Wedding Blog
Is anyone else as big of a Friends fan as me? Remember the episode with Rachel’s 30th birthday, the one when she plans out a timeline (get married by this age, have kids by that age, etc)?
I admit that I have an ideal timeline. And I’ve had one even before I was engaged.
I want to have my first kid at or just before 30 for health reasons. I also want a couple of years between my wedding and having kids, so that we can enjoy being newlyweds and our DINK (double income, no kids) status for a bit. That means that I would need to get married at 27 or 28. Which works out perfectly in my case!
Some may say that having a timeline is dangerous - you may set yourself up for disappointment because you never know what’s in store for the future. In addition, you may miss out on opportunities if your eyes are only focused on that goal. However, I like to play things safe. I like being organized, having a plan (with extensive lists, charts, and diagrams 
) and slowly planning for the future.
Mr. Peony and I started dating when I was just 23. But when things got serious (ie talking about possibly getting married in the distant future), I initiated a timeline talk with him. I told him exactly what my goals were in terms of a relationship and starting a family. I told him that if our goals/timelines did not match, then we need to seriously think about compromising or even rethink our relationship. This may sound harsh, but I’ve seen too many relationships suffer or even end after years and years of being together because the couple was not on the same page.
To tell you the truth I think Mr. Peony was a little freaked out. What guy wouldn’t be? He confessed that before we started dating, he didn’t really see himself getting married before 35. However, he understood where I was coming from and told me that if things ended up working out for us, he wouldn’t mind pushing that forward a few years.
Do you have a timeline? Did things work out the way you originally intended?
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Share this post: The Timeline
when i was younger, i always thought i’d be married by 25.
well now i’m 26, and not getting married til next year!
but i always wanted to have kids young, because my parents were young and didn’t have the “ouch this hurts” trappings yet and were able to still do things with us, take us on vacations etc. i know it was probably harder for them because there were four of us, but we didn’t feel like we lost anything. and now my parents are young enough to enjoy their empty nest!
i still want kids by 30 though, but the FI isn’t a big fan of it. he wants to enjoy having no kids for a while, until we are financially able to.
i guess this means the timeline has been thrown out the window.
Hehehe. My fi and I have had the timeline talk as well.
When I was much younger, I remeber saying the absolute youngest I could get married was 25 or 26. I turn 25 next week and we’ll be getting married three months before my 26 birthday so that worked out pretty well. 
As for the kid thing, I’m hoping to have a least one (we’re hoping for two) some time before I’m 30 as well for health reasons since the women in my family have historically had trouble conceiving.
Having a fiance who is 5 years older (I’m 25 and he is 30), I’m less of a timeline person than he is. I could’ve held off a few years before getting married, but he was ready this year. We’re more or less on the same page about kids, but I think I’m more of a procrastinator in that sense than he is.
We’ve talked about kids, though no definitive conclusion on timing yet! Probably ~30, just for health reasons, and it will give us a few years to enjoy our marriage just the two of us first!
Great post, Miss Peony!
When I was a kid I thought I’d be married by 25. When I was 25, I remembered this and laughed as I was SO not ready for it and knew it.
Now, I’m getting married at 29. No timeline was necessary. It just felt right.
When I was 17, I thought by the age of 25 I’d be married and already have my requisite 2 kids. Slowly when I got closer to that age I scoffed at that idea it evolved into marriage and kids by the age of 32.
Now, I’m 28, getting married in exactly 2 months (YIPPIE) and looks like I might be hitting my secondary timeline with the kids. I’d love to have time with my husband for a few years but would love to have a rugrat or two around the house sooner rather than later. Whatever will happen, I’ll be happy with!
Whoa - deja vu! My dad has been rehearsing with me since I was 4 “No getting married until you are 26.5… No getting married until you are 26.5″. Seriously. I am now 25 and engaged (I will actually be 26.2 when I get married - and I am not kidding - my dad said….”can’t you wait a few more months??”) So I have always had a timeline and have always been upfront about it with my fiance (we have been dating for 6 years now). At least 1 kid by 30 - if its twins (which - ugh - runs closely in BOTH of our families) then we are done. Luckily, he agrees with my timeline. I don’t know if I would have had the guts to have an ultimatum conversation if we didn’t agree - so good for you Ms. Peony on that one
I remembered thinking when I was a kid about wanting to have kids by 22!!! I was a weirdo.
DBF is 2.5 years older than me (27 to my almost 25) and has more of a timeline than I do! He worked a bit backwards thinking he wanted to have a baby (or one on the way) when he was 30, wait a year before starting to “try” for kids, and have a 6 month engagement. I told him that short of an engagement can be hard/expensive, so if he’s plannin on marrying me it should stretch to a 9-12 month engagement, which would have us getting engaged by the end of this year.
