Regardless of what your family thinks, your financial situation and your status with schooling, what troubles me is your seeming inability to communicate clearly with the woman you intend to marry. I think she came to you with a rather straight-forward request to get married in October. Yet, that simple request seems to have thrown you into a tailspin. Why is that? If you are unable to communicate with your wife-to-be now, and you aren't even living with her yet, how do you think it will be after you're married? Honest communication is one of the most basic requirements in a marriage. Most marriages that fail do so because of a lack of honest and clear communication. Being unable to tell the woman you love what your concerns and preferences are should NOT be such a major stumbling block! If you can't be open and honest with her now, it will NOT get any better just because you're married. Quite to the contrary. For heaven's sake, when you tell a woman that you want to marry her and she accepts, of course she's going to want to narrow down the date of when the blessed event will take place! That's not the least bit unreasonable for her to wonder about! To tell her that you want to marry her "some day" is as good as telling her that you don't think she's worthy of getting a true committment from you... Why did you bother asking her in the first place if you were unable to discuss with her such a simply thing as "when" you intend to marry her and your reason for picking that timeframe? If October isn't going to work for you, TALK WITH HER ABOUT IT!!! Tell HER what you're thinking and feeling! Share your concerns with HER! If you're going to be marrying this person, you might as well learn how to communicate, negotiate and compromise because that's what you do in a successful and happy marriage! Things are NEVER cut and dried or black and white. You need to know that.

Although what you family has to say is absolutely valid and should be of concern to you, if I were you I'd be taking a good hard look at the reason that you're unable to communicate with your betrothed. To me, THAT is a huge issue. It's an issue that overshadows all others.

...or am I missing something?

Dan