Marrying Young Shouldn't "End" Your Life

Whether you just discovered my blog right now or you've been following me for a couple of years, just one look at my blog or even my Instagram account will show you real quickly that I am married.

A little more digging will also show you that I am quite young to be married (at least by today's standards) at the age of 22.

P.S. We've been together for almost 7 years.

I understand why society would have hesitation towards couples who marry young. Back when women didn't have as much freedom career-wise, getting married and having babies was pretty much the only thing you could do. With all the knowledge we have access to now, it can seem unwise to get married so young too. I get all of that. My family had the same viewpoint as well so I am very familiar with the reasons why people don't get married before the age of 25 too much anymore.

For me personally, there were many reasons why I got married. A good chunk of it was my faith directing us towards that, but a lot of it was also that we had dated so long and it all felt right. I knew in my heart that the timing was perfect, no matter how unexpected getting married was for us.

If you grew up with or are familiar with Christian circles, then maybe me being married at 22 isn't a surprise to you. If you didn't, then you might be scratching your head as to why someone like me might be married already. I have a degree, I am very independent, I am career-minded, and I also don't want children yet, so why would I want to be "tied down" at this age?

In the weeks leading up to the wedding, we had both friends and family tell us that it wasn't too wise of a decision to get married partially because for me, as a woman, I was "giving up" my life. It meant that I'd have "no freedom" anymore.

I saw things very differently and saw our marriage more of us just joining our lives together. I didn't see it as a restriction but more of opening the door for us to fully share our lives together. Ever since I was 15, 16 years old we talked about these very things and at the time we got married, the timing was right. We dated with the intention of getting married somewhere down the line and it was always a given with us, never a question.

Tweet: Marriage shouldn't change your goals and dreams for life.

A few years ago I wrote a post addressing people who bashed those who got engaged before the age of 23, but I also addressed the people who did get engaged before 23. (Funny enough, I said in that post that I might also be engaged/married before 23. I was right!)

Obviously, people are going to do what they want regardless of what you think about their decisions. Personally, I think that as long as you and the person you are with have gone through enough positive and negative experiences together then why not make the commitment to get married if you both want to and are able to?

If you are considering marriage in any capacity (regardless of age), just know what marriage won't nor should it "end" your life. If you have certain goals you want to accomplish, getting married shouldn't change those goals. If you are already committed to dating someone seriously, how would your goals while dating them change when you get married besides living together?

Honestly, it is a pet peeve and after being married for almost a year I still don't understand why people have that mindset. It shouldn't affect your dreams in the sense that you automatically can't accomplish them because you're married. I get it when life happens and you can't pursue your goals anymore, but marriage in it of itself will not and should not affect what you want to do in life.

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Where are my young married couples at? I gotchu guys! Also, my inbox is always open if you want to chat more about topics like this. I will be writing a couple more posts like this mostly to encourage people in similar situations and also to shed a different light contrary to what people may think about certain people in these kinds of situations :)

6 Months of Marriage + Wedding Photos (FINALLY!)

Last week, the hubby & I celebrated 6 months of being married! Woo! Six months isn't a lot, but it's hard to believe sometimes how fast time passes. For us especially, since we dated for so long as well, getting married was the cherry on top of many things happening in our lives last year. So to get to the 6 month mark already was amazing and unbelievable. 

All wedding photos featured are courtesy of Alexandra Burnett, who gave me exactly what I was looking for in wedding photos!

I also thought that this would be the perfect excuse to finally show wedding photos here on the blog! I posted a good chunk of them to my personal Facebook and I post couple photos of us on Instagram every now and then, but I think it's now the time to finally show a glimpse into our wedding day. 

It was a cold, rainy day in the middle of Australian winter (July 20th). Funny enough, it rained the day we got engaged too. They say that it is good luck for it to rain on your wedding day; I saw it as renewal and refreshing of us as we enter this new season of our lives. Despite the rain and our ceremony being outdoors, we made it work and it did not stop us at all.

