What age do you think is a good time to get married?

Sometime after 21, when you find true love.

Also, having a stable job helps. Not necessarily for financial reasons, but maturity ones.

Now is always a good time to start saving up—for retirement, for your wedding, for your first house, for whatever. It’s always better to start saving now than to get to something later and realize you need money you don’t have.

For marriage in particular, most of my guy friends don’t get bitten by that bug until about 27. But saving now is good in general!

101

I have noticed a lot of emotional growing happens till you hit 27. That would be my vote.

I would say right now, considering it seems like you’re sure you want to get married someday. As @EmpressPixie said, it’s never too early to start saving – for anything. Of course, you may not even need to save a lot – because maybe you’d like a small wedding. Still though, if you do start now, you’ll always have a cushion to fall back on, should any kind of emergency rear its ugly head.

I’d say when you can support a family and when you think you are morally grown enough..I’d say from 22–38

the age when you feel like you are ready to get married.

emotionally; sometimes as early as 15 or 16
financially; 22 or older

The age when you knock her up.

Okay, really, I think late 20’s is a good minimum for marriage.

@patg7590 Emotionally ready at 15–16? I have a hard time believing that.

I think no earlier than your late 30’s. but if your really ready in your late 20’s it’s fine. I’m like this because i think people are usually so rushed and pressured into marriage early on, before they know what they want. and I believe that your 20’s are the best time of your life, when you’re transitioning from being a kid to an adult. The time when you should have the most fun and not have to be weighed down by anything other than the amount of time YOU’RE willing to work to get money.

@Grisaille I would’ve married my wife when I was 16 If I had been financially stable. Now I’m 19 and we’re married. and poor :]

At whatever age you meet the one and you both agree to get married. There’s no need to rush it or put it on a plan. It never works out the way you plan it anyway.

I was 28 and it’s worked great so far.

Mid-to-late 20s, I think, is when people are at the earliest pretty much financially and otherwise ready. It’s also the time when you probably should be having your kids, biologically speaking, if you want to go that route.

Dare I say, though, that the older the better for marriage in general, but it’s the kids thing you’ve to think about. Our bodies’ ability to spawn hasn’t lengthened out to the time it takes for people to emotionally mature, has it?

To add onto @aprilsimnel‘s point:

Do you really want to have kids when you are around 40? So they are 20 when you are 60, and can’t teach the little bastard how to throw a football because your health is failing? Alright, bad example, but you get what I mean.

That’s way off topic, I know. But it somewhat agitates me when I hear that someone had a child when they’re already well past the halfway point, so to speak. Someone I know is expecting his fourth child – he’s 48.

EDIT: Alright, so this really doesn’t have anything to do with the question. Jus’ need to get it off my chest.

Whenever you feel you’re ready and no earlier. And don’t be swayed by those studies that say married men live longer. The truth is it only seems longer.

UGH! i really don’t know. Lately my girlfriend (who I’ve been dating for almost three and half years) and I have been talking a lot about marriage. She keeps bugging me to save up for our future, but I’m having a really hard time doing so. I grew up in a family where…I didn’t really have much growing up, and now that I have my hand on some money, I always have the urge to spend it. In the past year and half, I’ve gotten really hyped-up about computer technology, and I’m deciding to build a computer by scratch this Christmas, but it’s gona cost about $1600CAN. And my girlfriend is not too fond of the idea. Like, don’t get me wrong. I’m not b*tch-whipped. I totally agree with her I should be saving up, but it’s sooooooooo hard!

And like, common guys. For all you guys out there who have girlfriends, you don’t wana give your (hopefully) one day wife-to-be a half-assed wedding, right?

(sorry for the grammar, I am SO tired…)

Haha! When I opened this question, I thought it was going to be some teenager telling everyone they were getting married. It’s nice to see a normal question.

It’s crazy that weddings are so expensive. It’s good to have goals for saving, but saving for a wedding would freak me out. I hate it when couples spend all their time talking about things like curtains and equity- it just takes away some of the romance. But if you want to have a nice wedding, there’s no way to avoid saving up for it. Why not just start building up savings, no matter what it’s for.

It’s so excruciatingly hard though! Like, being in your early 20s, it’s not even about the little itty bitty things anymore. It’s not about the trading cards, and toys and what not – it’s about the big ticket items! The flat screens, the surround sound systems, the fast gaming PCs – the mancave stuff! So like…what do you choose?! You’re not gona save up for your wedding now, and then start saving up for a gaming PC after you’re married right?? Oh the pain…

@Dog

i copy that. im 26, a month ago i viewed my self just the same as i did when i was 19. now i see my self more like a 30 year old. it seems to have happened all at once for me. as is usually the case with me.

scary.

Over 21.
Been dating for a while.
Steady job.

It isn’t just about love.

If having a ‘man cave’ is more important to you right now- then you have your answer. You’re not ready. Honestly, that’s fine. It’s important to have a time in your life where you can enjoy the rewards of your work.

