engagement

launching adults • when they don’t get married 

| Kimberly Smith


Imagine this. You have a 26 year old daughter. She meets *the* guy and after a period of dating he pops the question and you’re on the track to launch your daughter into the world. 

There’s an engagement party. Friends and family gather to express their excitement and joy. A handsome collection of towels, platters and salad bowls are given to the happy couple and stored away while preparations for the BIG day roll on. 

The house is bought or a rental property secured and furniture is purchased or gathered from friends and family looking for a charitable reason to upgrade their own. 

The bride is treated to a Shower or Kitchen Tea – where the women in her world huddle to exchange recipes and tips, play random games with pegs, stock her pantry and laundry closet with hundreds of dollars worth of consumables and thirty tea towels and, more importantly, let her know that there are women in her world cheering for her and supporting her in this next stage of her life.

Then comes the wedding day. People come from interstate and even overseas. They file into the church in their finery – the married ones reminiscing about their own special day and everyone feeling the privilege of sharing in such a sacred and momentous occasion. Then they eat and dance and raise their glasses as parents and best friends speak blessing and hope on behalf of everyone. The wedding gift registry has been bought out; providing tableware, appliances, linen and decorative items to ensure the couple are well established as they create their first home. And the questions commence about when you might be expecting the arrival of your first grandchild. 

Now imagine this. 

Your daughter is 26 years old. 

And she moves out of home. 

That’s all. 

Perhaps she has a housewarming. Maybe she receives a couple of cards and a few candles or table runners. 

Exchange your daughter for a son and though there’d be some differences in the narrative the end result is similar. A well celebrated, highly affirmed, and practically supported launch into the world. 

The contrast ought to raise a few questions for us. 

Who knows if there is marriage in their future or not. Maybe there are still the engagement, showers and wedding to look forward to. But maybe not. 

What do you think? How do we launch adults with any sense of ceremony and passage without the engagement and wedding process? What is missed for those exiting home and establishing themselves independently without these experiences? What mechanisms might there be to facilitate intergenerational connection or verbalised support? 

another wedding closer to single

| Kimberly Smith

“Every time another friend gets married it hurts more.” – a Single person.

Well, actually, many Single people. It seems a commonly experienced emotion among those desiring to be married – the pain of watching others experience what they are waiting and longing for can be intense.

My personal journey with jealousy is well documented (see a blog sample here!!) and an engagement, a wedding or a birth announcement are certainly able to flick my jealousy switch. But one thing I try and remember in the midst of that emotional response is that marriage is not a numbers game.

Marriage is not a numbers game.

Each wedding that happens is not actually making it less likely that I will get married. There is not a finite number of weddings that can happen in my lifetime and every time one happens my odds decrease. I know we know that, but sometimes it’s easy to forget we know that and add another layer of despair to our grieving.

We say, think or hear things like “well, there aren’t many good Christian men left in your age bracket!” Or, “you do live in an area where there aren’t many Single people!” Here’s the deal, we don’t need many we only plan/hope to marry one. Whether that one is one of a thousand or one of one is not the point. You just need your one.

The Bachelor is a TV show not a real life phenomenon. You don’t need to start with twenty-four to find the one. The process of discovering your life mate is not a game of comparisons. You don’t need to like Bachelorette number 11 more than Bachelorette number 3 in order for Bachelorette 11 to be your future life partner. The qualities of an individual person stand alone and should be interpreted in relation to how you are or are not suited – not because they beat out another person in an apple bobbing competition or some other randomly determined measurement of their true feelings for you!

But stop! Before this becomes a rant about the inherent stupidity (and oh so appealing watchability) of the Bachelor franchise, hear my point. It is not a numbers game.

Another wedding does not make you more Single. You are not more or less valuable, likable, dateable, husband-or-wife-able the day after a friend’s wedding than you were the day before. Undoubtedly the moment of celebration for another person can be a poignant time of heightened emotion, longing or grieving but let’s not add an unnecessary element to that emotional cocktail.

Now … the fact that your friends just got a whole lot of free household items when you had to buy all of your own!? Well, that’s another matter. You’re completely right to be indignant about that! 😉