Have you seen that photo going around that says "getting married at twenty-one is like leaving the party at 9:15"? Well, I'm twenty-one and as of December 27, 2015, I got married. You might be asking yourself "But Kayla, why? You're twenty-one and have a long life ahead of you for you two to get married." Well random user, it's because we wanted to. Did I plan to get married this young five years ago? Absolutely not. Did I even plan to get married this young four months ago? No. We had set the wedding to be in 2017, but we wanted it. Thus, we moved it.

"What the shit. Why would you set a date and just not wait for it? Shouldn't you just wait to both graduate college? Wait until you both have jobs? Wait until it's just you two living together?"

I was once like that. We had a date set for May 27, 2017. He would've graduated but I probably would have had at least another semester left. I had already started to plan for it; going on pintrest to plan. I had about several different boards just for wedding stuff. We were going to have a wedding that was sort of Harry Potter related because nerd reasons. But after having a discussion with my brother and thinking about it for a few weeks, why? We were going to have this giant wedding that would last for four or five hours full of people. Yes. How horrible having so many family and friends to talk to and inviting. That's not the point. Having the tiny wedding we did was actually quite more my taste. I thought I wanted a giant wedding, but after thinking about how much effort and planning and money it would have taken to pull it off, it just did not seem obtainable to me. Our wedding was small, under thirty people. It was family and only a few others and it was still wonderful. Am I sad that more friends didn't get to come? Well of course, but I liked it just being a family thing.

Jobs. Jobs are a tricky thing for college kids, as we all probably know by now. We are both in the business of becoming music teachers and while yes, there are a lot of jobs opening up soon (or so I've been told), you don't always get a job right out of college. A lot of people end up substitute teaching for a while until they actually find a job. We both currently have jobs now and while it might not be "an adult career", it still pays bills.

And as for the living together thing. Yes, we currently are rooming with our friend in a two bed room apartment. And yes, the amount of Ted Mosby level just grew on him, it's fine. Our lease won't be up until August, which gives us plenty of time to save up money and find a nice apartment for when we're ready to move out, but for the time being, we're all going to suck it up. Is our roommate on the next level of third wheeling now? Sort of, but he knew it getting into this. It's not entirely fair to him that we got married a year and a half earlier than we said we were going to, but he's been a very supportive best friend in getting my now husband through this process.

There's only one other issue that some people have been saying: "We haven't been together that long." We've been together for just a little over a year. And while yes, it was a little fast, we knew. We were already planning on getting married and we just pushed up the date a little bit. "You've only been alive twenty-one years, what if you meet someone who is your soulmate?" Already met him. I married him. How can I be so sure of this? Well, I might be young but I like to think of myself as a tiny bit wise. I was in a relationship, for four years, where I thought we were going to get married and all that jazz, but there was just something wrong. Nothing ever flowed between the two of us quite well, he would always get angry, and he was a tad bit mentally abusive. I've been in a place where I thought I was going to end up marrying someone, but didn't. We didn't get engaged but we were living together. It is scary to think about what would have happened if I would've stayed with him. So how do I know Matt is my soulmate? For the sheer fact that it's right and feels right.

I love this man. I love this man with every fiber of my being. I would not change anything I've done in the past few weeks for anything. I'm happy that I got to marry Matthew over winter break; and he is happy as well. We went out for a nice celebration dinner the day after we got married to the Gas House, nice place by the way, and we talked about the post. "Getting married at twenty-one is like leaving a party at 9:15". No. Getting married at twenty-one is about being able to have someone to go to the party with, leave at nine and go have a filet mignon and get a free piece of cake, and then being able to go home and sleep beside the person you love with your whole heart.

"I will walk with you, hand in hand, through this journey."