Good Morning: Young marriages can work, couples must be sure they're ready
Saturday I will be heading home to Greencastle to attend a wedding. I love weddings. More specifically, I love wedding receptions. The food, the drink, the dancing, the awful toasts, speeches, the whole bit. What makes this wedding a bit different is that the bride is a former girlfriend. We dated for about a year when I was a senior in high school and she was a junior and we ended things perfectly amicably. This is a trend of sorts with my dating history, as I always like to end things tidily and as friends. I think that this is really quite important. You’ve spent a significant amount of time with this person. You have experienced things with this person that you don’t experience with many others. It only makes sense that you would want to keep someone in your life that knows you that well. Still, it is still a bit odd to think that she is getting married. It seems that everyone is getting married early these days. Maybe it’s me. I was never one of those kids who thought I was going to find someone in high school, fall deeply and passionately in love and one day meet her at the altar. I guess my plans are working out anyway. As a chronic cynic, I wonder if all these marriages are for real. Are they really looking ahead for the long haul or is it much more that they want a wedding and not really a marriage. I think part of this may be the fault of sitcoms like "Friends." On these shows, the entire season will be this crescendo of tension and mishaps leading up to this "wedding of the century." The wedding will happen, and it will be spectacular. The most beautiful bride, the most handsome groom and the most beautiful wedding will paint a perfect picture of marital bliss. Then the whole next season is just as boring and tedious as the regular season during the engagement. The wedding is played up as this perfect moment and then marriage can’t keep up the charade. Don’t get me wrong. I think marriages can last. Young marriages included. I just get freaked out when someone I knew when they were single and not even thinking about being married decides to take the plunge. I believe this particular marriage will last because I know the bride. I’m sure that after they leave the reception, they will get through the honeymoon and live the rest of their lives together, and I wish them the best. However, I think when young people start to think about settling down like this, they need to remember they are just that: young. They probably don’t even know what job they’ll have in two years or where they will be living. It is just hard for me to imagine that they know who they will be waking up with every day, forever.
