Congratulations, MaryAnnQ~
May you be blest with a wonderful life together!
Scotti
Congrats, MaryAnn.
(Gonna get married by an Elvis?)
Congratulations, MaryAnnQ.
IMHO, cohabitation is a very tricky business. Some people can live together, others cannot. You never really know until a couple months after you move in. It’s not a matter of affection, but of being able to adapt to each others living habits. I have cohabitated with many people, some romantically, some platonically. In my experience, whether or not you can adapt is pretty much a crap-shoot.
I, personally, would check it out before I got the Law involved.
Just an opinion.
Congrats!
If you are getting married in Vegas do it here so we all can watch. ttp://www.discovery.com/cams/wedding/wedding.html
Congrats, MAQ! ::: happy thoughts for MaryAnn! :::
I’m 27, been married almost a year and a half. Met the Mr. when I was 16, started dating a year later, dated until college, went our seperate ways, got back together at the end of college, dated some more, got engaged in early 98, got married in Aug of 99 and never lived together until after we got married.
It was just never the right time to move in together and neither of us really wanted to. We both had the same feeling that it would make getting married feel more special. I mean, we’ve had a relationship for 10 years now. It’s not like we never spent the night at eachother’s place…it’s not like I didn’t know he leaves his boxers on the bathroom floor and doesn’t wipe the toothpaste out of the sink. It’s not like he didn’t know I am a neat freak or that I have to pee seventeen times a night.
So when we finally did get married and moved in together, it brought a whole new dimension to our relationship. Even though we thought we already knew everything about eachother, there has been so much more that we are finding out! It has been for the most part really great (of course there’s always some bumps in the road!) and I am really pleased that we didn’t live together before. Plus, I kind of liked the fact that we were doing it differently than pretty much everyone else we knew.
That said, naturally I think you should do whatever makes you both happy. And I like Medea’s Child’s idea of saying haughtily, “No, we aren’t living together before we get married!” (When we told people that, we mostly got a lot of “Wow! That’s really neat!” type of responses. People thought it was cool.
Congratulations!
I have friends who lived together before their engagement, but then got seperate apartments up until the wedding. Personally, I think that’s a waste of money, but they seemed to feel that it made their wedding more special (both are die-hard romantics). [sub]They also did it because they joined a new church and didn’t want to make a bad impression, but that has nothing to do with how they felt when they could live together again.[/sub]
Come to think of it, Math Geek and I did the same thing, except we were in different countries as well, and lived apart after the wedding too!
Who would want to get married in Vegas? Well, after visiting the place I’d have to say…ME! I wish I’d known it was so surreal and fun. The family would have flown out anyway, and the hotels do all the planning for you.
For the record, I don’t fall in your specified age category (ok, I’m waaaay off - try 17), but I thought it might help your “fuddy-duddy” conception to know my opinion. Personally, when I find the person I want to marry (which will be a loong time from now ;)), I plan on moving in together when we get married, no questions asked. I think it’s more appropriate, and I agree with you that it makes your wedding that much more special if you’re truly entering into a new life, and living situation, together. Hope maybe that helps.
Yeah Mary Ann! Congrats!
As for the shacking up ( my mom’s charming term), I’m against it, if only for the reason that Jane Austen put it, and I am paraphrasing here " The less we know about our respective spouses, the better the chances…" (Sorry, Jane)
Personally, Mr. Ujest and I were either dating or engaged for five years before marriage. We did not live together. If we did, I would have killed him. He is a slob of Big Things around here and I am a Slob of Little Things around here. We have all our bases covered, litter-aly 
Have fun planning the wedding!
PS: The debts never get paid completely off. Things just happen that suck the savings out of the bank account. It’s best to keep a minimum amount of debt going because prior to the birth of our son, we paid off everything but the house and the transmission on our newer car died…three times. If anything in your house learns that there is a positive cash flow, appliances and cars will start competing to see who will die first so as to be attended to in the manner they think they deserve. We evened out the bills not so long ago and the toaster went belly up.
It’s a conspiracy, I tell you.
first reaction from hubby-to-be: “Are you out of your mind?!”
second reaction: “Bookmark it and we’ll see.”
So we’ll see. 