Wedding Day makeup -- nothing too extravagant here, we were on a budget and made it work :)

We only got engaged 6 weeks prior to our wedding so it was the culmination of a very busy, somewhat rough few weeks. It was great. I won't talk too much about the process of planning the wedding because I will save it for another post, but I will say that other than it being worth it, everything came beautifully considering our low budget we had for it. I'm pretty proud of myself, hence me writing about the wedding planning process in another post :)

We got married at a Chinese garden at an aboriginal reserve not too far from where we live. It was a beautiful backdrop for our ceremony, and because we were on a budget, we later had our reception at a friend's house.

It was a small, 40 person wedding that was nothing the way we ever thought our wedding day would turn out, but it was such a special and perfect and amazing day. I wouldn't change any part of it.

We do still intend on doing some kind of wedding or formal celebration when we move back home to America in a year or so to have our families formally become one and to meet each other as well! Until then, I just want to appreciate my blood relatives here in Sydney, as well as our friends that we have come to call family as well. (BIG shoutout to our wedding photographer, Alexandra Burnett for the beautiful photos!) I will mention this again when I talk about my wedding planning process, but honestly this couldn't have been done without them.

Friends, family, brides to be, or even just someone who stumbled upon my blog by chance, I hope you enjoyed our wedding photos! If you or someone close to you is planning a wedding, I hope you got some ideas through our photos, but stay connected with me on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) or send me an email if you have any specific questions, as I will soon be writing a post on planning a less than $1500 USD wedding in 6 weeks :) Stay tuned!

Next Stop: PHILIPPINES!

Hey y'all! So the last two weeks have been crazy with me finishing up my full time job, moving into the master bedroom of our home, and now packing for the PHILIPPINES!

I briefly mentioned it on Instagram a couple weeks ago but yes, it has finally come. We are heading to the Philippines for 5 weeks!

To be honest, we wanted to stay in Australia and work this holiday season because they pay so well in the holidays, but this year is also my family reunion for my mom's side of the family. I haven't been to the Philippines in 6 years (& Darell 5 years) so we decided to just take this time to enjoy with our families. Besides, we don't know when is the next time we'll be able to do something like this again!

We will be spending some time with Darell's family, as well as both my parents' families. When my family from America arrives just after Christmas time, we will pretty much go hard on doing touristy stuff for two weeks because it's part of the reunion celebrations and because my family is from there, we are less likely to do touristy things when we visit. We are even visiting the island of Palawan this time around, and I haven't island hopped in the Philippines probably since I was 3 or 4, so this will be a treat!

And then outside of those crazy two weeks, anything can happen! Our schedule is mostly free for the other 3 weeks that we'll be there without my American family so who knows what Darell & I will end up doing!

Having said that, we most likely will have some down time since we won't be in a hurry to do things most of the time that we're there, so I may have a blog post once a week while we're there, I might not. I will definitely try to do an end of year/new year post on the 31st and the 1st like I've done for the last few years since those don't usually take too long, but we will see! Hopefully I don't sleep our entire flight to the Philippines & maybe I can get some work done. 

We will also be vlogging our trip! Not sure how many vlogs it'll be but they will most likely go up after we come back. And of course, after the trip I will be posting specific posts about visiting the Philippines, the food, and so much more :) So until then, follow me on Snapchat (@duhhkrisellee), Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook where I will be posting updates!

Our Engagement Story

So first things first. I am now married! & like I said in my previous post, I wasn't even engaged when I had written back in May. So before I get ahead of myself and talk about the wedding, I'll talk about the much requested engagement story. If you are knew to my blog or don't know us very well, check out our love story & how we came to be as a couple!

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The week leading up to our engagement, Darell was acting very weird. He would do things like casually getting down on one knee to pick something up or tie his shoe, and when I would ask him about potential wedding dates (we were originally planning to elope) all he would say is "you'll find out soon," which is a weird response to when one should have their wedding unless they were planning something themselves...

Another thing about this: it was also our 6 dating year anniversary coming up, so the idea of getting engaged on our anniversary seemed very likely & something that I was lowkey hoping for. I mean, it makes sense, right?

We had gone on a date into the city the Friday before our anniversary, and part of me kept thinking that he would pop the question then, but when he didn't, I was also surprised, but still suspicious of the following Sunday.

