Young brides

Just ignore them. 23 is a perfectly fine age to get married (slightly biased though). No doubt if you'd waited a while you'd have started to get people asking why you weren't engaged yet. It's nothing to do with anyone else, if you're happy that's all that matters.

WSS. I'm 22 at the moment, will be 24 when we get married. Have been with OH nearly 5 years and engaged for a year and a half. Most of the family were fine about us getting engaged but I can still remember my Gran's first response was "are you pregnant?" and I was mortified! But we decided to have a longer engagement and everyone is really happy about the idea now. They can see how happy we make each other and how committed we are to each other and that's all that matters ?

I didn't think I was young but I had a few colleagues ask me if they thought I was too young to get married, didn't I want to party in my 20s and settle down in my 30s etc? Honestly, I'm really happy with my OH and I wouldn't want it any other way and it sounds like you feel the same ?

My parents, aunts and uncles married in their early 20s and have all celebrated their 30th wedding anniversaries so I'm hoping to be as blessed!

You see i really laugh at people that say i'm too young to get married! I have been with my H2B for six years and when we get married I would have been with him for 8 with a mortgage of 6

I've known more mature brides to get with someone and be married within a year, divorced two years later!

I think you'll get different responses, depending on the marriage situations of those making the judgements. People who waited a while, maybe played the field a little, might view this as the most rounded option - they might be concerned that you haven't "seen the world" (or whatever). Similarly, those who settled down young may be more understanding.

What you don't want is to have parents who settled down young, and now question the wisdom of it ?

It always makes me laugh when people say things like that. I am just as able to party, travel and see the world now I'm married as I was before. What's wrong with doing these things with your husband? I've not suddenly become a middle-aged housewife tied to the kitchen.

Well said!

Completly agree Eclair! In fact, i'll enjoy doing these things a lot more with my new husband!

We'll both be 23 when we marry but me looking even younger i have had a few comments. My parents react much better than i thought they might when i told them!

Hmm, I always think that 'seeing the world' is a euphemism for adding some notches onto your bedpost, in which case, I hope nobody does this after they're married!

FTLOMB, that makes me sound like a swinger now you've said that!

I don't understand this reasoning either. Before I was married I had a fiancé, and before that a boyfriend so adding notches wasn't an option then either . "Seeing the world" would be an argument against being in a relationship full stop, not marriage. If 2 people are putting off getting married in case they fancy "seeing the world" a bit more first, they are probably not with the right person!

I think Footlongs post has gone over a few peoples heads!

Personally I would have been too young at your age to get married - thats not to say its not right for you. I think maybe people who are older are thinking they are being helpful by giving advice or a view you hadn't considered, thats all?

I was engaged at 16 and really thought I had found my one true love- I can now see how wrong I was with the wisdom age and experience brings. I wioldnt have changed my early twenties for the world- they rocked, I saw the world ?

I am 21 and will be getting married at 22. ALOT of people asked if I was pregnant (which really pissed me off and went straight on a diet!). my family and friends where happy. But I dont think OH's mum is happy, she doesnt like talking about the wedding and even had a little dig in her engagement card to us by saying something like 'even though your young...', that annoyed me soo much. We have been together for 5 years but known each other since we were 4. She got married when she was 22 and future father in law was 21! they knew each other 8 months!!

I few suppliers we met with commented on my age and we have not used them! only want supportive people around us.

I've had this a lot. I was 22 when we got engaged and will be nearly 24 when I get married. By this point I'll have been with OH for 5 and a half years, and lived together with him for 4.

Just try to ignore it, I do find it weird how ages have shifted though with time, 35 years ago 23 would be 'normal' but now people act as if it's the same as getting married at 16/17...

People who comment probably aren't meaning to upset you. The likelihood is they are basing their opinion on how they were at that age. Yes maybe at that age they weren't ready or mature enough but it's no to say you're not. I know I wasn't. I thought I was but now pushing 30, I can see how much iv changed ( not to mention I'd have ruined my life marrying a cheat). Of course everyone and every situation is unique.

Just to clarify, I've never actually had anyone tell me I'm too young to get married, I was just expressing my opinion on what I'd think if they did. If anything I had people asking me why we'd waited so long.

If you're having to justify why you're not too young to get married, then you're too young to get married haha.

I'm only 23, and not once have I needed to justify myself.

