Getting engaged less than a year after you’ve started dating someone can raise a few eyebrows, but three couples who did it – and are still happily married – tell HuffPost UK that sometimes when you know, you just know.
From meeting as teenagers in McDonald’s to spending just one week in one another’s company before tying the knot, here are their stories.
‘We met in McDonald’s.’
Michelle, now 40, met her husband Daniel, 42, when she was just 17 years old. The pair were both working in McDonald’s at the time alongside Michelle’s sister and Daniel’s brother who also ended up getting married. “It was a right family affair”, Michelle jokes.
Michelle says something “just clicked” when she met Daniel. “We spent almost every waking moment together and he asked me to marry him just six months after our first date,” she explains.
The teenagers’ families were “not overly happy” about the engagement. ”‘Too soon’, ‘too young’ and ‘too immature’ were all phrases that came up,” Michelle says.
“The ‘it will never last’ was said as well - however this year we celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary so are obviously doing something right.”
Michelle says the couple, from Bedfordshire, have a “great relationship” now, even though they spend more time together than ever running a business - La Belle Cake Company.
“We still pretty much say the same thing at the same time,” Michelle says.
‘We began chatting over MySpace.’
Within two months of meeting, Lee and Sera were engaged and living together. The parents-of-one recently celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary, but their relationship began when they started chatting on MySpace.
“Neither of us had any intention initially of romance or meeting up but after a month of chatting online, we both knew there was something there,” Sera, now 33, tells HuffPost UK.
She and Lee, 41, hit it off the “very moment” they met in real life. “It was simply a certainty that we were now together and with the person we were meant to meet. We lived a fair distance apart so it was sheer serendipity we met as online dating wasn’t a thing 12 years ago.”
The pair, both from Northern Ireland, decided they wanted to get married after just three weeks of knowing each other, but resisted telling friends and family for another few weeks. Sera says loved ones were surprised “mainly because neither of us were ever the marrying type”.
“There were a lot of questions but it moved to a happy acceptance very fast. By the time we were getting married (a year to the day we met in real life) everyone, friends and family, were happy for us having seen we just seemed to fit and balance one another,” she says.
Eleven years later, the pair are still happy. “We make each other laugh daily,” Sera says. “Though it’s easy to let the daily struggles life can throw at you come between you, we have become a strong team who have already withstood a lot together.”
‘We married after spending seven days together.’
Vikram, 47, got married after spending just seven days with his wife Neetu, 40, in 2007. Ten years later, the pair are “closer than ever before” with two children.
Vikram and Neetu met through an Indian matrimonial website after being “persuaded by respective best mates” to give it a go. “Soon we we’re talking on the phone, sometimes for hours,” Vikram tells HuffPost UK. A few months later in September 2007 Neetu, who lived in Canada, flew to see Vikram in Dubai where he lived and worked as a journalist at the time.
“We hit it off famously,” he says. “The connection was instant, there was never a dull or awkward moment, and we soon discovered we had similar world views, cultural upbringing, and tastes in food, music and a passion for travelling.”
After spending just one week together, the pair decided to get married and four months later, in January 2008, they tied the knot. While friends and family were “a bit shocked” about how fast they moved, most were supportive.
The couple now have two children together aged nine and seven and the family live together in Toronto, Canada. “As a family we are in a rock solid place,“ says Vikram. “Neetu and I share a great deal of love and respect for each other and feel connected by an abiding sense of companionship that has grown over time. It’s hard to imagine a life without her.”