During college, students meet everyday, in every location and under every type of circumstance. But, who would have guessed that when third-year Engineering student Christina White dove off the high board in Diving Club one day 15 months ago, she would dive right into the heart of fourth-year College student Charles Tremblay.
Now, they are planning their May 19 wedding.
Several other couples are planning weddings during their final years here at the University as well. One of the most common responses that students receive after announcing their upcoming nuptials is the question: "Don't you think you're too young?"
Fourth-year Education student Julia Villa thought not. She currently is planning her wedding to 2000 Architecture school graduateAndres Stell, even though her fiance is not here to plan with her.
"He lives in California, we've been apart this whole time, and we just don't want that any more," Villa said. "I know it's the right decision for me."
Contrary to popular belief, marriages among college students are not as common as they used to be. According to Sociology Professor Rae Blumberg, since the 1950s, when almost half of women were married by the age of 20, the median age for first marriages has risen to 25 for women and 27 for men.
"While it is possible for some undergraduates to get married, it's not going to be as prevalent as when the median age was 20," Blumberg said.
"I wasn't planning to get married until I was settled in my career,"White said. "But it just didn't happen that way, and that's okay. Once we knew that we were right for each other, there was no point in putting it off."
Blumberg had another explanation for the increase of the average marrying age.
"I have to mention cohabitation," Blumberg continued. "It is now much more prevalent than it was a generation ago, and in fact, there are more young people cohabiting before the age of 30 than are legally married."
But despite the statistics, these couples have made the important decision to wed.
Fourth-year Engineering students Kelly Fish and Paul Burnette are another couple that made this decision. They have been planning their wedding since the end of their third year.
"We got engaged at the end of last spring semester," Burnette said. "The purpose behind that was so that we could use the summer to plan a lot of the larger, more difficult logistics."
Burnette and Fish, who will marry in Charlottesville next October, also did some more of their planning over the winter break, and will use the final summer between graduation and the wedding date to finalize all the remaining details.
Any wedding can be extraordinarily difficult to plan, but with the added pressures of classes, tests and the approach of graduation, it can be almost impossible. But somehow, these couples are managing.
Tremblay and White plan their wedding in their spare time, which, for the moment, consists mostly of weekends and holidays. Although a lot of the planning is done with the wedding a few short months away, the two still are making as many trips as they can fit into their schedule to Northern Virginia to make sure that everything is in order.
"We did a lot over winter break, and it's been pretty hectic," Tremblay said. "I think we'll probably reserve a few weekends over the semester to go up there to communicate with our vendors."
Villa, who just returned from another visit with her fiance, has been taking every step possible to include him in each aspect of planning.
"I don't want this to be my wedding, and then he kind of just shows up," Villa said. "I want him to be helping with the planning and have some say as to what we're doing."
Stell will be moving back to Virginia in March, which Villa hopes will make things easier. With the wedding slated for this August, her fiance's return will allow them to make the final preparations for the big day together.
Tremblay and White are planning everything with help, not to mention funds, from family.
"My family has been very supportive," White said. "Our circumstances are original in that my parents are willing to help out monetarily with the wedding. So I'll get the wedding of my dreams and not have to look back and say, 'Well, because we were poor and young and we didn't have enough money, we had to elope.'"
Although White appreciates her parents' financial support, it seems the one thing the couple could use is a little more time.
"The way we're doing it is, I waited to start planning until my last semester when I would have a little more time," Tremblay said. "Although, I'm working and going to class at the same time, so I don't really have that much time."
None of these couples know exactly what will happen once the proverbial "honeymoon" ends, but things look positive nonetheless. Villa sees this uncertainty as a kind of adventure.
"I think it will be exciting because we're not going to have a whole lot when we start off, just each other," Villa said. "We're going to be with each other as we start our careers and so I'm really excited about it."
And once their wedding is over, they'll only have to plan the rest of their lives.
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