One day it won’t be as important as preparing for marriage- and then you’ll have your new answer.

I duno. See…the thing is. My girlfriend’s parents are actually already approaching their 60s. We both wana be able to start a family, and have some grandkids for them. We’ve already planned out that…per se if we get married when we’re 26 and have our first kid when we’re 27…by that time, they’re already gona be around their mid 60s! And common, being grandparents, who wouldn’t want to see their grandchildren grow up, right? And if everything does go as planned (with whatever I said up there), when my kids are even 14, her parents are going to be approaching their 80s!! and that’s if everything goes as planned. I duno. I feel as if…although there are many things I want…for the sake of my girlfriend and our future…I have alot of responsibilities to uphold. But…I’m not sure if I’m ready yet for all that yet. But on the other hand…I feel as if I’m letting her down. She’s always always always been there for me, and I know how extremely important this issue is to her…I feel like I’m stuck inna slump…=S…

24–30

When-both-of-you-are-ready-years-old.

As a few people have pointed out—marriage is about a lot more than just love. You’ve already got that idea a bit by the fact that you want to wait to save up, but it’s more than just that too. You should be old enough that your personality is probably fairly settled (mid twenties is good for this), you should have a steady job, some money put away, and be comfortable combining your legal and financial existence with this person. If your girlfriend is horrible with money, you need to talk about how you’re going to combine your financial existence with her. There is a lot of work that goes into being ready to get married beyond age, love, and having the money for the wedding.

I was 20 & my husband was 22 when we got married. My parents were 40 & 41 when I was born, thus 60 & 61 when I got married. I grant you, I’m the baby of the family & didn’t produce the first grandkids (on my side) but age certainly did not diminish their enjoyment of the kids.
Saving up vs spending on ‘toys’- maybe you should give yourself an allowance of sorts. X amount each month in savings, X amount to spend.
You sound as if this is what you want, at some point anyway; what do you think is making you drag your feet?
@Dog , @poisonedantidote for me it was about 25.

Saving for a wedding is fine anytime, it will save a lot of stress for when that time comes for you. Whether you marry young (under 25) or older, there will be constant changes you two will go through together, you can’t avoid them but you can research and be aware of the biggest struggles couples face, discuss them with your fiancee and kind of exercise between you how you’d approach and deal with those situations, age will be the least of your issues.

I was 35 when I married. It was my first (and hopefully only) time. Husband was 45, but it’s his second marriage. He married for the first time at 19 to the first woman he ever dated, thinking he’d never find another. It was a big mistake.

That said, you don’t necessarily need millions of dollars to get married. If you don’t have much money, just get married cheaply. It’s not how many roses you can pile into the corsages and limo that matter, it’s how much you love each other. Since so many marriages are torn apart by the crushing weight of debt, and seeing how a lot of that debt starts piling up due to huge wedding bills, we decided we wanted to start out with a cheap wedding and no debt. It was great, people had fun, and we were done paying it off by the end of the next credit card cycle, honeymoon included.

Now, if your lady wants a big expensive wedding more than anything, and you are the type that can’t save money, that might be an issue to talk about before getting married. Finding common ground on financial matters is very important. Otherwise you end up like my guy, whose first wife spent him into nearly lifelong debt, and it took him years to unravel it all. Unlucky for him, but I guess a win for me. ;)

Around 27. Your plan of 26 sounds reasonable.

I will share something my counselor told me when I was considering having a second child. I was torn in that I didn’t want one but thought it might be better for my daughter. She said this is about what is best for my husband and me and no one else. My daughter would be fine either way.

I believe the same toward grandparents. Yes, having children in time for them to experience that great blessing would be wonderful for them and your children, but don’t plan your life around it.

I always wanted a brother or sister. My parents didn’t want a second child so I was stuck without. As for marriage, whatever age you and your partner feel like you are ready, also remember it doesn’t take a piece of paper to say you are married, if you love each other and know you will always be together then in your hearts you are already married. Age doesn’t really matter,it is what you feel. I am 19 and engaged, if we knew each other when I was 15 or 16 I still wouldnt have had a problem getting engaged and stuff.

I always wanted the romantic idea of finding your soulmate when you were young and marrying and being together forever. This seldom happens to people, and though I loved the idea, I am glad it didn’t happen to me. This is my third serious relationship, and I am 25 now. It is the first relationship I would consider I was mature enough to even think about marriage. I was with someone for three years, and then someone else for six. Both times I was convinced I was going to marry that person because I loved them. There is more to marriage than just love. It is about being able to be unselfish, to give to someone else before yourself sometimes. Some people reach that point earlier than others, but I think it depends. For me, reaching the point of taking care of myself and being able to see past my own point of view are both steps in being able to make a lifetime commitment to someone. I don’t want to be a selfish partner, and in order to do that, I have more growing up to do.