So when the day of our anniversary came up, Darell was acting even WEIRDER. He was always pacing, always fidgeting, which he never is that way. Like at all. We've been together for 6 years, he doesn't have a reason to be that way unless he was planning something.

Our original plans for the day was to attend Vivid Sydney, an event every June where Sydney lights up in beautiful lights and and everything just seems magical. Pretty nice place to potentially get engaged, right?

Well the day of our anniversary was also probably the day for one of the worst rain storms of the season. It was pouring rain really hard and flooding in some places as well. When we got to church that day, he was pretty bummed out about the weather and kept leaving me to "go to the bathroom" or go with one of his friends to "check out gear" (when in reality he was meeting up with people to try & figure out what to do in lieu of our original plans).

Church ended & we decided to get lunch at a nearby mall. He said he really wanted us to go to the city but the weather would just make it really difficult (and on top of that when it rains like that they cancel the light shows anyway). You could tell that his mind was elsewhere. He is usually on his phone always checking things out, but today he was checking it with a sense of urgency. I was very suspicious of him at this point, but in an attempt to play stupid, I kept asking him to pay attention to me as it was our anniversary.

We killed time at the mall by walking around, buying polaroid film, and eating Mrs. Fields cookies with a hot chocolate. When it was almost time for the church night service, we had decided to head back to church. I know that we had just attended church in the morning, but we usually also attend the night service too unless we are in the city. Plus the night services have a MUCH more different vibe than the morning services. Sunday mornings are more like traditional church services, Sunday nights are like massive parties.

So we get to church and it's like any normal Sunday night service. Towards the end of the service, Darell decided to check his pulse on his phone (he has a cool app that lets him do that) and his sitting heart rate was 90 bpm (we also had been sitting for 20 minutes at that point). He showed it to me & I asked him, "Babe, are you okay? Why are you so nervous?" He couldn't answer me, haha.

The service ended & I could see that he was scrambling. He brought me out to the church cafe and we had "run into" one of his friends (that I later found out he asked her to be at that very spot). He & I hadn't taken a nice photo that wasn't a selfie yet & he asked me if I still wanted a photo. I said yes of course!

He took a look outside & the rain was still pouring pretty hard. We wanted to take a photo at the Secret Garden, a really pretty garden at Hillsong Church with twinkling lights hanging all over from a tree at the end of it. It's really romantic.

We hung around for a few more minutes as Darell was running around talking to people, then when he came back to me he asked if I was still down for it & I just said yes, we could just make it really quick. Then, not even thinking about the engagement, I almost felt bad that I was insisting on taking a photo in this garden in the rain.

But like God's hand over our relationship (which would later also happen on our wedding day), the rain let up to a sprinkle, the lightest the rain had been all day. As we were walking to the garden we were amazed at our timing.

There was a family taking photos at the garden so we waited for them. One of our friends, who had sat with us with her husband during the service & already said they had to go home & we said our byes, showed up at the garden & told Darell to angle ourselves in such a way. I was 95% sure he was going to propose to me at that point.

Darell started talking to me about things we deserve in life. He really struggled to get the words out, but long story short, he said that we get what we don't deserve, and he didn't deserve me.

By this point we were standing at the tree already, and the family before us had hung around & yelled, "now all you need is a ring!" & Darell & I both wished they would leave haha.

He finally got down on one knee & pulled out the box & opened it (upside down, hahahah he was verrrry nervous), and asked the question, "Will you marry me?"

Even though I had suspected it, I was still surprised & teared up a bit. It happened so fast but I vaguely remember nodding my head & saying yes.

Darell's other friends had reappeared and we all took photos & celebrated. We couldn't say anything on social media yet as we wanted to make sure we told our parents before anything. But yeah, the rest is history.

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Fun fact about where we got engaged: when I first learned about the garden when I first arrived in Australia, I joked with Darell about getting engaged there because I loved the twinkling lights. I always told Darell that I wanted him to propose to me however he wanted, I just wanted the moment captured so we could remember it forever. He did just that :)

Anyway, so there is our engagement story! I know that many friends & family wanted to know what happened so here it is :) I will be writing about our wedding eventually but that will be for another time. Until then xx