Planning around the Bar exam?

AFTER. The amount of study, focus, and work required is pretty intense, and it's really six days a week at the end. He will be much more relaxed and himself afterwards.

I would say get married before! My FH took the bar last year and it will be too stressful for him to study and think about a wedding. Don't do it to him or yourself. FH was a nightmare while studying for the bar.

Definitely before. I was a hot mess during bar study and could not imagine doing anything more than the bare necessities - eat, sleep, study. A fall wedding would put way too much stress on him right in the middle of bar study. I would try for either pre-May 2018 or post December 2018.

Before. We are getting married just a few months before I graduate for this very reason

ETA: we are eloping about six months before.

Ask him which he wants and ask yourself if you are prepared to plan the wedding without much help from your FH. I would imagine classes would conflict too either way

I'm not a lawyer, but my husband is - there is no way I would want any part of wedding planning or getting married during that time frame. He was basically not a human.

I would have it well before he would need to start studying, or late fall after the results come in. It's just a really stressful time - he was not peachy or pleasant lol

ETA - We got engaged a few months after he passed the bar, so we avoided this stress entirely.

After for sure. And try not to stress him while he is studying. It is a very intense time. My BIL and his wife got married about a month after he took the bar. He just said ok honey whatever you want because he didn't want to be distracted. Good luck to your FH!!!!

When I was prepping for the bar exam, I couldn't do much besides study, stress eat, and attempt to ward off panic attacks. If I were you, I would either get married before the bar exam or way after-- like in 2019. If he fails (heaven forbid, but it could happen) he'll need time to study again and take it again.

Plus can you imagine being at your wedding, with lots of well meaning relatives saying "Oh, how did the bar exam go?!" and he has to say "I don't know yet," or "I didn't pass." Your happy day will turn into an anxiety-inducing or maybe embarrassing experience for him.

Average study time is about two months. So if I'm understanding the timeline, you'd have to squeeze it in between his exams/graduation (presumably early/mid-May?) and the start of his bar prep course (presumably end of May for the July bar). And if he's studying for exams in the weeks leading up to your May 2018 wedding, he might not be much help.

I know it sucks to postpone the wedding, but the more I think this through, the more I'd cast my vote for 2019.

Funny story--I took the bar exam in February (I was a December law school grad) and my results came out April 1. Yes, April Fool's Day. I was so full of anxiety, I was sure my "yay you passed!" letter was a cruel joke. I couldn't even be happy about passing for about a week.

I'm still in law school and haven't dealt with it personally yet, but I agree with either way before or way after. DH can barely stand me around exam time as it is--our house gets filthy, the laundry piles up and we eat like crap because I simply don't have time to deal with it and he can't do it all by himself. I can't imagine dealing with visiting family members (and the drama they can bring with them) and the stress of a wedding on top of that.

I would bump it to 2019 as well. Definitely not the spring before. My wedding and my bar exams (two states) were the very happiest and most miserable times of my life, respectively. They should not be anywhere near each other. Not only will he have zero time to help you plan at all, but you want him to be able to be fully present and enjoy the wedding.

After is tricky as well, unfortunately. You want it to be after the results, so he can spend zero minutes at the reception having assholes ask him if he's nervous about the results. But then you run into the problem of (hopefully!) he'll have a new job as an attorney, and he won't be able to take much time off the first year, and won't want to to make a good first impression. So, if the bar is in July of 2018 and the results are...I'm forgetting- October? I would do the wedding in the fall of 2019 to have him have a year into the new job before taking time off for the wedding and honeymoon. If that sounds terribly long to wait, you could consider summer of 2017 right after exams.

Speaking from experience. DH and I waited to get engaged until we had both taken the bar and at least one of us had a permanent job.

Agree with all the PPs who speak from experience. Studying is awful, and waiting for results is almost as bad. You need to either plan well before or well after he should have results.

He will pass. Have that confidence. But also be prepared for him to not pass. If he doesn't pass the last thing he's going to want to do is be in wedding mode or have to answer questions about results. The bar exam is seriously stressful and awful.

Is 2017 not an option? So he would have lots of time to study? Because you will still be able to plan and it will be hard not to distract him with wanting to share ideas for it.

Seems the consensus is before or way after. Everyone handles the bar differently. But personally, if it was me I would do it the fall afterwards, perhaps September. He'd be able to help with all the preliminary things through May and then he'd have to take a break from helping until the test was over at the end of July.

For me, once the test was over I felt light as a feather. I didn't get stressed about the results until I knew they were coming any day.

As far as wedding planning, most of the big stuff would be done by may (4 months or so before a fall wedding), you could take care of most things in the interim, and he'd be back in the saddle for all of the last minute things in the final two months.

Personally the last thing I would have wanted toward the end of law school when I was worried about exams, graduation, the bar, the future is to get married and not even be able to relax afterward.

Ultimately, let him make the call. He'll know how he deals with things.

Also, the bar exam (and extras for getting licensed, like the character and fitness assessments) is really expensive. I paid like $800 bucks just to take it, plus another $1500 for my prep course and books. And my prep course was the cheapest that I knew of at the time (Themis). I think Kaplan or Barbri are more like $3k. I don't know your plans as far as paying for your wedding, but that seems like a lot of big bills in a short period of time.

I am on the other end planning for the lsat, I would say to take the exam first! He is not going tk have time for a honeymoon before he takes the exam.