Married at 20.

I often get asked by my friends from home, "Why did you get married so young?"

I always just kind of smile, say something to make everyone laugh, and then the conversation shifts to something else.

The other day I thought about this frequent question, and I wondered why I rarely seem to respond with a real answer.

To my friends at BYU and the rest of the Mormon world, the concept of marrying young is nothing new.

Mormon boy meets Mormon girl. Boy and girl court, date, and fall in love. Usually within less than a year, the boy and girl are wed.

I feel like the concept of "courting, dating, and falling in love" is viewed as "old fashioned" and "outdated" to the rest of the world. 

People seem to wonder, "What about the important step of "moving in together" before marriage?  What about the year-to-two-year long engagement?"
I often hear the metaphor related to moving in together: "When you buy clothes, you try them on before you wear them, don't you?  Why wouldn't you do the same with a boyfriend or girlfriend?" aka...move in first, see how it goes, and then maybe get engaged.

Good questions.

Back to the beginning: why do I rarely seem to respond to "Why did you get married so young?" with a real answer?

As I pondered this, I thought:

Maybe it's because the answer is too long.

Maybe it's because people will think I'm weird.

Maybe it's because it's just too complicated to explain.
Maybe it's because people just won't understand.

Maybe it's because I'm Mormon.

But then I realized, the answer isn't long and it isn't complicated.

And it's not just because I'm Mormon.

The answer is easy, simple, and true.

Why did I get married so young?

Because I fell in love with a good man.  A man who loved me back with his whole heart.  And we both wanted to live this life together.

There was no need to "try on the clothes before buying them."

In fact, there was no try.

We weren't going to try to make our relationship or our marriage work.

We were going to make it work.

There is no try in love.

There is just love. 

I know mine and Taylor's quick courting and fast engagement was a shock to the rest of the world.
People often asked me, "Why are you getting married!?" "Are you sure you know what you're doing!?"
But frankly, time didn't matter.
Not to us.
We knew we loved each other.
We knew we were committed to each other.
And to us, commitment meant something much more than just "trying this out".

Commitment meant giving our whole hearts and our whole energy into a love that we cherished.

No, we did not move in together before we were married.
No, we did not even sleep together before we were married.
No, we did not have a two year engagement.

Yes, we got married young.
Yes, we knew what we were doing.
Yes, it's going to last forever.

Dear world: pure and true love still exists. It's still possible to have a beautiful and honest marriage.
Maybe if the world realized there was no try in love, maybe, just maybe, there would be less broken homes, less broken families, and less broken hearts.

Why did I get married young?
The answer is simple.
The answer is easy.
And the answer is true.

Because I fell in love with a good man.  A man who loved me back with his whole heart.  And we both wanted to live this life together.