“Oh, you’re married? How old are you?”

“I am 21.”

“Wow...you’re so young.”

I’ve learned to roll my eyes and walk away. Occasionally, I begin to defend myself before I even finish telling them my age. “I am 21, but we were friends all through high school and we knew that we wanted to be together and we both have supportive parents and…” And I don’t owe you an explanation.

Matt and I were friends in high school. We didn’t begin dating until after we graduated and then we both moved to St. Augustine. We talked about marriage from the beginning, but always in the context of “after graduation.” But then we began to think, “If we know we want to be married, then why are we waiting?” After a year of dating, he proposed. Midway through sophomore year, we were married.

I remember once being introduced to an older married couple. They heard I was engaged and immediately the husband scoffed and said, “You have the rest of your life to be married. Why do you want to do it now?” Right in front of his wife. I didn’t even know how to respond. Why did I want to be married now? Let me tell you the joys of being married now.

1. We get to grow up together.

Yes we’re young. We’re very aware of it. We’re reminded daily. But how beautiful is it to go through all the adventures and mistakes of being young together? We also carry minimal baggage into the marriage, seeing as neither of us had much time to create baggage previous to the start of our relationship.

2. What’s better than traveling with your best friend?

This is a common one, “You should use your 20's to travel, and then settle down.”

This one always baffled me. I don’t mean to shock you, but TSA (although they have many rules) does let you through the airport even if you’re married. I know…let it sink in. And it’s so much fun to travel around with your best friend, knowing that this person will be there to relive the memories with you for the rest of your life!

3. We put each other first.

Another common thing people like to weigh in on is the job situation.

“Well you need to establish your career first, and then focus on marriage.” (I’m using my stuffy-old-man voice here, but you can’t tell.)

Here’s the interesting thing, if you put your job first before marriage, then you will most likely put your job first during marriage, and that’s not something I am willing to do. Not now, not ever.

4. Well, 50 percent of marriages end in divorce.

Ah, the ghastly statistics. So do I avoid marriage forever because it may end in divorce? Or do I go into my marriage committing that no matter what divorce is not an option? In fact, our age helps us in this sense because we don’t go into marriage as two independent, stubborn, individuals. Instead we go into it still growing and we grow together into one couple.

We know it’s controversial. We know it’s “frowned upon.” We know that most people will immediately judge us for our decision.

One day in class a girl who sat near me complained, “There’s so much pressure to get married young, like, no thanks. I’ll get there when I’m ready.” And that’s fine. You’re not ready and I would never advise someone to enter into marriage without being ready, it’s an incredibly serious and adult thing to do, but please don’t ever be mistaken in thinking that the pressure from society is to marry young. Because it most definitely is not. I’ve had complete strangers actually berate me publicly for my decision. I’ve had adults and peers laugh at me and call me ignorant for my decision. But here’s the thing, I get to go home every night to a husband who loves me and is enduring the same scrutiny for our marriage every day. And that’s beautiful. And that’s incredibly worth it.