I think that works.
lol…my timelime is the same as yours. We are getting married next year and I’ll be 27. However, I need to figure out how I can squeeze in going to Bschool. 
Katie the Lady - that’s so funny! My parents always wanted me to get married sooner rather than later and they’re happy that I’m getting married at 27.
I should’ve clarified that the timeline talk wasn’t threatening or meant as an ultimatum. I just felt that I met the right guy and wanted to make sure he felt the same, you know? I think I would’ve compromised by a few years if he really wanted to but it turns out he didn’t want to wait either so it turned out well for the both of us.
haha, when i was a kid, i wanted to be married by 25 and have my first kid before 27, so that i could be closer in age with them and be able to run around with them. i totally had to throw out that ridiculous notion! i’m turning 29 on thursday and my wedding is in 2 months. i could never have been mature enough at 25 to get married (nor did i want to marry the guy i was with at 25!). hopefully, my first kid will come at around 31/32, but we’ll see when God blesses us with that.
I got married at 26, and I’m turning 29 in two months… the time realllllly flies.
PS - I never thought I’d get married that young - though I had an “ideal” timeline, I always thought I’d get married closer to 30.
I’m 23 and my ideal marraige age is 26. It suddenly seems so soon! That means I’ll have to get engaged in the next two years and if current boyfriend won’t be the one to do it, I better start looking soon! I’d be happy getting married up until 28 though since I want kids by 30.
I didn’t have a timeline until 3 months into our relationship it came up in a joking manner that my then BF didn’t want to have children. At all. At a mere 22 years old I began questioning the longevity of a relationship with a man who’s goals were so different from my own. Turns out that he wants to have children, but is a fraidy cat about it! He feels like he is too young, too financial unstable, etc. I think he thinks he’s going to wake up one day and feel “ready”. Does that ever happen?!
I didn’t have a timeline per se… but I know that I want to be a DINK for a bit and one kid on they way by the time I’m 30. (we’re getting married when I’m 25) So, that gives us a few years of married life before we stop “practicing”
I definitely have a timeline in mind. I didn’t have a specific age for getting married, but I wanted to be married by 27ish. I want to start having kids around 30 (FI does too) and I want to go back to school for my MBA and work for a year or so before having kids. Finally, I also wanted to have some time to just enjoy being married (& travel etc) before the kids came along and changed our lives.
JordyPants - to answer your questions, yes it does happen! Mr. Peony was always scared to have kids….that is, until we got engaged. Now he’s always talking about having kids and ooohs and ahhhs over babies more than I do.
I always had a “goal” timeline as well, and I am surprised that I am following it exactly to date. Most importantly to me, I always wanted to be married at LEAST 5 years before having children. My parents waited 10 years before having kids, and as soon as I went off to college, they picked up their relationship right where it left off. A lot of my friends parents had children right away, and every single one got divorced when the youngest child went to college, because their whole relationship revolved around children since they had them right away, and they were unable to maintain a relationship once the children were gone. I am sure there are plenty of exceptions, but all the married couples I know who are married 30+ years waited to have children.
I figured I would want to start having children around 30-32, so I wanted to get married around 25. I will be getting married 1 month and 1 day before my 25th birthday!
Of course, we will be spending 2 years living apart while he does his residency and I finish my biomedical Ph.D., so that will likely push children back - I don’t think I count years of marriage when you don’t even reside in the same state!
My mom got married at 22, and I always thought I’d get married right out of college, like she did. Turns out that I’ll be 22 when I get married, as well! I want to have at least two kids before I’m thirty, but we’ll see.
Up until my late 20’s I didn’t even think I was going to get married…I met ‘the one’ when I was 28/29 and he was 36…I told him that my ‘plan’ was to be engaged by the time he was 39, married by his 40’s and then children by my 35th/36th year.
we’re only a year off - he’ll be 41 and I will be 34 by the time we say do…which leaves us with the kid planning until 36 or latest 37…
Just want to chime in from the point of view of an older bride. I’ll be 38 when I get married, and FH will be 46.
Did I think it would take this long to meet the love of my life? Hella no! I thought I’d get married around 30. But looking back, there’s no way I would have settled down at that age - I had lots of things to do and places to go. I’m glad I was able to accomplish so much on my own and live without compromising. Plus, I always had a great support network - my friends and family never made me feel that I was “alone.”
So now what? If I was hellbent on resurrecting my timeline, we’ll get pregnant next spring. But I know better than to deal in absolutes - if we’re able to have kids, great. If not, that’s fine too. I think everyone should be open to the hand that life deals you - and the time that it can take.
I’m one of the odd ducks who never gave a second thought as a young girl about any future weddings…I couldn’t see the point.
