Married/Engaged Vets - need opinions
 

The boyfriend and I are essentially engaged minus the ring, which will be coming (along with the formal titles of fiancé/fiancée) in a few months. However, we're not planning on actually getting married for another three to five years. I've heard mixed reviews as to how long an engagement should be, when to hold the party, and just when to start planning the actual wedding. Needless to say, I'm more than a little confused.

So, I ask of you all...

Is it weird to be engaged for so long?

Because it'll be so long before the wedding, is it realistic to hold an engagement party around the six month mark or should we stick to the "after the first month, but before the three month" rule I keep hearing about?

How soon should we start wedding plans to keep things as relaxed and stress-free as possible?

How much did you budget for your wedding?

Any other advice???

Thank you all in advance :D

If you have a date set then that's fine. I get confused when people are engaged for years without setting a date, makes me wonder why they got engaged :P

If you have a few years to plan and pay for everything, that's great! If you're getting married around holiday times (christmas, easter, new years etc) the more time you have to book the better :P you need at least 5 months for most wedding dresses as well. Um... my parents paid for everything (thank god) but I cut corners everywhere! I only had candles on the tables) they were provided by the hotel at no cost, my auntie did my bouquet... umm... i didn't have chair coverins (they were 8 dollars a cover and with a hundred guests....) I made my own invitations...

Stuff like that!

If you need any help, drop me a pm!

We got married about a year after being engaged, but from what I know about other couples, that's fairly quick. I know a couple who have been engaged for two years and still have no concrete wedding plans whatsoever. For some people getting engaged is just a committment thing, it doesn't mean you have to start planning your wedding and everything right away or even know exactly when you want the wedding to be. It's not weird, whatever feels right for you :)

I'd allow at least nine months for all the wedding planning though, it can get pretty hectic if you try to squash it all into a short space of time.

Congratulations also :Halo:

~Michelle

Me and Lizzie have been engaged for 3/4 years not sure which plus i'm a man so i'm allowed to forget dates and stuff :p

We haven't had an engagement party yet but then again i'm not sure if we will. I'm hoping the wedding will be in the next year or so but we are waiting until we are debt free and can afford our own home and pay for the wedding. Lizzie has been scrap booking or something and has picked a few things like what i will be wearing.

At the end of the day it comes down to whatever makes you happy and what your comfortable with.

my mom and her fiance have been engaged for yeaaaarsssssssss and she doesn't intend to get married for a long while either x

we got engaged 9 days after matthew joined RYL... and married 3months after he joined. Yesterday was our 3rd anniversary.

Mum and dad paid for a lot, but we cut corners everywhere. register office, suit/tie he already had, dress from ebay, flowers from local supermarket etc...

we're planning on doing it 'properly' when the babies are old enough to be bridesmaids/page boys etc.

mand x

Okay, now I don't feel so weird about the possibility of a long engagement.

Thanks for all the replies :) They're definitely helping tame the anxiety of it all.

I did our wedding in three months. My sis got married a few months later so I planned her wedding too. I suggest to my friends that they elope.

Not much help, just a different point of view?

less stress that way. you dont have time to worry!
mand x

we got married within a year of our engagement but thats only because we knew we didn't have to pay for it all ourselves as i'm the first daughter to get married in the family.
But my dad and his wife were engaged for years before finally getting married a little while ago.

I don't think there is any ruling as to how long you should wit for things, just take it all at yur own pace, if you rush it to keep others happy then there's a chance you could freak out about it and not get things the way you want your perfect day to be.

my perfect day wasnt perfect... my flowers looked like leeks (calla lillies, bound together with white florist's ribbon, and they didnt pin the leaves back), the room we were married in was grotesque (orange and green... we were told peach... orange and green are my 2 icky colours), my dress didn't fit right and there was nothing my dress-alterer could do about it, matt hitched my skirt up so high (after the ceremony) that he flashed my oh-so-unattractive pants at everyone! my hair flopped 2 mins in...

we're planning what we want already, this time it will be perfect!

Im engaded now and i'm 19 years old. We won't be getting married till im at least 24-25. We had an engadgment party as soon as we got engadged.

We just feel we have been together a long time, why not have a long engadment to save for a house and a wedding. With my fragile mind, my fiance likes to make it as stress free as poss.

x

That sounds a lot like what we want to do. I know I want to DIY as much as possible, and take the time during our long engagement to save up so we can have some money and not put the burden on our parents.

Oh wow Mand! I would have been in tears over it all. =/

This totally sounds like our situation! Except he's 19 and promised his mom he wouldn't marry until he's 24 or 25, where as I'm a few months younger and hoping to get married around 23 or 24. Something about wanting the "rest of our lives together" to start as soon as possible. :p

you just have to make the best of the day and be glad that only a select few were there to see it!

we were already planning to have another wedding, possibly on our 5th anniversary, but having kids has put off any kind of drastic self-improvements, and we still dont have our own place. all that has to come first.

mand x

Everyone's different, do what's right for your relationship and what will make you happy.

I got engaged about 4 months after meeting erne and we got married 5 months after that, if we werfe going to be together we had to marry for immigration purposes.

I got married in cuba, we did it on the cheap but we looked beuitiful, felt ecstatic, were sorrounded by people who wanted to make us happy, danced the night away and we have amazing memories. The only down side is that only my parents could travel out for the UK, even my sister wasn't there.

We'll have another celebration here one day and people from this side of the sea can celebrate, but there's no rush, at the end of the day the marriage is more important than the wedding.

im one of those long engagement people. i got engaged when i was 18, im now 22 and no nearer to getting married. i was supposed to be getting married this year in october, but freyja came along and money became too much of an issue. i am not too fussed about waiting, people often ask when we will get married but its just not top of the agenda at the moment, i have freyja to look after and our finances are screwed at the moment so i am very, very skint.

oh yes we didnt have an engagement party either.

Well said :)

Do what's right for you! We did what was right for us and it was wonderful, we didn't announce our engagement but spoke to parents etc and in the end had a beautiful intimate wedding that was perfect :)

our wedding was small, for our engagement 'party' we just went out to tgi fridays with mum and dad and my brothers for a meal. these things all cost too much!
mand x

*takes a deep breath*

So we've got the ring on layway...which is making this all too real. We're still not sure about the whole engagement party thing, but we're hoping to possibly have dinner with both sets of parents depending on money and what have you. Still haven't begun to think about where we want to have the ceremony but I've been told I'm not allowed to start considering options until we're fully engaged.

Wow, everyone gets engaged so quickly. I feel so... left behind :(