Just Engaged and Starting Law School This Fall!

lilyjean95

Hello everyone!

My boyfriend of 4 years surprised me in January and proposed! We are so excited for this next phase in our lives, and can't wait to get married. However, this fall I will be starting law school. Currently we are semi-long distance (2.5 hr drive - we see each other every other weekend give or take), and will be while I'm in law school as well. Originally we were thinking of getting married during fall of 3L, but then I realized that I won't know my schedule then and who knows what my workload will be like the week of the wedding! I want to enjoy my wedding, not studying for an exam minutes before the ceremony hahaha. So, we decided to push back the date to sometime in Fall of 2021. The long engagement is not ideal, but we both want me to do well in law school and focus on that while I'm there. Getting married in the summers between is not ideal because (1) I don't like wearing formal attire in warm weather and (2) I'd like to focus on my summer internships in order to secure a job at graduation. Getting married during winter break wouldn't be ideal either because we have family from out of town that we would like to be there, and it's hard with the expensive holiday travel to get everyone in. 

Is a 3.5 year engagement too long? Are there any other law students on here who managed to pull off a wedding when they were in school? I'd love any advice or input! 

charlotte989875

knottieca89f066c2b5406b said:

Hello everyone!

My boyfriend of 4 years surprised me in January and proposed! We are so excited for this next phase in our lives, and can't wait to get married. However, this fall I will be starting law school. Currently we are semi-long distance (2.5 hr drive - we see each other every other weekend give or take), and will be while I'm in law school as well. Originally we were thinking of getting married during fall of 3L, but then I realized that I won't know my schedule then and who knows what my workload will be like the week of the wedding! I want to enjoy my wedding, not studying for an exam minutes before the ceremony hahaha. So, we decided to push back the date to sometime in Fall of 2021. The long engagement is not ideal, but we both want me to do well in law school and focus on that while I'm there. Getting married in the summers between is not ideal because (1) I don't like wearing formal attire in warm weather and (2) I'd like to focus on my summer internships in order to secure a job at graduation. Getting married during winter break wouldn't be ideal either because we have family from out of town that we would like to be there, and it's hard with the expensive holiday travel to get everyone in. 

Is a 3.5 year engagement too long? Are there any other law students on here who managed to pull off a wedding when they were in school? I'd love any advice or input! 

3.5 years is only too long if you feel like you'd want to be married before then. 

I'm a pre-law advisor (although I have a PhD not a JD), and depending on where you're going to law school most schools follow a similar set up where you're course grade is based on one final exam; so you'll really only be studying for exams at the end of the semester. You'll obviously have work you have to do during the semester, but it's not like you won't have a good idea of your (rough) exam times. And while you'll have an internship during the summers, likely you'll have a week or so in between the end of classes and the start of the internship (again, depending on the school and the internship). 

I think it's best to figure out what is really most important; is it being married sooner rather than later, is time the time of year you are married, is it having a big/small wedding? I had friends that were married during the semester in grad school; they got married on a Friday or Saturday and were back to classes on Monday. Or got married on a long weekend or during a fall/spring break. It all depends on what you want. 

CMGragain

I'm going to ask you some questions here to make you think.

Why do you want to be engaged?
What do you think happens during the engagement period?
What is different about being engaged to be married, from being a monogamous couple?
Is there any reason that your relationship would be different if you were not engaged?

Personally, I had a VERY short engagement.  It was just long enough to plan a quick wedding.  My FI and I were 1100 miles apart during that two months.  I did the wedding planning.  He showed up and put the ring on my finger and said "I do."

Everyone is different.  I just want you to think about WHY being engaged is so important to you now.

SoonToBeSmith0512

I’m in a similar boat, getting my masters while engaged, and also working full time plus coaching on the side. Though my masters program is shorter than law school, the logistics are similar.

We’ll be getting married after an 18(ish) month engagement. We’ve structured planning around my semester schedules - knocking out lots of the big stuff over summer and winter breaks, finalizing details and having pre wedding parties over long weekends and spring break, etc.

The wedding will be a couple weeks after finals, but we’ve been able to front load all of the planning so that I’ll be able to focus on school during that time then wrap up all the final details in the couple weeks between end of the semester and the wedding. We’ll wrap up our one week honeymoon just in time for the summer semester to begin. I’ll still have one year of school left after the wedding, but we felt that a year and a half was long enough to plan and didn’t want to wait the extra year before getting married. 

Its definitely doable if you want to get married while still in school, you just have to be really deliberate about planning ahead. It just comes down to what is most important for you personally!

jlcece

I've been planning while in school and because of this, we have had a longer engagement (a little under 2 years). I am graduating from my Master's program in fall 2018 and we are getting married in spring 2019. I will say there are definite pros and cons to waiting. 

Pros - Saving more money, first choice of date/ venue, more time to slowly complete DIY things (if you're doing them)
Cons - Literally EVERYONE making a face/ not trusting you're actually going to get married when you tell them how far off the wedding is (eyeroll), getting things done too early and then second guessing yourself, feeling like you're in a weird engaged limbo and kind of just wanting to be married already

It definitely depends on you. I think if you are a more easygoing person, waiting is likely to be easier for you. I am very Type A and impatient, and there are definitely days I wish we'd had a shorter engagement.