Now fast forward 20 odd years and I’m getting married next year and it is all I can think about. Mainly the wedding, but now that the family is involved in the planning and prep
they are starting the baby/ grand kids conversations.
My mom this past weekend: “We were in the car one day and your father says to me it’s not that far away…what do you want to be called by your grandkids?” !!!!!!!!!
Now I’m 29 and that’s- from what I’ve been reading - around the average age to get hitched these days… I know that the rest of life after the wedding will come soon enough…. I’ve been with my fiance 11 years and we’ve finally decided it was the right time for us to get married after the hard work we’ve put into our relationship and understanding that and each other.
Most of my girlfriends are not anywhere near getting engaged, alone getting married. Sometimes talking with them and seeing their faces when we get into the prep and planning
I can’t help but feel that they feel pressured and that they think they should have a timeline as well.
It’s wonderful to have goals but I’ve personally never experienced life going as it was planned. My sister and brother in law got married quickly 2 years ago before he left for his tour in Iraq, and they wanted to elope then have a larger 2nd wedding when he returns home but older family members and friends (including my fiance and I) suggested to have a small wedding because you never be sure as to what will happen in the future.
We as brides to are blessed that we have found a partner to share our lives with and create families with.
I actually did have a timeline long ago but it did not include a wedding or kids but a spaceship, videophones and I was going to be a great actress. (this was before the turn of the century)
Now I’m getting married in a year, thinking about little ones, and I work behind the camera.
I just wanted to share that.
Timelines are quite dangerous! But I do agree about being up front with your timelines. Some people are perfectly happy to date for decades and others don’t see dating as an end in itself. Plus there are biological clock issues for childbearing.
One of my coworkers went on his second date with a woman on New Year’s eve. She told him that her New Year’s resolution was that she wanted to be married by her birthday (in July!) and that if he wasn’t interested in that timeline that he should free up her schedule to allow her to find someone who was!
So they went home and told their parents they were engaged…
Oh my.
Oh I am sooo on the same page as you Miss Peony. I have had a “timeline” in works since elementary school. I’ve had to “adjust” it a couple of times (for going back to school and the LT-ex factors). Even though many of my friends and colleagues thought I was nuts for having a timeline and then presenting the marriage and kids timeline to fiance in the 1st month of our relationship - I figured it needed to be put on the table b/c if we weren’t on the same page there was no point to continue on. When I was young I wanted to marry at 23 or 24. In college I quickly revised that to 25-27. Well, I’ll be 28 when we get married next year, and I am OK with that. I gained a well-needed year of celebrating my youth selfishly. now I think I need to extend my 1st kid to be 30-31 whereas it was 28-30 before.
Wow, I think I’m the only one who didn’t really have a timeline in mind. When I met my FI we were both in travel mode. I was 20 he was 25. We were searching for our soul mates but not necessarily hell bent on being married and having kids. We let things evolve as they needed to without the pressure of a timeline and I couldn’t imagine it any other way. We did long distance (REALLY long distance… I’m talking australia, vigin islands) for 3 1/2 years. Since our goal was to get our lives in order just to be in the same country let alone the same house, marriage came naturally after we finally got to be physically together. I’m now 25 and my FI will be 30 the week after the wedding. I’m glad I have lots of time on my biological clock to wait to have kids, but mostly I’m just eternally grateful that I’ve found my soulmate, the man of my dreams, anytime in my lifetime. I just got lucky that I didn’t have to wait too long
Oh, no. Life and mother nature are just full of surprises you can’t control. The timeline makes you crazy.
i had the same thing as becky…we wrote letters to our future selves and i think i said i was married with 2 kids by 24 or something like that. now that i’m a single 26 with no kids i just laugh and laugh and laugh. i was barely ready for marriage a couple of months ago!
i just wanted to be married by 30 and i’ll be sneaking in under the line if the bf and i get married in the 2 years that he’s projected for us. as far as kids go, i’m planning on going to grad school in 2 years so that’ll have to wait until after i get my mba.
I’ve never had a timeline for myself, and we never had a timeline discussion, especially about marriage, etc before getting engaged. However, once engaged, we did chat about when to have kids. We are both 24, but both grad students (he is a PhD student). He will not be done for another 3-4 years (=28 y/o). We do not want children while he is still a student, and would like to have a HOUSE instead of renting, when the time comes…yet at the same time, we don’t want to wait until we’re 35 to have kids…
My timeline is pretty much the same as yours and I’m also on schedule!
I got married this year (i’m 27), I finish my MBA next year when I’m 28, then I have 1-2 years to “play” and just enjoy time alone with hubby before we have kids (30).
Me, MEEE! I love Friends. We watch it so much I think I can quote almost every episode. Whether that is something to be proud of,I don’t know!
