Date Issues

[SarahLovesJS]

Hi everyone. I am having some issues with setting a date. So we went and visited a place last weekend and I was thinking maybe we should do June of 2009 instead of Spring of 2010. I graduate from college in May 2009. The only problem is a lot of people seem concerned about the stress about planning a wedding (final meetings, etc.) during my last semester of college. However, if I get into law school then I am going to have to get married during law school. So the next option would be June 2010. I really didn't want to push the date up that far and I don't want to deal with wedding planning during law school. I was hoping for March/April 2010 but that'd be right during the end of the semester/finals if I go to law school! Okay so a lot of things are up in the air, who knows, I could be working and not at law school then it wouldn't be a problem. So any advice on picking a date? I am not sure I want to wait until June 2010, but I am not sure I am ready to go into planning mode for June 2009. How did you pick a date? What weighed in on your decision?

ETA: Sorry if this is confusing!

 

[Gypsy]

What does you FI think? What works better for both of your scheduling? This is something the two of you should sit down and talk about together.

 

[hopefulheidi]

In my experience...trying to get out of college with a degree AND planning a wedding really WOULD be a ton of stress. When I was engaged to my ex I was planning on a May wedding that would have coincided with my graduation from college. At the time, my mom too was concerned about the timing but I was sure I could handle it all. Low and behold, I got to my final year of college and even though I wasn''t planning a wedding I was stressed to the max. I was working part time and trying to juggle max credits/friends/family/boyfriend while trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life after college and I was a mess. I ended up crying every Friday and I still have nightmares about that point in time.

Now that I''m *only* working full time, I still find myself getting stressed out with the planning some times and I have a lot more free time to devote to the planning than I did during college.

That''s not to say that it can''t be done, but looking back I can see that I certainly wouldn''t have been able to handle it all, and really it''s kind of nice to be able to enjoy the process rather than be distracted by so many other things.

Without knowing your full history, is there a reason you''re in such a hurry to get married? (ie before finishing college?)

~Heidi

 

[SarahLovesJS]

Date: 3/10/2008 8:01:09 PM
Author: hopefulheidi
In my experience...trying to get out of college with a degree AND planning a wedding really WOULD be a ton of stress. When I was engaged to my ex I was planning on a May wedding that would have coincided with my graduation from college. At the time, my mom too was concerned about the timing but I was sure I could handle it all. Low and behold, I got to my final year of college and even though I wasn''t planning a wedding I was stressed to the max. I was working part time and trying to juggle max credits/friends/family/boyfriend while trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life after college and I was a mess. I ended up crying every Friday and I still have nightmares about that point in time.


Now that I''m *only* working full time, I still find myself getting stressed out with the planning some times and I have a lot more free time to devote to the planning than I did during college.


That''s not to say that it can''t be done, but looking back I can see that I certainly wouldn''t have been able to handle it all, and really it''s kind of nice to be able to enjoy the process rather than be distracted by so many other things.


Without knowing your full history, is there a reason you''re in such a hurry to get married? (ie before finishing college?)


~Heidi

Not really in a hurry, we are waiting until after I graduate. I was just not so sure I wanted to wait until June 2010 now that March/April probably isn''t an option. Blegh.

Makes sense though about the stress. I was just thinking law school might be even worse stress.

Hi Gypsy! FI said it''s up to me he''d be happy with either. However, he is concerned about the stress thing also and less time to save money.

 

[cara]

Why June and not July or August of 2009?

Yes, graduating and leaving college is a lot of work and stress, but it depends what the classes you are taking, what extracurriculars you have, if you have any senior-year specific obligations (exams or theses or reports).

And since you have more than a year to go, you could do a fair bit of planning in advance and you could make choices that leave less work for you in the end. There are venues and packages that come more complete, and take care of more loose ends.

In my experience, the last two months before the wedding were quite busy, so I would try to leave as much of a cushion between graduation and the wedding as possible, but I wouldn''t rule out a June wedding. There are people that get married on graduation day! or immediately after. I personally would want a little bit of space between the two but to each their own.

I presume you are young, and so you might want a long engagement for other reasons, but I found a 15 month long engagement to be plenty long. At some point, you are ready for all this planning and anticipation to be over and to get on with your life already. Two years would have been way too much in my case.

