Basic Trope: A marriage that happens in the very early stages of a relationship.
- Straight: Alice and Bob have been dating for 3 months, and get married.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice and Bob have known each other all of a month, and get married.
- Alice and Bob get married after a week of knowing each other.
- Alice and Bob literally marry after their fourth date.
- Downplayed:
- Alice and Bob get married after 6 months of dating.
- Alice and Bob get engaged after dating for 3 months.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob really are a match made in Heaven, and they know it very early on.
- Alice and Bob had sex, and must get married because Alice is (or may be) pregnant, and her Knight Templar Parent and Knight Templar Big Brother both insist on it.
- Alice and Bob are going into an Arranged Marriage. They aren't marrying for love, but for their families' interests.
- Alice and Bob come from a culture where a short courtship is common.
- Either Alice or Bob (or even both!) doesn't have much time left to live, and they desire to know how it would have felt to have been married before dying. All in all, it would be extremely heartless to deny that Last Request, and the surviving part would be "free" to carry on their life after the other's death ("Till death do us apart", after all).
- The country of Troperia is at war with Wikistan, and neither Alice nor Bob knows for sure whether they'll be alive in another three months.
- Alice and Bob live in a culture of arranged marriages. The dating period is a brief testing period, unless one of them can find a good reason to pull of a Child Marriage Veto.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob have known and loved each other for a long time, possibly since childhood, and they marry.
- Or Alice and Bob have only just started dating, but haven't yet discussed marriage, kids, etc.
- Alice and Bob have been dating for over a year, and marriage has yet to be mentioned.
- Common Law Marriage
- Subverted:
- Alice and Bob had been friends for a while before they began dating.
- Alice and Bob aren't getting married, just moving in together.
- At first they believe they've found true love, and get engaged very quickly — but then one or both parties decides to slow things down, and the relationship takes a more regular pace.
- Alice and Bob were friends long ago and are only now remembering each other.
- Double Subverted:
- But not exclusively.
- But they're engaged to be married in the near future.
- After about a month of a "regular pace," Bob and Alice simply elope.
- Alice and Bob had been friends first:
a) For a month!
b) Online!
c) Back when they were kids!
- Parodied:
- Alice and Bob just met 5 minutes ago and get married.
- Dating for years before saying "I Do" is seen as weird.
- Zig Zagged: Some couples marry early in their relationship, others marry much later.
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob marry after they've been dating exclusively for at least a year.
- Alice and Bob do not get married.
- Enforced:
- The writer is a hopeless romantic, writing Chick Lit.
- Alternatively, the writer is deconstructing the trope, because of Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!.
- Lampshaded: "Alice and Bob together forever...ALREADY?!"
- Invoked: Bob proposes to Alice on their four-week anniversary...and Alice accepts.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Neither Alice nor Bob will even so much as discuss marriage until they've been together exclusively for at least a year, believing that a Fourth-Date Marriage will not be a healthy or happy one.
- Discussed:"You think they'll last?"
"It's hard to say...they haven't known each other that long..." - Conversed: "Wait, those characters just met! Why make them marry now?"
- Deconstructed: Because Alice and Bob haven't known each other that long, their differences can cause problems. And what happens when the chemistry/butterflies/shiawase bubbles wear off? The marriage doesn't have a solid foundation, so it's a crapshoot whether or not it'll actually work out.
- Reconstructed: Alice and Bob learn to compromise and work out their conflicts in a healthy manner. They also remember what's attractive about each other, even when Bob skips shaving for a day or two, and even when Alice is "retaining water." As a result, their hasty marriage is as healthy as (or healthier than) that of couples that dated for years before tying the knot.
- Played For Laughs: Alice (who is six months pregnant and out on the street) sees Bob at a bar, and gets her girl friends to serve him "upside-down martinis" until he doesn't know what's what. She then drives him off to Las Vegas, where they have a quickie-wedding. The next morning, Bob has a hangover, and Alice has a husband.
- Played For Drama: All the getting-to-know-each-other they have to do puts strain on Alice and Bob, both as individuals and as a couple. Can they get through it, and become stronger both as individuals and a couple? Or will they get divorced as quickly as they got married?
Back to Fourth-Date Marriage and by the way, congrats on the great spouse! Wait—you've known them for how long?
