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Is it a bad idea for me to get married during my 1L summer?

The details: I'm starting LS next fall. GF and I have been together for 6 years, figure it's about time to make it official. We are looking to do a small and inexpensive (as weddings go) destination wedding. The plan would be to take 2 weeks after I finish 1L year (this summer seems too soon to pull it together) and before I start a summer position. However, my parents (one of whom is a lawyer, fwiw) think I should wait until 2L summer because 1L is super important, planning the wedding will be stressful, etc etc. My initial impulse is just to do it - it's about time, I don't really want to put it off anymore, and I think the amount of work I'll have to put into planning is minimal, since it will be in another country with very few guests and we will have a wedding planner dealing with most of the logistics. However, if this is a foolish idea, I obviously want to know. It would be great to hear from people in similar situations, but any feedback is appreciated.

Way more foolish to mess up (I hate to put it that under the circumstances) your 2L summer/SA. Congrats, btw.

fwiw I've been with my fiance for the past 6 years; we got engaged about 2 years ago and are getting married 2L summer after I finish my summer job. I just want to get married already!!! I almost wish we had just done it last summer (of 1L). A (really) long engagement may put a strain on your relationship in unforeseeable ways.

psu2016 wrote:Way more foolish to mess up (I hate to put it that under the circumstances) your 2L summer/SA. Congrats, btw.

From my experience, it is totally doable to handle wedding planning + law school... My wedding did not affect my 2L summer job at all, apart from deciding when to start/end my position. For typical 2L SAs, though, they may have more rigid start/end dates, so you may want to keep that in mind.

what about during winter break?

cbbinnyc wrote:However, my parents (one of whom is a lawyer, fwiw) think I should wait until 2L summer because 1L is super important, planning the wedding will be stressful, etc etc.

Doing it 2L summer will be worse than 1L summer. Although, neither is ideal depending on how much wedding planning will distract you from grades.(especially as a 1L) 1L summer isn't that important as long as you have some job.

As long as it doesn't interfere with OCI, you're good.

lawman84 wrote:

cbbinnyc wrote:However, my parents (one of whom is a lawyer, fwiw) think I should wait until 2L summer because 1L is super important, planning the wedding will be stressful, etc etc.

Doing it 2L summer will be worse than 1L summer. Although, neither is ideal depending on how much wedding planning will distract you from grades.(especially as a 1L) 1L summer isn't that important as long as you have some job.

I got married during 1L summer and it was not a problem at all. Mind you my wife did a lot of the planning (things like flying to check out caterers, bakers, etc). But I think 2L summer would actually be a little easier just because you have more time during that summer than 1L summer. 1L summer you have write on competition, followed by job, followed by (increasingly early) OCI. My wife and I decided to delay our honeymoon because there wasn't enough time and then took 3 weeks during 2L summer, which was not a problem at all. During 2L summer there is typically 3-4 weeks if you do a 12 week summer program. During 1L, you are lucky to have 1 week.

Got married in the middle of OCI/callbacks, had no effect whatsoever. In fact, it made for some great conversation with female interviewers. You'll be fine whenever you do it (so long as it's not the week before finals or something)

4for44 wrote:I got married during 1L summer and it was not a problem at all. Mind you my wife did a lot of the planning (things like flying to check out caterers, bakers, etc). But I think 2L summer would actually be a little easier just because you have more time during that summer than 1L summer. 1L summer you have write on competition, followed by job, followed by (increasingly early) OCI. My wife and I decided to delay our honeymoon because there wasn't enough time and then took 3 weeks during 2L summer, which was not a problem at all. During 2L summer there is typically 3-4 weeks if you do a 12 week summer program. During 1L, you are lucky to have 1 week.

I also got married during 1L summer. We didn't start initial wedding-planning until winter break of my 1L year, but managed to put together a really nice wedding with a lot of help from my wife's mother and sister. Other than signing off on major stuff like the venue, final guest list, and honeymoon location, I didn't really participate in the wedding planning and organization. As long as you are okay having very little hands-on involvement, the wedding itself will probably end up working out.

I gotta say though, for your career, it's a pretty risky move. I was incredibly fortunate and got a 1L SA gig in the market I was targeting, which was both really good (saved $$$ for just-married expenditures; we could afford to live in a 1-bed after a year of LDR) and not-so-good (between 1L, writing competition, SA, and OCI, I didn't have a day off from January until our honeymoon). I contacted my career services office right after we got engaged, and they were not super supportive of the timing until I got my SA offer. OCI was very low-key for me, but for my friends who had to go through the whole process, including the ones who got early offers before OCI, it was basically a month of purgatory. I also got lucky and really liked/drank the Kool-Aid of my 1L firm, so I was happy to tell other firms during OCI that I had a hard callback cutoff past which I would be out of contact/the country. I would not recommend this strategy lol, it worked out fine but could have gone very poorly in other circumstances.

Thanks, everybody, for your feedback! This is super helpful.

Another duder who got married over 1L summer here. It's fine as long as you time it so that it doesn't interfere with OCI, which for us meant cutting down the honeymoon trip to a week. In retrospect, the only thing I would change is to have hired a planner, which would have made our lives (or more accurately, my wife's) easier.