 

[Sabine]

This may not be what you want to hear and may not apply to you at all, but I just wanted to share my experiences. My FI and I were together through most of college, and felt we were ready to get married after we graduated. But there was no way we could have afforded it, so instead we moved in together, saved our money, and got engaged 2 years later. Looking back, we went through a lot of difficulties graduating college, moving to a new area, finding/starting/trying to fit in in new jobs, finding new friends, etc. We would not have been ready to get married right then even though at the time we felt like we were. I just feel like it is so much more meaningful that we are getting married now that we have started really building our lives together, so I would suggest waiting until you have more things settled (job, law school, living situations) so that when you get married you will have more energy to focus on building your marriage.

 

[FrekeChild]

At my university the law school advises you to not have a job during at least your first year. They are afraid of losing students due to being over stressed. I can''t imagine planning a wedding while in law school, I think the stress would be very overwhelming.

$.02

 

[basil]

I dunno. My last semester of college was so not stressful! You''ll already be accepted to law school by then if you decide to go, so you''ll really just be finishing stuff up. I''d go for summer 2009 if I were you.

 

[goldenstar]

I picked a date based on school and money issues. I didn''t want the wedding to interfere with school and I wanted to allow enough time to save money. Hence, I came up with April 09. It was a compromise--not too soon and not too late. It''s been a long engagement but its just what we needed.

For you, I think that Summer 2009 is a much better option than Summer 2010. My last year of college was very mellow. If you didn''t leave a lot of credits for the last minute you shouldn''t have a hard time. Also, you might want to consider taking a few credits this summer so that can have a light load during the last semester. I did this and I''m very glad I did.

If you end up in law school, the first year is gonna be intense. I wouldn''t plan a wedding during that time.

 

[SarahLovesJS]

Hmm thanks for all the advice everyone! I still feel pretty confused, but I think it will take some more thinking.

 

[scarlet16]

I think this really depends on the type of person you are. If you are a super organized person you could do either, but if the only 2 choices are June 2009 and June 2010, I would do June 2009. I''m actually in my last semester of law school, graduating in May, taking the bar in July and getting married in August. I know that sounds intense but I had about a year and a half to plan everything. If you spread out everything that you have to do, then the planning in your last semester will not be that intense...and if I remember correctly my last semester was only intense because I did a ton of extra-curriculars. We''re about 5.5 months out and the only thing we have left to do is pick invitations and do placecards.

If you follow one piece of advice, ABSOLUTELY DO NOT plan a wedding during your first year of law school, especially if you''re planning on going to a top tier school. Most schools have full year courses, meaning your ENTIRE first year grades are based on one exam for each class taken in May. That is a totally stressful time period. Plus most firms base whether you get hired on those first year grades, so if you''re serious about law school, then concentrate just on your studies then.

 

[swimmer]

Hi Sarah,
You might want to check out this blog by a pre-law advisor about choosing a law school and the timing of entering school. Personally, I found real life to be vastly more difficult and time consuming than law school, and I went to a notoriously selective/challenging school. A friend I work with is now doing law school at night and teaches High School history and intro to law during the day, he loves it and is graduating soon, but doesn't seem stressed at all about either the teaching or the studying for the bar. So where you go and how you go about doing law school will make a huge difference, yeah, its nothing like Legally Blonde!

Life is however, all about timing. It sounds like Scarlet really has her act together, and Sabine makes an excellent point as well about waiting. Discuss it with your fiance, you have so very many factors up in the air...it sounds like you really want to get into the planning, I guess you need to figure out some whys, then some hows, and then the whens will be easy.

 

[SarahLovesJS]

Date: 3/11/2008 6:19:21 AM
Author: swimmer
Hi Sarah,

You might want to check out this blog by a pre-law advisor about choosing a law school and the timing of entering school. Personally, I found real life to be vastly more difficult and time consuming than law school, and I went to a notoriously selective/challenging school. A friend I work with is now doing law school at night and teaches High School history and intro to law during the day, he loves it and is graduating soon, but doesn''t seem stressed at all about either the teaching or the studying for the bar. So where you go and how you go about doing law school will make a huge difference, yeah, its nothing like Legally Blonde!


Life is however, all about timing. It sounds like Scarlet really has her act together, and Sabine makes an excellent point as well about waiting. Discuss it with your fiance, you have so very many factors up in the air...it sounds like you really want to get into the planning, I guess you need to figure out some whys, then some hows, and then the whens will be easy.

Just wanted to say thank you and thanks again to everyone else! I talked to my Mom and FI and I think we are all leaning toward June/July 2009 at this point. July might be nice. So I will update you when we figure something out, which needs to be soon.