Some say it is just a trend to get engaged while still in college. Others just say it is just the right time in their life. Planning a wedding can be very time consuming especially when added to the pressure of classes. Erika Strother and Angel Champion are both planning a wedding during their senior year at Auburn.


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Strother is a senior at Auburn University majoring in Nursing. She says she is trying to get the “big things” taken care of first because she will be doing her preceptorship until the end of the semester in Panama City, Fla.

“By using good time management, I’m able to balance preparing for the wedding and getting things taken care of as well as finishing schoolwork in a timely manner,” said Strother. “If I wasn’t organized things would be all over the place.

So far, planning the wedding hasn’t interfered with her schoolwork. Since Strother has passed her major exit exam for nursing, she says she feels more relaxed now and has more time to think about planning the wedding.
She says her mom as also been helping her with the planning process.

When asked if Strother thinks there is a pressure to get engaged while still in school, she replied by saying, “I think it becomes more of a pressure the closer it is to graduation, especially if you have been dating for a while,” said Strother, “It can be seen as the next step of your life.”

Strother’s fiancé, Dean Moncrief, proposed to her on Dec. 28, 2010. Moncrief responded to the same question by simply saying he did it when he wanted to.

According to Strother, everything is going well so far. She says she is glad she is almost finished with school and that it may have been a challenge to try to juggle nursing and planning all at the same time if it were any other semester.

“Now that I’m in the final stretch and the majority or my school is under my belt, I feel like it is easier to devote time to planning the wedding,” said Strother.

Champion is majoring in Secondary Education. She says that she finds time to plan for her wedding in between studying and school. She tries to get things done on the weekends and during breaks.

“It is such an exciting time in my life, so I feel like it is more fun to plan and think about the wedding than homework and studying,” said Champion. “Sometimes, I’ll even stay up late looking up things on the Internet just to make myself feel accomplished.”

Since Champion got engaged at the end of the summer, she says she started the fall semester off distracted. She would go to the library with girls to study for a test and would end up talking about her wedding plans for hours.

“Wedding planning adds another distraction to the pile of things given to us as students,” said Champion. “It is a lot of pressure because this is the big day that most girls dream about all their lives.”

She says there is so much pressure to have it perfectly planned in advance, and as a result, wedding planning is the first thing on her mind every day.

“Wedding planning is just more fun to talk about and focus more attention on,” said Champion.

Strother’s wedding will be on October 1 in Brundidge, Ala. and Champion’s will be held on June 11 in Childersburg, Ala.