Any other young brides-to-be? Or long engagements?

ipwtfa91

I got engaged September 6th but was holding off on planning too much because we were thinking 2013 for the date. A few days ago we agreed we could move it up to September 3rd, 2012. I know it's still far away but I'm so ecstatic I couldn't contain myself. My fiance is turning 20 in April and I turn 19 in July, so that puts us at 22 and 21 for our wedding. I was just hoping to connect with some other Oregon brides-to-be!

Portland09102011

Congrats! I'm not too young, but am planning a long engagement. I'm a little commitment phobic, not just about the marriage but even committing to a caterer makes me nervous. I never thought I'd be married before 30, but our 9-10-11 date will put me at 28 and FI at 29. I love that we can take our time, compare prices for vendors, save money, and have it be low stress. We just booked Edgefield, so I don't think I have any more work to do for a good year. 

ipwtfa91

Committing to caterer makes you nervous? May I ask why? Yeah, marriage is mildly frightening. I'm not so much afraid of committing as I am afraid of regretting missing out on something because I'm young, but I think it'll all turn out fine. I've had plenty of experiences. 

Edgefield's a cool venue. I'm not sure where we're having our ceremony but I've been looking at parks with covered areas (ones that look more classy than others, obviously). My fiance thinks it's doable to have it in his parents' backyard because it is HUGE, but they have a lot of landscaping to do and I don't want to put pressure on them.

lindseroo

Yes to both!  My fiance and I got engaged July 24th, and are getting married March 19, 2011.  I just turned 20 in August, and he is 22 (to be 23 in May).  So I will be 21 at our wedding, and he will be 23.  People keep telling me I'm crazy, so I'm sure you get that too, being younger.  Who cares?  Tell them you're happy and that's all that matters!  Lol.  I never wanted to be married so young (or at least I never intended to be), but it's a right person at the right time kind of thing.  I think it would be silly to wait five more years to marry the person I know I'm supposed to be with!  (P.S. We will have been together for a little over three years when we get married.  How long have you been together??  Just curious )

jennylee753

I think you girls are smart.  Yes, you are young but you are doing long engagements.  If you were doing really short engagements I'd probably be in that boat with other people and tell you to wait a bit.

I have/had a long engagement too.  I got engaged on Dec 31, 2008 and will be married March 20, 2010.  Long engagements are awesome.  When we get married we will have been together 6 years.  Oh and I'm 25, 26 next month... so I could ALMOST be in the young crowd... right? :-)

ipwtfa91

Jennylee: That's how I feel. Everyone who knows me and my fiance know we are logical and responsible, and no one's really given us a hard time about it.

Lindseroo: First off, I live in Albany!!! What's your fiance's name, if you don't mind me asking? I've known my fiance for 9 years! I remember seeing him in grade school when he brough his dog for show and tell and I thought he was super cute We hung out a little bit when I was in 8th and 9th grade, then unofficially dated November 2006 and were an "official couple" by September 2007. So we dated for two years before engagement and we will have dated for five years before marriage. And we'll have known each other for 12 years!

Also, I know how you feel. When I was little I swore to myself I wouldn't get married till I was like 30 Hah! I also said I would never do long distance relationships but that changed too. Things seem to do that when you find the right person

Portland09102011

ipwtfa91 - it's the deposits that freak me out. I don't want to end up making the wrong choice and spend a bagillion dollars with a vendor that isn't right for us. We bought a house together this summer and I almost had a heart attack when I had to sign over my life savings. Since then I haven't had any buyers remorse that everyone warned me about though. We will have been together 7 years when we get married. I have a friend getting married in a few months on her 10 year anniversary.

ipwtfa91

Ahhh, I see. I'm really sticking to casual outdoor venues (if not a backyard wedding) so hopefully that won't be a problem. I can imagine how you feel though. We all think about those "what ifs..."

ipwtfa91

My sister graduated West in 2005 and my fiance and I both graduated there 2008. That's so funny!

lindseroo

That's awesome!

kat_hi

another long engagement here.  FI and I have known eachother since primary school, but werent friends till high school.  we dated in college and have been engaged since xmas 2007. we'll be engaged 2.5 years before we are wed in august 2010.  we've been together officially for 7 or so years (i'm bad at keeping track).  his best friend dated for several years off and on with the same girl. they got married after 5 months of engagement at age 20 and 21 (he was 21).  Luckily they are still together, but we are seeing some strains to the relationship coming out and it saddens us.

