Volume 124 Issue 6
kansan.com
Friday, August 26, 2011
BASKETBALL
More Legends of the Phog guests announced
KORY CARPENTER
kcarpenter@kansan.com
The list of expected participants in next month's Legends of the Phog has been updated, according to KU Athletics. The list includes current and former NBA players including Paul Pierce, Mario Chalmers, Darnell Jackson, Nick Collison, Cole Aldrich, Xavier Henry, Marcus
and, Markieff Morris, Scot Pollard, Greg Ostertag, and Darnell Valentine. "Many others will be participating and attending the Legends of the Phug," said Greg Gurley, director of development for the Williams Educational Fund, a fundraising program for the athletics department. "The Williams Educational Fund and men's basketball office is actively working on the event with emphasis on current and past professionals along with
timeless legends such as Darnell Valentine. "
The event is set to take place on Saturday, Sept. 24 at 4:00 p.m. Tickets are currently on sale to students for $10.
Edited by Ben Chipman
CHRIS BRONSON/KANSAN The Morris Twins are among other former Kansas basketball star to play in Lawrence again.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN
FEATURE
Olsen says. "It was okay if I started making goals towards achieving that."
Olsen, and others like her, do face the inevitable questions: are you sure you're ready? Don't your want to wait a while longer and see what else is out there? Are you sure you want to be tied down to one person so early in your life?
Caity Lothamer, a senior from Olaf atlesta currently engaged to be married, finds these questions fairly ridiculous. "I've always been a little bit of an old soul, so I feel like I'm ready," Lothamer says. "I'm not a huge partier and I don't go out a lot, so I never felt like I was missing that whole singles scene. It never was for me in the first place."
Burk Nordling, a married senior from Hughton, also feels being married has advantages when it comes to college social life. "If anything, it's a lot better. It's a lot less social pressure," Nordling says. "You're married so you have a partner through the social life. You definitely don't get as harassed to go out."
Becca Braun, a senior from Hutchinson, got a more surprising reaction when she told her friends she was engaged. "I hear sometimes, 'Well, I wish my boyfriend would propose,'" Braun says.
LIVING IN SIN?
As cohabitation has become more socially acceptable, more young couples are opting for that as opposed to marriage, Regnerus says. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 41 percent of American women, ages 15-44, have lived with a significant other at some point. But for some young couples, living together is simply not enough. When asked why she didn't merely cohabitate as so many young couples do, Braun was immediate in her response.
“Maybe some people do it as a trial period; I guess I didn't need that. We knew that was the next step for us. I was ready to marry him. I couldn't imagine not being married to him,” Braun says. “At a certain point in a relationship, you realize that you want to take that next step and after dating for 6 and $ \frac{1}{2} $ years, both of us wanted that next level of commitment that cohabitating wouldn't have gotten us to.”
Part of the reason why so many young people live together today is the idea that if people are going to commit to each other for life, they need to make sure there's not something better out there, Hull, Lawrence marriage and family therapist, says. This means that it can be more challenging for young couples to commit.
Regenerer agrees; although, he reiterates that young people are still interested in meaningful, loving relationships – the relationships are just outside the realm of marriage.
"They feel like they have to be really picky and really try something out and put it through the test of years and cohabitation," Regnerus says. "And then after several years, [they] can maybe move forward with this thing. We've become a lot more skeptical and slow to move towards marriage."
Regnerus is quick to point out that moving in together isn't necessarily a sure sign of failure, and Chris and Lindsay Martin are a testament to that notion. Married for two years (Chris proposed to her in the Birmingham, England, airport while she was studying abroad), the two lived together before they were married. Lindsay attributes part of the success of the marriage to their fierce distance streak, which allowed both of them to study abroad separately during their marriage.
"We're really independent. I was the one that said to Chris, you need to go to England for the summer," Lindsay says. "I don't mind that. I think it's important to have experiences even if we are married."
CHEAP, BUT UNIQUE [what young couples want in a wedding]
Besides the shift in reasons for marrying and average age of first marriage, the way people approach their wedding planning has also changed. While some people may dream about the extravagant wedding, the economic realities of today's financial climate—especially for college students—means such a thing isn't always realistic for two 22-year-olds getting married. But that's another thing that sets millennials apart—many of them are opting for less traditional weddings, Carmen Hocking, a wedding planner and consultant in Lawrence, says. Bailey Olsen is one such person. She says she's more interested in her wedding expressing the commitment she and her fiancé have made towards each other than in having the expensive, extravagant affair.
Regnerus says she has the right idea, and that weddings can be as expensive or as affordable as the bride and groom wish to determine.
"It's expensive if you want it to be," Regnerus says.
Yolanda Crous, senior articles editor at Brides magazine, says there are several ways young couples right out of college can cut costs on their weddings. A do-it-yourself approach to certain projects can help, as can finding a venue that lets you buy your own alcohol. Crous says that marrying on Fridays and Sundays, or early on Saturdays is much less expensive than a later Saturday marriage.
As a wedding planner and consultant in Lawrence for two decades, Carmen Hocking says she's seen firsthand the fact that young couples want their weddings to be different. Young couples want "more flair, more color," and some brides are adding colors like hot pink and orange to their wedding outfits. Not exactly the traditional white wedding, but Hocking says it's little unique touches like this that the millennials really want as part of their wedding. One couple she worked with wanted a cotton candy machine at their ceremony.
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