I would completely ignore that. I am 22, and only just got married in July. I have been with my husband 4 years and we have known each other since I was 14. We are madly in love with each other! When he proposed to me I was only 19 and we had been together over a year. The last 3 years we have been living together as well and worked our asses off to gather the money for our wedding as we moved in together after we got engaged and had to save money as well as pay bills! We were both living with parents before. His family gave us lots of engagement cards and gifts etc and were really excited. My family well.....my dad new as Andrew(my husband) asked his permission, and he was more than happy as my dad loves him to bits. He told his side of the family and were all excited. My mum's family....well I didnt tell them we were engaged until the year before the wedding lol I didnt want to tell them because until then they were all giving lectures about what age I should get married. After I told my mother she spent a whole month trying to persuade me not to do it but I stuck to my decision....my parents are divorced and my mum got married when she was 19 so she thinks the reason for the divorce is age. I said to her: well mum 1st, you and dad didnt love each other, you only got married cause you were pregnant so people wouldnt gossip and 2nd, if people shouldnt get married just in case the might get divorced in the future then no one would ever get married. You cant think that way. I am getting married because I want to, because I love Andrew, not because I dont want people to gossip! We dont even have kids, we genuinely just want to get married. What is sooo wrong about that? You find the love of your life and you get married and the rest of your life you work as hard as possible together to keep the marriage healthy and happy. Thats how it works, with effort of both and love. She backed down in the end and you know what? Out of everyone she was the most supportive person on our wedding day, she did everything. She even paid money towards it as a gift, she paid for the whole reception with her other half. She organised the hairdresser, took my dress and the bridesmaid's to the dry cleaners for refreshments. She was there for everything and wouldnt stop crying on the day. She was the happiest of all. lol So DO NOT take any notice of reactions. They are happy but they are also concerned because they love you, they only want you to be happy. You just need to find a way to get them to listen and show them how happy you really are and how everything is gonna be just fine. Remember as well how mums see it....they wont be able to look after you anymore, you will be someone else's baby lol lol lol Good luck mate, keep us posted.

If this was facebook you would have got 1000 likes from me! Well done for that, I couldnt agree more!

When I got engaged we didnt have enough money for everything. We could just pay our bills and put the rest of the money towards our wedding as we had a date straight away and with our earnings we knew we would need 3 years to gather it. We didnt have money for holidays and trips and all that and our wedding was the most important to us so we were willing to sacrifice all that just to get married. We had been on a few holidays until then, but after we set a date we stopped. So for 3 years we couldnt really do much. Now we are married we dont even regret a second of our hard times, we are the happiest people in the world and we have already started travelling together. We will be doing 2 different countries a year! WOOHOOOO!

Marriage doesnt go with age, you get married when you feel ready and want to. You might be 20, 40 or 50 who cares? As long as you and your other half are happy. I had all my ex classmates from school at the wedding, my best friends in the world! They are the same age as me and most of them couldnt believe I was getting married. They looked scared when I told them lol But then after the wedding I looked at the guest book and they had all written pretty much the same thing, in their own words, which I found hilarious. It was something like: Now I understand why you got married, your smile and happiness today has brightened the whole room, you are sooo happy you are actually shining. I am hoping I will be as lucky as you in my life and find the one person to make me shine like that. You have found the right man to accompany you in your madness and you couldnt have made a better choice but marrying him. I am wishing you a very happpy marriage for the rest of your lives, although you wont need it as it will be like that anyway......

Every single one of my friends had written something very similar to that. WOW

Perhaps I need to spell it out, I think Mini was right....

"Seeing the world" does not, in this context, necessarily mean travelling (I think). It means not settling down with the only boyfriend you've ever had, the only man you've shared a bed with, a man you've been with since school (for some of you). It means learning about yourself as a woman before you sign up to being a wife. It's about knowing independence and loneliness, about making new friends, about losing a few along the way. It means going away to study, maybe travelling, making an informed decision about what type of life you want. Allowing other things into your heart before you make a lifetime commitment to one path.

I'm not saying the youngsters here are making bad choices. I'm saying that's what I think people mean when they encourage you to "see the world" before settling down.

Although from this, it's probably clear that I was an older bride

Good explanation there. That is a point of view as well....none of them are wrong. And thanks for expressing your opinion!