DramaGeek

I was a young bride, once upon a time.  Now I'm just an old hag   I was 20 when wegot engaged, 21 (nearly 22!) when we got married.  H was 21 when we got engaged and 22 when we got married.  We got married 3 weeks before my 22nd birthday.

We did not have a long engagement though.  13 months.  Well, in some circles I suppose that's long, but for us it was just right.

We did get a lot of the "you're so young, you're making a mistake, why not wait," etc. but we were ready.  We knew we'd encounter a lot of that, and while we didn't care what the general public thought we did want to make sure we had the answers because we worried about questions from the parents, my parents in particular.  We spent 4 full days going through all the finances and working on every scenario we could think of that could come up in questions - how would we support ourselves, where would we live (H lived at home till we got married, I was in college living with roommates, and we lived an hour apart), etc.  We had a well thought out answer for *everything* and it made it a lot easier for us to dismiss the naysayers.

I can't say it's been an easy 7 years, but it's been mostly enjoyable and even the hard times have proven to make us better as a couple.  I absolutely do not feel that I missed out on my youth or anything like that, and either does H.  Actually, his only regret is that he never went away to college and lived in a dorm and/or with roommates.  He never lived in a college town and got that experience.  That's not anything I stopped him from doing though!

Anyway, don't let anyone tell you it's bad or whatever - we were young and now we have three degrees and 3 cars between us, all paid off, and own two homes.  Pretty sure it didn't screw up our lives or throw us into poverty!

cupcakepirate

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_oregon_other-young-brides-long-engagements?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:119Discussion:a5f3a3fc-f823-47c8-bef5-b340d2600c8aPost:b4b4c5fc-f44a-45b6-a049-6c7231a48787">Re: Any other young brides-to-be? Or long engagements?</a>:
[QUOTE]What?  Another person from the wonderful city of Albany??  Lol...so cool.  Where did you go to high school?  My fiance's name is Bryan Hall, he graduated from West in '05.  I went to Santiam Christian (graduated in '07) so I'm a little bit out of the general Albany loop lol.
Posted by lindseroo[/QUOTE]


Just a little FYI on internet safety. You may want to edit this post, as this is a public forum and you're putting out a ton of personal information here... As cool as everyone here seems, lots of lurkers have access to these forums, and it could lead to a something potentially bad. We've recently had an issue with it on the Seattle forums. I'd at least take care to edit out last names and such.
 

kat_hi

Drama Geek. You guys did it right. You made sure to ask the right questions of yourselves. I love hearing stories like yours. (i see often times that couples do not really talk about the big questions ie: money and family. then it has repercussions in the future).

DramaGeek

Thanks Kat.  We like to think we did ok   It was funny, our pastor requires premarital counseling, but when we got into it and he realized we'd already discussed everything he wanted to discuss he was like, "well, normally this is where we find out there are some major differences in opinion, but obviously you've already talked these things through.  So, what are you guys doing for spring break?" 

lindseroo

Cupcake Pirate:

I deleted the post, but what bad could possibly happen from our full names?  Plus, if someone links to my profile, then to my wedding website, they can find out 50 times the information on us.

ipwtfa91

DramaGeek: Wow! Three cars and two houses? Jealous! If you feel liking getting one of those houses of your hands cheap...let me know! Just kidding, but that is something FH and I are really looking forward to having. It's nice to hear you say you don't feel like you missed out on your youth, because that is something I worry about. However, I lived in dorms out-of-state from FH and endured a long distance relationship, then we lived together, and now we're back in our hometown and we go back and forth between our parents houses (just to save money for now). This is the hardest living arrangement we've had, but I know if we can tolerate it we can definitely do fine with just each other

DramaGeek

ipwtfa - hee hee!  Being a landlord was H's dream from a young age.  I'm just along for the ride   Thankfully we've got good renters.  I wouldn't want to be along for the ride if they weren't.

