, no point in waiting...

I get your point, but there is absolutely NO reason to let your parents affect your decision if they are acting like CHILDREN. That would only encourage their behavior, and make them say they will boycot ______ any time that they can't get their way...