It's About Time

Since announcing our engagement, Brandon and I have heard this phrase numerous times. Everyone from future in-laws to college roommates to Florida friends who have known us, at most, three years have followed their words of congratulation with a simple, “It’s about time.” Well, we couldn’t agree more, which is why we are, after nearly nine years, finally doing this.

Nobody is actually asking us to justify what took so long, but since it seems to be a hot topic (WHAT? You’ve been together NINE years?), I thought I’d take this chance to explain exactly why it’s taken this long for us to officially decide that it truly is "about time."

To understand our journey, you must first understand that, when Brandon and I went on our first date, he had only had his driver’s license for a month. We were children, and we weren’t thinking about forever. We were just living every moment. And then, after spending so many of those moments together, I guess we fell in love.

Then we went to college – separately. The college years are important to our story because, while our relationship continued to grow, even across the distance, we also had incredible opportunities to develop our individual lives. We certainly missed being near each other, but being apart gave us the space we each needed to grow. It gave us independence.

I took this independence to a whole new level when I decided to spend my first year out of college in India. But Brandon supported that decision, and we stayed together through it.

Then, in 2006, I finally moved to South Florida to be with Brandon. He had come about a year before to complete an internship, get a job, and begin preparing for our life here together.

I joined him in a 600-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment, and we began the getting-to-know-you-again process. Many people expected us to get married right away. After all, we’d been together for six years already. But we were determined to take our time, to do it on our own schedule, not so much because we were unsure of each other (although things had changed during our year apart), but because we were unsure of exactly where our lives were going.

We needed time to figure that out, and we had a lot to do – new jobs, new cars, new apartments (a 900-square-footer!), and, eventually, a new house. We’ve done a lot in two and a half years.

Perhaps having so many things to do is a lame excuse for putting off our wedding. But we were content. We were one hundred percent committed to each other, so we weren’t worried about signing a piece of paper and changing my name. In fact, we figured that was the only thing that would change anyway. And so a wedding was just never a priority.

So why is it one now? Well, we still have a lot to figure out, and we still don’t know exactly where our lives are going. But we do know that we want to go there together. We’ve been walking this path for nearly nine years, and we’ve just finally come upon the wedding chapel. We might as well take the steps toward it. When you love someone, this is simply what you do. And to put it very plainly, it’s about time.