DramaGeek

lindseroo, in the past (wayyyyy long time ago when I was in planning mode) we actually had people whose wedding plans were changed/cancelled by jerks who got their info from the board.  It was awful.  They had enough info that the people at the venues/vendors believed them.  Huge, major fiasco, obviously.  The more info you keep private, the better off you are.

Portland09102011

Drama Geek - you have to tell the whole the story now. Why would anyone want to cancel someone else's wedding? That sounds like a corny movie. I worry about online stalkers or identity theft because you you actually here about those things happening. Never heard of this though.

DramaGeek

Why did they do it?  Because people are mean and they suck.  Let me talk to some other girls who were around at the time and see if anyone remembers the details.  It's been a good 8 years since that happened so I don't really remember.

ipwtfa91

My date just changed...I'm very excited. I'm a 9/10/11 bride-to-be now!!!

Portland09102011

Yeah! Best date ever. If you'll be 21 and 22 in 2012, will that mean one of you won't be allowed to drink at your own reception in 2011?

ipwtfa91

I know, at first I did NOT want to get married before 21 but as all our family says, we're practically already married now. Plus I'm sure I'll be able to get away with some champagne I'm not a much of a drinker anyway.

mariacapponi

You guys are all going to be fine... we got engaged 12-24-2006 and are getting married on 5-28-2011 on our 5 year anniversary! long engagements are fun just enjoy it and enjoy planning and dont miss the wedding shows vendors will be giving special prices for only people that were at the show!!!!

crystalharward

I am getting married in June and have been planning for a year and a half, its good to plan ahead its less stressful when it gets closer especially when you are doing everyting diy! I am 21 and my finace is 24 we have waited 5 years to get married so i am soo excited! Congrats on your engagement

KatelynS07

Congrats to all of you! I am going to be a 9/10/11 bride as well, and we are both 19, turning 20 this May. My goal was to be 21 before we got married, which we will be. My only real regret is that we will both still have a year left of college after we get married. We moved in together this past September, after looking through finances, especially school and living expenses, and while money is tight when I'm in the slow part of my work year, we definitely do not regret moving in together or getting engaged at an early age.
 I was wondering how far the 2011 brides have gotten in their planning? We put the deposit down a month ago on a killer photographer that we found. I think we may have found our venue also, just outside of Hood River. It's a beautiful bed and breakfast with fields of sunflowers, lavender, and wildflowers.
My fiance and I have been together for almost 2 years as of now, and it will be 3 1/2 by the wedding. He has gotten quite a bit of the "But you're so young, why would you want to get married?" questions from his family, but my parents and grandparents got married at 19 and 22, so they have been very supportive and love my fiance to death! I know it can be really hard when everyone starts questioning you, but stick with it. After all, only the two of you know how right you are for each other!

lindseroo

You're farther into planning than I am!  We are restricted by both a large guest list (350) and a tight budget ($5,000) so we haven't really even found any venues that we could possibly book yet!  Ugh!  And my wedding is just over 14 months away.  It goes by fast!

Portland09102011

We booked Edgefield. If we didn't have a 2 year engagement that wouldn't even be an option. Now and then I look for wedding related stuff when I'm at the store. I bought some cute baskets for guests in the restrooms the other day at goodwill. I was thinking of waiting until next year to start booking other vendors.

Carabear1985

Sort of! I don't know if I will qualify as young (I'm turning 25 in April and will be 26 by the time we get married). I just got engaged in December 2009 and our wedding date is in Sept 2011. I didn't think it was THAT long, but a lot of people in my family were like, "Oh, so you're going to wait awhile huh?" and my fiance's grandmother asked for an explanation (very nicely, I might add, she's a terrific woman) as to why we were waiting so long haha.

I like the idea of having the wedding over a year away. I'm a planner and I like to have time to set things up (plus I read enough advice on here and watch enough wedding shows to know you really should plan ahead for everything), plus we just moved in to our first place together and I just started a new job so yea, taking it slow seems the smarter thing to do. Plus we've been together for almost 5 years, so what's another year and 8 months anyway? 

brandy503

i have not seen this place my friend just recommended it to me, its Laurelhurst club, and their number is 5032350015, and i was told they charge $795 for seven hours....