By: Alex scott
A college student is picking a dress. She wants to feel confident, sexy and beautiful. She has brought her mother and grandmother to help her. She scours the store for the perfect dress. She finds one to try on. This is “the one.” It is not a dress for a college formal or an event. This is her wedding dress.
Melanie Metcalf is one of a few students at Bellarmine University who is planning her wedding while still in school. Metcalf is a senior double majoring in theatre and communication. She is graduating in May and is getting married in August. Metcalf’s fiancé, Cody Holbert, is a student at Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville.
While keeping up with school obligations and working a part-time job, she has managed to choose the venue, set the date, select her wedding dress and pick the photographer.
The dress is altered, the guest list is made, the venue is booked, and the study guide for a test is finished. These are all deadlines that engaged college students must face. Among maintaining grades, jobs and social lives, some couples must also maintain wedding planning, which can be a full-time job.
Metcalf said she thought being in school has helped her through the planning process.
“I think being in school hasn’t allowed me to stress about the wedding as much as most brides do, which may be a good thing. I haven’t felt that planning this wedding has been my only priority,” Metcalf said.
For other couples, wedding planning while in college is not as easy. Emily Bryant just graduated with her bachelor’s degree in accounting in December and is currently working on her MBA at Bellarmine while being newly engaged. Her fiancé, Tyler, attends the University of Louisville. This overlap of school and wedding planning has been a little more difficult for her.
Bryant said: “We just don’t have a ton of time to devote to the planning process, so things are moving a little slower than I would like. But we have over a year and a half until we want to get married, so there isn’t a huge rush for us just yet.”
Bryant also said school has affected their timeline to get married. They are waiting until November 2019 to get married because they both want to be finished with school and working.
To cope with the busy schedules, some couples create deadlines to stay on track with their planning. Matt Keeling is an accounting major at Bellarmine and is scheduled to graduate in the May 2018. His fiancé, Destiny, graduated from pharmacy school last year and is working full time now.
Keeling and his fiancé used deadlines while planning their wedding. They are not only facing deadlines for school, but also for their wedding.
“It [deadlines] kind of pushes us to not get stressed out, I guess, and to make sure we have it done within a certain amount of time,” Keeling said.
They are getting married June 2 of this year.