By JESSICA PETERS
My colleague stared at me wide eyed: “But you’re too young to get married! You’ve barely experienced life. What’s the rush?”
“You’re just a baby,” another exclaimed.
A discussion about how old my colleagues were when they tied the knot followed. All of them were at least thirty.
I fiddled with the sapphire engagement ring hugging my finger as they agreed I didn’t have enough life experience to get married. Who gets married at twenty-two these days?
Me.
My temper was boiling. How can people who only know me in a professional manner declare that I am too young and inexperienced to get married? They don’t know anything about me or my fiancé.
My fiancé and I have been together for six years and have lived together for two of those. We have endured my depression, anxiety and low libido. I supported his decision to join the defence force at the tender age of eighteen.
We survived a two year long distance relationship and only saw each other every three months. We soldiered through his deployment. I left my family and friends behind in Tasmania and moved to far North Queensland to be with him. He is my best friend and I couldn’t imagine my life without him.
We support each other and compromise for each other. We are committed to each other in every single way. In fact, I trust him so much that if he admitted he had cheated on me, he would have to produce photographic evidence before I would believe him.
I admit, I am a young bride-to-be, considering (according to IBISworld Australia) the average age of the Australian bride is twenty nine. I don’t understand why young marriage has become stigmatised when it used to be the norm. At what age will we be considered old and experienced enough to take the plunge? Twenty-four, twenty-eight or thirty-five?
Some people may believe that I am swept up in the fairytale of having a wedding. But we have no desire to have a big, perfect wedding. Ours will be simple and intimate, in a garden with no more than 50 guests.
I have purchased as many things from Ebay as possible and my Nan is making the cake. We are spending no more than $5,000 on the entire day. We consider anything over that a waste, especially when that money could equal a house deposit.
It is just one day where will share with our family and friends a commitment we have already made to each other. We don’t need to spend a fortune on that.
To us, marriage means committing to sharing our future, family and friends, good times and bad times. It means promising to love each other unconditionally, to support one other to achieve our dreams and to pledge to do everything in our power to make our relationship work.
I am well aware marriage is going to be hard. I know I will have to make compromises and sacrifices. But I have decided that I am ready for that.
Yes, I may be getting married at a young age, but who cares? I am old enough to drink legally, drive, buy a house, support myself financially and vote for our country’s leader. I have had plenty of life experience in the past six years and am capable making my own decisions.
So please stop making me feel like a naive child.
Jessica is a 20 something freelance writer who dreams of publishing the next Hunger Games. She lives with her fiancé and overly large dog Melvin. You can find her on WordPress here.
Do you think 22 is too young to get married? How old were you when you walked down the aisle?
Top Comments
In my opinion, age doesen't matter! You have to feel it! And as I see, you and your future-husband have survived a lot and have been together for a long time! When people hear 'They are getting married', in the first place, they consider your age and are probably shocked. But they have no idea what you two have been through! Nobody knows what's happening between you and your fiancé, and if you both share the opinion that you are ready, you should do it! Nowadays, society is judging all the time and you shouldn't listen to 'people', but to your heart. Anyway, according to society, nothing is ever right! I've heard stories about people getting married at the age of 35 after 1 year. 'But (apparently) that's okay because they are already old'. That's an unreasonable argument/reason in my eyes. I don't understand those people who really share this opinion and only think about age.
All I can say is, you should listen to your heart, after all, at the end, it's only you and him and you are going to be married to each other, not society! I wish you good luck!
When I was 20 I met my current husband briefly and had a really good connection with him, but we were both far too focused on our careers to be "distracted" by a relationship. 1 year later we saw each other again whilst on holidays in Fiji & spent a lot of time together. We fell in love really quickly, and I just knew he was the one. He was 28 and I was sure my family/ friends wouldn't approve of me being married so young to someone who had so much more life experience than me. Was still a virgin and hadn't been in a really serious relationship. He was a high profile professional athlete, and everyone said that he was just using me/ cheating and it would NEVER work. Every day for a year i tried to convince myself everyone was right, but for some reason his heartfelt reassurance kept me with him. When I was 21 he asked me to marry him, and although I was young, I couldn't imagine my life with anyone else, and I didn't ever want to be with anyone else, so I said yes! It broke my dads heart & my brothers sat me down and told me I was ruining my life - This was difficult because I really did value all their opinions, after all they knew me better than anyone. I went ahead with my marriage and we invited 400 guests to our wedding ... 350 of which I'm SURE were concerned about the success of this marriage. It took my family a really long time to accept my decision to marry so young, concerned that I was leaping into a life as mother/wife far to early, but I trusted my intuition and followed my heart by marrying the man I love and I've never looked back!
My family pretty much all love my husband now, except my dad who still "tolerates" that man who took his daughter away at 21. My brother now laughs about the fact he shredded tears at my wedding out of "fear" rather than happiness.
Honestly, I wanted to share my story to prove to everyone that age is just a number... All the odds were against me, and my marriage has worked out wonderfully! Follow your heart and it will take you in the right direction.