When Instagram blogger Beck Lomas was proposed to, she was just 20 years old.
“It was always something we had joked about, like, when are we going to get married? I knew it was coming sometime, but it was still a massive surprise when it came but I obviously wasn’t unhappy about it,” she tells Mamamia over the phone from her Melbourne home.
With 180,000 followers on Instagram as a health and fitness blogger, the now 23-year-old is an ambassador for Adidas and has been married for 18 months.
In short, she’s not exactly like every other young adult her age.
But despite her youth, Beck says her friends and family weren’t surprised.
“No one was really surprised at all, we had been together six years prior to that. We had been living together, had been inseparable, had travelled and just done everything to together. People weren’t waiting for it, but they certainly weren’t surprised.
“It was simple, I don’t have plans to not be with this guy any time soon. If I had any doubt, I wouldn’t had been with him. It just didn’t feel to soon. For some people, it may be. But for us, it was the logical next step.”
However, in the three years since her and husband pledged to be together forever, strangers have had no qualms in expressing their judgements.
“At least once a week a stranger or someone I barely know gives me their unwanted opinion on my relationship,” the blogger recently wrote on Instagram.
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“‘You look far too young to get married,’ says the middle aged man serving me at the bottle shop. ⠀
"'But don't you feel like you have so much more to experience before you tie yourself down?' says a friend of a friend who I had only just met. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
"'But how do you know he's the one?' says a girl I randomly met on a night out."
Ever since Beck got engaged, other people's opinions have overwhelmed her surety in her marriage.
"Ever since I got engaged people thought it was appropriate to give me their unwarranted thoughts about my love life - really I don't care if you think I'm too young to get married or you think I haven't experienced enough of life or you think I need to sleep with more people before I 'tie myself down', some people get married younger than what is thought to be the 'appropriate age' to get married. ⠀⠀
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"Everyone lives their own life their own way and whether I chose to get married at 22 or 32 it really shouldn't matter as long as I'm marrying someone who makes me happy."
Talking to Mamamia, Beck said the comments about her young marriage make her feel awkward more than anything.
"It's really weird, it makes me really awkward because it always comes from people who don't really know me. You have no idea, so why do think it's okay to try and put doubts in my head? It never does, but it could make me second guess myself. It has never caused any problems, it annoys me that someone who doesn't even know me will go out of their way to tell me that I'm doing it all wrong.
"If you feel like giving someone you barely know your unwanted opinion, please think twice before opening your mouth."