Anyway, I have to say my “timeline” started way earlier than I’d ever thought. I thought I’d get married around 25 or 26 and ended up tying the knot at 22. That said, I’d like to have kids before 30 as well, but that gives us quite a few years together alone before then!!!
Well I certainly didn’t have one before my FH and I were together, as I thought I’d never get married. Right now we’re both in school, so we’re going to be married and finishing school for about 2.5 years at least. After that, we will probably talk about a baby. It really just depends. FH is 33 now, and I’m about to turn 24. I always thought that 27-30 is a great age to have your first child at, so it seems if our very loose timeline works out, that we’d probably be looking at a baby when I’m 27-28.
I’m a bit crazy (and still wondering why this amazing guy wants to marry me) but I had a timeline of a different sort.
I always said that a year and a half is long enough to know someone - either you can stand him or not.
Well, I told my then bf that and he was feeling the pressure. Then we moved in together. More pressure. December 2006 came around and we had been together for 1.5 years. I had finally made my decision that I loved him enough to continue to live with him and be with him even though he didn’t fit my “timeline.” He proposed Christmas Eve.
I think he might have had temporary insanity but I appreciate it.
I always thought ( way back when I was in HS) that by 30 I will be all set - I will be settled into my job, be married and possibly having a baby or be pregnant in my own home ( white picket fence and all). Well, I am two months short of 29, I just started a new job ( same industry but different area and product), I am not married and have no baby ( but I do have a wonderful bf of 6+ yrs that I will likely marry in the near future - maybe a year or so). So my whole timeline had to be re-adjusted. now I am planning to have a baby by 35 ( 6 yrs seems like enough time to put things in order) unless I have one during business school which I plan to squeeze in somehow. Howpefully at least some of it will work out. good luck to you all !
Yes, I had a timeline. No, it didn’t work out that way. Yes, I am much happier because of it.
Right before I started dating my current bf, I told him about my timeline =P Of course, he was a little freaked out, but if a guy run away because of this reason, then he is prolly not ready to settle, and maybe not even serious about you.
My timeline was (keyword “was”) the same was aoedorothee’s. Marry by 25, first kid at 27, second kid at 30. My mom had my brother and me at 27 and 30, respectively, and I thought it was pretty perfect like that. I’m really adamant about not being an “old” mom (but maybe if I’m young at heart, it doesn’t matter?). I’m 25 now though, and not going to get married any time soon. My bf is still in undergrad for another year (hopefully) and we both think we want to go to grad school eventually. So that’s another ~3-4 more years we probably won’t be getting married. Now I’m pushing it back to having my first kid by 30, but heck, I don’t even know if I’ll be married by then! (I am also adamant about having at least 2 years of a child-free marriage. I am actually looking forward to that period the most! Who knows, it might end up being even longer!)
I’m ready to be married in my relationship, but not ready in my life. I still want to do lots of traveling, perhaps live/go to school abroad, and go back to school. *sigh* It makes me sad that my timeline won’t work out, just because it puts a crunch on my life/professional plans (i.e. find a good job I’m happy with, which grad school to go to), but what can you do? If you’re not ready, you’re not ready.
Im only 22 and we are engaged. I never thought I would be married this young, but I have been in 3 long relationships (2-3 years each). Peter and I have been together for 2.5 years and we knew we wanted to get married since we started dating. He is 26, good age for him. We have 2 dogs and a house, so we finally decided to take the next step.
I know I do not want kids until I am at least 26. We both work a lot (luckily I work from home) and I am still in college. We also LOVE to travel (up to 6 times per year!). Also, I think he is a little scared of children at this point, although I know he wants them. We also like to spend money, we work hard and we buy a LOT of stuff, so I know at this point we are too selfish to have a child. We need to grow out of this before we think about it, so at least we are aware of this.
Yay for timelines!
-Tina
Yay Tina! I’m with ya! Same age as you (okay, in 2 days) and the husband-to-be is 26. We have a dog and 2 cats and live in our apartment (living together for a year).
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Mrs. Peony, New York
Age and Occupation: 27, Marketing Coordinator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, QA Engineer
Engagement Date: June 28, 2007
Wedding Date: April 18, 2008
Venue: The Fountainhead
Blogging Since: August 7, 2007
About Me: Both Mr. Peony and I are huge computer nerds, and our conversations usually consist of the latest gadgets, programming languages, and video games. At the same time, I can also be very girly with an obsession with handbags, makeup, and high heels. And art! I've studied studio art extensively, almost majored in art history, and freelance as a web and graphics designer. Mr. Peony and I are having a ball of a time planning a wedding for 250(!) guests, doing our best to infuse our personalities (geeky chic) with the wishes of our very traditional Asian parents.
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