do you know anyone who got married very young nowadays

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I recently found out a distant relative (who is now dead) got married when she was just 18 and her DH was also 18. This was a very long time ago and I know times were different but when I look at my DS who is 17 and although he’s a lovely lad the idea of him getting married next year seems beyond ridiculous. So I wondered does anyone know anyone who got married at a very young age (18/19/20) recently as in since 2010. How did it work out? Did they stay together? How did they manage finances ect?

No not these days. I might have been one but we waited quite a while lol. I was 17 when we got together and 29 when we married a few years ago. I try before I buy for a gd few yrs!

@twinkletoesimnot

I got married at 16. We have been married for 24 years now and genuinely still adore each other. I had already had a (very much unplanned) ds, and we have had 5 more along the way. I feel very lucky.

Why did you marry so young? Because of an unplanned pregnancy?

Well, that makes total sense within that family/religious mindset, but I remain fascinated by those who marry young without that to give a 'rationale'.

My DH and I are religious and DD1 was born before we got married. We married at 24/26 but got engaged at 21/23. We would have married sooner if we’d had the money sooner.

We married not so we could have sex (a moronic reason to get married in my opinion!) but because we love each other and wanted to be married. Nearly 4 years married now and still very happy in spite of fertility issues and a pandemic.

@BlondeDogLady maybe a bit TMI. my DH was 24 when he married me (I was 22), but he had a long term girlfriend (together for a few years) and at least 2 1 night stands before he met me? I would have thought that was enough? Do you need several girlfriends and 10 1 night stands in order to have sown your wild oats? For myself, i had 1 previous boyfriend (from sixth form and then long distance for 2 years) but DH is my first and only sexual partner.

@SoberSerena

You're definitely right there *@D0lphine*. I really think the difference to cost of living between the 00s and now has massively changed how people date. Also, with online dating, I do think dating culture has changed a lot too.

I find it really sad though that young people who want to settle down can't afford to. Why do you find it funny, just out of interest?

I think though part of the problem is that fewer people of all ages bother with institutional marriage.

But there are still lots of people who move in together with every intention that it is permanent,, sometimes having children too.

So if the question is really about people finding a life partner, living together as spouses, it's happening in much greater numbers than the marriage stats might indicate. So my friend's daughter moved in with her boyfriend at 20, they fully intend to get married at some point but it's not a priority as much as finishing school is. I know lots of young people in that situation.

It used to be a lot more common for couples to have a very quiet wedding if money was tight. Now they wait until they have been living together 10 years and have some cash.

[quote onlychildhamster]@SoberSerena yes I am still in London. we bought a flat very near MIL's home. In a sense, we haven't done worse than her even though she bought in the 1980s and 1990s. She too bought a flat when she was our age. Couldn't upgrade for ages until the property prices crashed.

My colleagues who are married all own their homes (though mostly not in London). But my colleague's 4 bed house in Kent is the same price as my flat so I guess its a matter of preference too! Single people struggle much more, but I don't think it has ever been easy for single people to buy their own homes; in the previous generation, lots of single people who bought their own flats had lodgers (including my MD who said he almost always had a lodger until he married).

DH is much better paid and practically all his colleagues own their homes, married or not. the only guy who doesn't own his home is someone in excess of 100k but is single and wants to buy in zone 1 (so would rather wait until he is coupled up with someon ewho earns similar).[/quote]
This is an interesting point. Lodgers used to be very common, and single people often used to live in boarding houses, In fact a lot of young married people used to live in boarding houses. It was also common to have far more people living in a house than we expect now.

Youngest I know was 25 and that was in 2019

@MangyInseam its not that we don't want a quiet wedding. Its just that expectations have changed and its also our parents' expectations. We married legally as we were an international couple and it was the only way we could be together. Also I am from a very socially conservative background and so is DH. but we held off on the 'wedding' because we needed to save to buy our own place and we knew that our wedding would be expensive simply because our two backgrounds/cultural expectations meant having 2 separate events in 2 different countries. Even at the bare minimum, it would cost thousands. My parents expected a 5* hotel with 7 courses lol. My MIL wants a religious ceremony. We have to pay for my MIL and SIL's air tickets. I trimmed the guest list to 50 guests (almost all family). I have the simplest wedding of anyone I know, despite having waited 7 years to host it (due to pandemic restrictions as my flat was bought in 2019).

