Editor’s Note: Bela Silverman is a former opinion editor for the Daily. She was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.
For many seniors, graduation often signifies the start of endless new experiences — new jobs, different cities, exciting opportunities. For a select few seniors, another, perhaps more unexpected, event is also on the horizon: a wedding.
Graduating senior Taylor Escudero has a busy few months lined up. She graduates in May and starts medical school at the Tufts University School of Medicine in July — but in between, she is getting married.
Escudero and her fiancé, Ian, began dating in eighth grade. He sat behind her in algebra class, and they went to high school together in their small town of Bridgewater, Mass. Although they went to different colleges about an hour apart, they kept their relationship strong — and, during a trip to Paris last spring, solidified their commitment to one another by getting engaged.
Escudero describes the engagement as an exciting development, but not necessarily a surprise.
“We had been talking about it for a little while, and I knew I was going to med school right after college, so it was either we get married right after college or after med school,” she said. “I kind of had the inkling that he was going to propose to me.”
Since then, Escudero has had a busy senior year, juggling both schoolwork and wedding preparations. While she was able to dedicate time last summer to planning, she has also made preparations during the school year, utilizing the winter break to do tasks such as finding a DJ and sending out invitations. In April, Escudero had both her bridal shower and her bachelorette party, all planned by her bridesmaids — a couple of whom are close friends from Tufts.
While Escudero knows that getting engaged as a college student is fairly unconventional for her generation, she is also confident that the decision is right for both her and her fiancé.
“We’ve been there for each other throughout our entire lives. He’s my biggest supporter, and I’m his as well, and I’m very excited to spend the rest of my life with him,” she said. “At first, I was a little bit scared by some of the reactions that I was going to get from people like, ‘Oh, you’re too young to be getting married, you don’t know what you’re doing.’ But I am so happy with my decision and I honestly have never been so sure.”
Graduating senior Bela Silverman is equally certain that marriage is the right next step for her relationship. She and her fiancé, Mason, have been dating since sixth grade after going to their middle school dance together. The two attended school together, kindergarten through 12th grade, in their small hometown of Hellertown, Pa. and grew up living just a few minutes away from each other’s houses. While they did not necessarily plan to go to college in the same city, they ended up only a 15-minute commute by car from one another, with Silverman at Tufts and Mason at Northeastern University.
The two became engaged this past March during a trip to Martha’s Vineyard, a place that holds many special memories for Silverman and her family. While they had discussed marriage beforehand, Silverman described the engagement itself as a surprise.
“I didn’t really know [the proposal] would be in March, I thought it would be [in the] summer,” Silverman said. “But it was a good surprise. It’s a hard thing, because you want to be surprised, and you want to let him do whatever he needs to do to make it a good surprise for you. But you also want to be able to have logistical conversations about what that would look like.”
The proposal came as the two were in the midst of navigating their post-graduation plans. While Silverman is attending graduate school at New York University for climate journalism, her fiancé will be starting a job in Washington, D.C., doing real estate development work. The year and a half apart will be the most distance they have experienced in the past decade — but, Silverman maintains, at the forefront of their relationship has always been prioritizing what is best for one another.
“We did have a conversation about what that change would be like for us, and what I said to him is, ‘You need to go take the job that you think is going to be the best fit for you.’ It’s his dream job. … And then he said the same thing for me,” she said. “It’s been really good to just have that flexibility and support.”
Similar to Escudero, Silverman emphasized the importance of valuing both her relationship and her own academic and career goals. She does not plan to get married for a couple of years, as she will be focused on attending graduate school and getting her master’s degree first. For Silverman, a key aspect of keeping her relationship strong has been for the two to maintain their own independence, but also be able to come together and support one another.
“I’m not getting married to be a part of someone’s life. I’m getting married so that we can have our own lives, but come together and make it one. And I think that’s kind of the point,” she said. “You don’t need to necessarily sacrifice to be with someone. You also don’t need to take on their hobbies and all of their interests and merge friend groups. You can have your own life and experiences, but come together to tackle challenges.”
Silverman and her fiancé’s ability to take on life’s challenges as a team is what first made Silverman realize that they may be ready for the next step. The two have lived together in an apartment in Boston every summer since starting college, and Silverman described the summer before their junior year as a turning point in which she realized their compatibility in navigating daily life together.
“We got a really terrible apartment. Oh my God, it was awful,” Silverman said. “It wasn’t the best neighborhood. We were in Back Bay in Boston, we both were working very time-demanding internships, and it was just a rough summer. But he made it so much easier. He stepped up. We worked it out. We were taking turns with meals and just living daily life. … [It] hit me that, ‘I’d rather take on life challenges with you than without you.’”
For Escudero, a key motivation in choosing to get engaged while still in college is a desire to grow with her fiancé, rather than get married after having her career and finances secured. She noted that while it is increasingly common to get married only after achieving stability in one’s professional life, she felt that following this philosophy within her own relationship would only keep the two of them from taking the next step.
“We want to grow together as people in our marriage, as we navigate our success together, and as we navigate our careers and our lives and our 20’s, and we’re excited to go through it together … as opposed to [figuring] it out individually and then coming together at the end,” she said. “It’s so much more powerful and so much more impactful … to support each other to the best of our abilities throughout that journey.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, marriage rates among young people have fallen significantly compared to previous generations. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 85% of Americans aged 25–30 were married before 1970. By 2023, that statistic was down to 38%. This shift can be attributed to a number of factors, including significant increases in young people seeking higher education, more equality in career opportunities and less normalization surrounding the institution of marriage.
Evidently, while it may have been out of the ordinary to not be engaged or married as a young adult 50 years ago, now Escudero and Silverman both described having to combat societal pressure not to get engaged young.
“In the 1950s, it used to be very common to get married at the age of 20 … and over time, that age just got older. … I think that is due to waiting until [people] … finish their education to get married,” Silverman said. “In our instance, we’re kind of pushing back against that. … We don’t care that we’re not making all the money in the world right now.”
Silverman agreed, stating that while she often receives questions about topics associated with marriage, such as starting a family, she does not feel the need to engage with those conversations yet.
“Everyone’s like, ‘Before you get engaged, you have to talk about X, Y and Z. If you don’t, you should not get engaged,’” she said. “To me, I think it’s way too young to talk about family. I think it’s way too young to talk about any of that stuff. … That’s just not our timeline, and we’ve had a very different timeline than everyone else. It’s rare to find people who have been dating for a decade as you graduate college, and so we’re doing our own timeline. I don’t want to abide by anyone else’s expectations of what this should look like.”