In my situation, when my mum was expressing her worries, it was nothing to do with that. She wanted to make sure I was marrying for the right reasons, because she made a mistake of marrying for what people would think and then ended up getting divorced. And then she was worried she would lose me. LOL Silly mother of mine. LOL LOL LOL I love her to bits. Its very ironic. I moved to England when I was 19 years old, because my husband (then boyfriend) is English. I was a little girl, on my own in another country without any friends or family. And then my mum started worrying after i decided to get married hahaha I already live in another country mother how much worse would it get for you? lol I am closer to her since I moved. Luckily for me and my situation I learned to be indipendent very early. Even before I moved to England. I was living on my own completely with no ones help. When my parents got divorced I was 15 and I had a habit of blaming my mother for that so I didnt have the greatest relationship. I moved out of her house when I was 17 and she got pissed off and wouldnt help me. So I learnt to live by myself. And a year later I got with my husband, when I was 18, on one of my trips to the uk. I went to visit one of my best childhood friends in wales. And from there I was gonna take the train to stevenage to visit an uncle. Andy came and picked me up from the train station. I was soooo happy to see him as I hadnt seen him for a while. I met him in Corfu when I was 14 and every summer we had lots of crazy times there.( I would visit my grandparents every summer and Andrew was on holiday with mates) :-) We got together straight away in stevenage, we had missed each other a lot. And a year later with Andy travelling to Greece every other weekend just to see my, I got fed up, packed my stuff and moved here. We have been living together the last 3-4 years and now we are married and happy! :-)

I just felt the need to tell my story, all that conversation gave me lots of flashbacks! I had to let them out lol. Good luck to everyone getting married! :-)

I'm 24 now and being a wedding photographer at this age is really hard so I feel your pain... Just ignore people

I think people can be so different at the same age, and when people apply their own experience to you it can cause the question. I had a colleague ask me if I thought I was too young and didn't I want to live abroad/ travel etc. I explained that I'd lived abroad before and we'd both been travelling for 3-6 months and if we did want to do it again we'd go together. Sure enough, she soon quit to go travelling so I guess it was more about her choices than mine!

It was a exactly the same with my mum. She regrets every single choice she made in her life and she wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. She was freking out because she was exactly the same age as me lol There is a massive difference though as she made her decisions based on different reasons and circumstances. She was pregnant on me and didnt want to have an abortion (my dad was pressing her to). Because she wouldnt have an abortion then my dad turned around and said: well there is only one thing left to do....lets get married so people dont think bad of you (they used to slag you off those years in greece if you were a single mum). I am not pregnant and I got married cause I love the man who is standing by me. As long as she heard that, she never questioned anything again lol. She also thought that I was planning to have babies soon hahahahaha how ridicoulus. I remember saying to her: We have been living together sooo many years, if we wanted babies we would have had them by now. We certainly want a family together but we are not getting married to have babies! She was having lots of paranoia going through her head because she was scared....she thought I was doing what she had done.

I understood what you meant and it's the same point. Being married is only one small part of who I am, I don't see it as something that restricts my path in life. If I want to travel, I will. If I want to study abroad, I will. I've never wanted to sleep around so that hasn't affected my decision. It is perfectly possible to marry young and still have experienced loneliness. I am still capable of making and losing friends. I'm me first and a wife second.

But like I said, no one has ever made any comment on my age so its all a moot point. Think I'm just in an argumentative debating mood. ?

I never experienced any negative reactions from family, friends or colleagues about my age.

However I think I act a lot older than I am.

I think it's down to maturity not age most of the time though. For instance, I would never have known you and AliG were young brides before you told me because of the way you express yourselves and the viewpoints you have but there are some young brides on Hitched that are obviously young. If that makes sense.

OMG lyk u best not be saying I iz a yung 1 K-Harv. Innit.

Otherwise, I completely agree with your point.

Just purely out of interest, what do people consider to be a "young bride?" If people in their late twenties consider people in their early twenties to be young brides, where does it meet in the middle? I personally wouldn't even think of 23 as being young, but maybe that's because a few of my friends have already been married for a couple of years.

ETA- If we are going by age not maturity.

You forgot the kisses. So many kisses.

For me, "young" is pre-25 years or so. However, that's based on my own experiences of extended study, the time at which I met my husband, when I became settled in a career. I can't imagine being 25 and having been working for years, owning a house, being with someone for long enough to marry them.