My wedding would probably cost 60% of what the average UK bride spends on her wedding, £17300, so its probably not just me who feels the weight of parental/cultural expectations. Of course, my parents did help with paying for the flower girls' outfits and my guests are giving cash gifts (tradition) so i would probably recoup some of the money... I just didn't want to rely on my guests to pay for my wedding!

Mum married Dad when she was 20.

Next year they celebrate 50 years together.

A colleague got married at 18 in the early 2000s, and has 6 children. Not religious, just struck lucky and is very happy.

[quote onlychildhamster]**@MangyInseam* its not that we don't want a quiet wedding. Its just that expectations have changed and its also our parents' expectations. We married legally as we were an international couple and it was the only way we could be together. Also I am from a very socially conservative background and so is DH. but we held off on the 'wedding' because we needed to save to buy our own place and we knew that our wedding would be expensive simply because our two backgrounds/cultural expectations meant having 2 separate events in 2 different countries. Even at the bare minimum, it would cost thousands. My parents expected a 5 hotel with 7 courses lol. My MIL wants a religious ceremony. We have to pay for my MIL and SIL's air tickets. I trimmed the guest list to 50 guests (almost all family). I have the simplest wedding of anyone I know, despite having waited 7 years to host it (due to pandemic restrictions as my flat was bought in 2019).

My wedding would probably cost 60% of what the average UK bride spends on her wedding, £17300, so its probably not just me who feels the weight of parental/cultural expectations. Of course, my parents did help with paying for the flower girls' outfits and my guests are giving cash gifts (tradition) so i would probably recoup some of the money... I just didn't want to rely on my guests to pay for my wedding![/quote]
Yes, cultural expectations can be a huge pressure.

But I do sometimes think that if people did not have the socially acceptable option of waiting to marry while essentially living in every other way as married people, cultural expectations would be pressured into a more reasonable expectation. Which would not be an entirely bad thing.

@MangyInseam in my home country, you lose access to purchase 85% of housing stock(government flat) unless you are married/above 35/ buy with your parents. The remaining housing stock is priced in excess of a million pounds so unless you are one of the top earners of your generation or have generous and rich parents, you cannot buy private housing. End of. Yet my home country has a 89% home ownership rate so there is a clear financial incentive to marry asap. In fact, my sister had classmates in medical school who got engaged in university and bought their flat then as they qualified for maximum subsidies as students so it is better to marry and buy when young. If you get older and start earning more, you qualify for less subsidies so are worse off. Of course you can wait until 35 to buy as a single and tbh, most single londoners are 35 when they buy anyway (even though in UK, you can buy at any age), but most people would rather marry if they had the opportunity to. The average marriage age is high but this is reflective of the fact that people tend to marry only when the flat is ready (the waiting time is often 3 years as people tend to buy off plan) but when you are engaged and have bought a flat together, you are as good as married as your deposit would be lost if you break up.

Yet the weddings are still big and expensive. People still want to have insta-perfect weddings. However I do find it easier to find photographers, wedding gown rentals, makeup artists who cater for the lower end of the market. It may just be me, but i find that the wedding market in the UK (particularly in London/SE) is geared towards a more middle class clientele and the prices reflect that.

@MangyInseam sorry meant to say that you can't buy private housing as a single unless you are a top earner. Plenty of upper middle class couples do manage to buy private housing, but its much easier to buy a million pound condo with 2 good salaries and equity from a government flat as opposed to a single buyer

Met a lovely young couple at a wedding recently - they seemed very happy, heads screwed on, mature. They were about 22/23 and had married last year having met at university.

