Wedding 101: 4 lessons from student couples

When it comes to wedding planning, you probably wouldn’t ask a college student for advice.

The percentage of adults in the U.S. who have never been married "is at an historic high," according to a Pew Research Center survey released in 2014. And adults who do marry are marrying later in life: The median age at first marriage, it reports, is now 27 for women and 29 for men, up from 20 for women and 23 for men in 1960.

“It’s definitely out of the norm to be married at 21,” says Kasandra Hays, a college senior at Brigham Young University who married her husband Brandon this past summer. “So many people say to me, ‘But you’re so young!’ Or, ‘You have so much more to do with your life!’ As if life was suddenly over when I got married.

“But no one ever talks about how strengthening a marriage can be. In fact, I feel like I need it in my life now more than ever. College is stressful enough, full of decisions to make and things do. This constant, reliable relationship is just what Brandon and I need. It builds us both up; we support each other in our crazy dreams, and we get to chase them together.”

Planning a wedding, though, whether one or both partners are in school, can be a particularly daunting task that includes the juggling of academics, work, family obligations and fluctuating college budgets.

But with a little organization and a lot of love, these four couples were able to balance going to school and planning their “I Dos.”

Check out their crash course in wedding planning below!

Wyntre and Michael: ‘Divide and conquer’

Wyntre and Michael, both 20, are high school sweethearts in the middle of planning their wedding. The two got engaged last September and are planning their wedding while attending Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah.

“When you’re planning a wedding, there is so much to try and focus on,” says Wyntre. “You want to be in love and spend all of your time going on cute dates and planning the perfect wedding, but you also need sleep. And to do homework. And get good grades. And work. And plan for your lives after the wedding day. Life gets extra chaotic and it can be exceptionally frustrating to feel stretched in 10 different directions.

“In all of that, it’s important to remember you’re a team! And this wedding is a team effort.”

One thing she and Michael recommend is dividing wedding responsibilities by interests.

“For example, I’m exceptionally picky about the photographer. I’ve called at least nine as of today,” Wyntre says. “So Michael is handling figuring out the wedding colors, so that I don’t have to stress out about it. The things that are important to me (like the photographer) he hands off unless I ask his opinion, and the same goes for him being able to choose what is important to him.”

Kaela and Joe: ‘Be realistic about your schedules’

Joe and Kaela met through their church congregation, doing Hurricane Sandy clean up in the Rockaways, N.Y. They got engaged about a year later in early November 2013.

At the time, Joe was starting his junior year at Columbia University in New York, while Kaela was beginning an apprenticeship at Pierre Michel beauty salon, also in Manhattan.

When it came to planning, the two were careful to be realistic about what their school and work schedules actually allowed them to do. So while Joe was extremely busy with school during their engagement, Kaela’s job gave her a little more room to breathe.

“I took the reins on planning,” she says, “It wasn’t as difficult for me, because I was more able to balance my time (between work and wedding planning). And I enjoyed it — it became my hobby for the time we were engaged!

“We also had a lot of help from family and friends, and a long enough engagement — 7 months — to plan everything. We used breaks from school and weekends to plan. And we scheduled to have everything planned long before exams.”

Bonus tip: “Don't plan on getting too much done during finals!”

Challis and Taylor: ‘Make time for each other’

When Challis and Taylor, both 21, first got engaged last June, they had the extra difficulty of having to plan a wedding long distance. At the time, Taylor was enrolled full-time in a summer semester at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, while Challis was working in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

“Summer classes were fairly simple,” Taylor says. “But it was hard to be far from her.”

In order to balance his time, Taylor focused on completing all his schoolwork during the week so that he could spend the weekends in Idaho – time he used in part to plan the wedding. The two also did a lot of wedding planning over Skype.

Even living temporarily in different states, the Taylor and Challis found ways to make time for each other during the planning process.

“We had a lot of fun and valuable learning experiences as we painted signs for the reception together, planned the honeymoon together, and made decisions on the wedding and our future together,” Challis said.

“I think our society sometimes makes marriages all about the decorations, the colors, the cake, the dress, the flowers, etc. Although those are all a fun part of the tradition, the actual ceremony and your choice to marry have much farther reaching effects than that of what kind of flowers are in your bouquet.”

Alex and Kiefer: ‘Use your summer break’

Kiefer and Alex had known each other since they were 13, but didn’t start dating until six years later. They got engaged last Valentine’s Day.

At the time, Alex, 21, was working full-time at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital and going to school at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. Kiefer was working as an EMT as well as pursuing his advanced EMT license.

“I started a Pinterest page the day after I got engaged in February to get an idea of what I wanted the wedding to look like early on,” says Alex. “But because we were so busy with school, I didn't really do much besides just daydream about the wedding until June.”

Her spring semester, Alex had a full course load, including bioorganic chemistry, physiology, and a particularly time intensive theater class. “I’m pretty serious about getting good grades,” she says. “So I knew I couldn’t put planning the wedding before school.

“That’s why I'm really happy I planned my wedding for the very end of the summer. It gave me a lot of time to plan without having to balance work, school and a wedding all at once.”

Alex adds, “Though I'd always imagined a June wedding, my August wedding was wonderful and I definitely wouldn't want to jeopardize my grades because I was distracted. And for us, summer turned out to be enough time to plan! Our wedding turned out wonderfully.”

Emma Miller is a student at Columbia University and a fall 2015 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.