Some teenage sweethearts told SundayLife! that extending the dating years is necessary because parents object to their nuptials at a younger age.

Singapore Armed Forces regular Remes Thay proposed to his girlfriend Ang Bee Ting, a UniSim undergraduate, two years ago. They were then 23 and 21.

Says Mr Thay, now 25: "I'm holding on only because her parents said we were too young. I proposed two years ago and it's a promise I plan to keep."

The couple expect to get the keys to their four-room HDB flat in Sengkang this year and will register their marriage next month.

They have been dating for nine years since secondary school. The spectre of a break-up never occurred to her, says Miss Ang, now 23, because they are "comfortable" with each other.

She adds: "Being in a relationship that breaks up after eight to 10 years would mean wasted years, especially for a woman."

For customer service executive Parameswari Prathiya Raj and her husband, self-employed despatch rider Sivaprakash Palaniappan, their one-year engagement turned out to be an 11-year wait.

She met him in 2002 through a mutual friend. She was then 27 and a factory operator and he, a 25-year-old canteen cook.

They planned to marry in 2005 after their engagement in 2004.

But the deaths of both their grandfathers and her grandmother, between 2005 and 2010, with the customary wait in between, put their wedding plans on hold.

Moreover, Ms Parameswari's only brother died of kidney and liver failure in 2007. "I was depressed and in no mood to get married," she recalls.

And after her brother's death, Mr Sivaprakash got into a traffic accident on his motorcycle, tearing the ligament in his right index finger. He was advised against heavy-lifting jobs for half a year, was retrenched and became jobless for a year.

These distressing years proved to be a bedrock for their relationship. Says Mr Sivaprakash: "She didn't say bye-bye to me when I couldn't work. She stuck by me and said, 'You can do it'.

"When she was depressed and couldn't work for eight months after her brother's death, I supported her financially."

When they finally tied the knot in December 2012, about 1,000 family and friends turned up at a restaurant in Geylang.

And if he had to do it all over again, Mr Sivaprakash says he would still opt for a courtship of eight to 10 years. "The more years you have together before marrying, the more you understand and adjust to each other," he says. "Now, life is happy."