An Interview with...

Amy from The Lawsons Do Dallas!

Amy and her husband, Jared, live in Maine with their two adorable children, James and Maggie. Jared is a chiropractor and Amy runs a mysterious organization of some sort {and entertains the masses on her hilarious blog}.

1. How old were the two of you when you got married? How long had you been dating?

Jared had just turned 23 and I was 21. We had been dating for 14 or 15 months, so you've got a major edge on us there!

2. Do you think waiting until you were both done with school would have improved your married life?

When we got married, I was one semester shy of graduating with my bachelors, and Jared had only done one year of undergrad at a community college because he went on a mission after high school. Now, seven years later, we have two bachelors, a masters degree and a doctorate between the two of us. When we started dating, I didn't know what a student loan was. Now we have a HUGE amount of student loan debt from chiropractic school.

Realistically there was no way we were going to wait 6 years for Jared to finish school until we got married, I just can't imagine how that would have worked. So for us, the biggest price has been financial--a big debt load.That being said, we don't usually fight about money. It can be stressful at times, but we're doing just fine.

The challenges we've had in our marriage have had almost nothing to do with the fact that we were students when we got married. Honestly, I think the fact that we'd only been dating for 14 months turned out to be a more significant issue than getting married young or while we were still in school.

3. What advice would you give to a couple planning to get married young?

Live within your means. Cut up credit cards. Don't buy what you can't afford. Live in a crappy apartment if you have to. Ride a bike instead of buying a car. If you're broke, then act like you're broke--you'll look back and laugh someday. Our first apartment was TERRIBLE!!! But we just watched a video we made of the place and laughed and laughed and laughed. We've moved up in the world!

Disregrard the old advice to 'never got to bed angry.' I've found that being tired and amped up is sometimes the absolute worst time to settle a disagreement. It has the potential to make things explode to a whole new level. Sleep on it, wait until your well rested, and then work it out.

Also, when we were first married, I was convinced that Jared's family was screwy and he was convinced that my family was screwy. After a couple of years we realized that both of our families are great (or screwy, depends on how you look at it)...they're just different. They have different ways of showing us that they love us and offering us support. One is not better and one's not worse.

And my BIG advice to you is to have the wedding of you dreams that you described. Have your pies, have your Mexican food, and please, please, please GET YOUR SHORT DRESS!!!!!

The Lawson family at Jared's graduation from chiropractic school.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Amy!