A friend of mine from school married just turned 21 in 2007 - they’re still together with three DC. And another friend married aged 23, having been together since the age of 17, that was in 2009. They’re still together with two DC.

It can work brilliantly so long as the couple remain compatible I think.

@Grinling
Well not only that. We wanted to get married. We wanted to be together properly and my dad was a bit old fashioned and didn't want us to live together.
I think he really wanted me and ds to keep living at home. Plus he didn't think we'd make a go of it and stay together.
Anyway. I wore him down and he gave us permission. We booked the next available Saturday and did it!

@KILM

In the most good natured way possible, this thread is absolutely infuriating as the majority of the responses are talking about pre 2010 which is what the OP specifically asked for because the whole point of the thread is wondering how common it is NOW, not if your parents are still together! Im actually laughing at how much this has annoyed meas this would have been an interesting thread otherwise.

Diddums, your teddy is on the floor by your cot!

I was 20 when DH (22) and I married in 2009 (just outside your cut off) we’re still married, very happily. We have two children (so far), I love him to bits.
We were bloody skint in the early days but shared everything and still do.
Everyone was against it and said we were too young and it wouldn’t work and some would probably say we still haven’t been married ages but we’re really happy together. Can’t imagine my life any differently.

[quote onlychildhamster]@MangyInseam in my home country, you lose access to purchase 85% of housing stock(government flat) unless you are married/above 35/ buy with your parents. The remaining housing stock is priced in excess of a million pounds so unless you are one of the top earners of your generation or have generous and rich parents, you cannot buy private housing. End of. Yet my home country has a 89% home ownership rate so there is a clear financial incentive to marry asap. In fact, my sister had classmates in medical school who got engaged in university and bought their flat then as they qualified for maximum subsidies as students so it is better to marry and buy when young. If you get older and start earning more, you qualify for less subsidies so are worse off. Of course you can wait until 35 to buy as a single and tbh, most single londoners are 35 when they buy anyway (even though in UK, you can buy at any age), but most people would rather marry if they had the opportunity to. The average marriage age is high but this is reflective of the fact that people tend to marry only when the flat is ready (the waiting time is often 3 years as people tend to buy off plan) but when you are engaged and have bought a flat together, you are as good as married as your deposit would be lost if you break up.

Yet the weddings are still big and expensive. People still want to have insta-perfect weddings. However I do find it easier to find photographers, wedding gown rentals, makeup artists who cater for the lower end of the market. It may just be me, but i find that the wedding market in the UK (particularly in London/SE) is geared towards a more middle class clientele and the prices reflect that.[/quote]
Good grief! What country do you live in?

@MurmuratingStarling I am from Singapore but I live in London now! It is incomprehensible to people outside Singapore but the home ownership rate is very high- 89%. 1 in 6 Singaporean households have at least 1 million USD in wealth but yet it is possible for a young couple to buy a 1000 square feet 3 bed flat in a city half the size of London (with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world) for the equivalent of £150-200k. Some of my cousins who went for a flat in cheaper areas didn't even need to save for a deposit, the monies from their forced savings fund (government deducts 20% of income for housing, pension and healthcare, taxes are super low or even zero for low earners). They call it a nanny state for good reason. Just find a guy/gal, fall in love and your marital home is ready for you (as long as you are not too choosy on location and don't go for high spec renovations!).

Thanks for that @onlychildhamster Sounds like hard work to own a home there!

@MurmuratingStarling I bought in London and it is way way harder here than in Singapore! But I guess I am married so it's different! The thing is for single people buying in London, it is very very hard too and as Singapore is an island city state /mega city, we have to compare it with a city like London rather than rural Wales...in Singapore, they limit the provision of scarce housing so that the subsidized flats are sold to families rather than singles...

I was 19. I wish I could have done things a bit different looking back. We are still together but I wouldn't want my dd marrying so young.

I got married at 22 way to young ! I was divorced with two kids by 28 . I was way too young . Look at my dd who's 20 and can't imagine her getting married .