How long was your engagement?

[musey]

Date: 9/21/2008 1:33:26 AM
Author: Haven
I think the amount of time you'll need really depends less on how much time it actually takes to plan the wedding, and more on how far in advance you need to book your major vendors.

Agreed.

If lead time were not an issue, I could easily have planned our wedding in under 5 months. Easily. But our budget being what it is, and having a wedding in LA... we needed lots of lead time to get the high demand (read: high quality, reasonable cost) vendors. We went to book our venue 17 months out, and they already only had one Saturday left in the month we wanted.

That on top of what seems to be the other big delayer: we got engaged in February of '06, wanted a fall wedding, 8 months was not enough time--everything was already booked. So a year and a half it was.

 

[goldenstar]

It will be two years. I was still in law school when we got engaged and I wanted to graduate and take the bar well before the wedding so the big events wouldn''t take away from each other. Also, I didn''t have a lot of free time to plan.

On the plus side, we were able to save more money for the wedding during the long engagement and get our choice of vendors.

 

[Laila619]

5 months!

And we could have easily done it in 4 months. It''s a myth that you need a year to plan. I''m having a large wedding with all the trimmings. You just have to be decisive and move quickly.

 

[Babyblue033]

We were initially going to wait 2-3 years, for 2 major reasons. I have many issues with my family right now so a wedding in the mist of it would''ve been too stressful, plus we wanted to pay for our own wedding so we would''ve needed the time to save up. And of course I would''ve needed sufficient time to plan it etc.

Then we decided to elope, which pretty much negated all reasons why we should wait

So now our engagement will only be about 5 months and we''ll be getting married in Florida this December, no guests, minimal planning (my major issue is the wedding dress), we''re splurging on ourselves, and will have a wedding of my dreams

 

[Harleigh]

1 year and 11 days, but we''ve known each other for 16 years, so I''m not sure if we would have needed more or less time! It all worked out in the end, so I guess time was irrelevant!

 

[Rock Your Socks]

When i get married in june next year our engagement will have been for 19months!

 

[museikchik]

Date: 9/19/2008 11:23:52 PM
Author: redfaerythinker
I was engaged in May, and we hope to marry in October of 2010. So that''s two years and about five months. Long I know, but I want to graduate college and get established first. I''m enjoying the ride though!

You sound exactly like me red. Yeah for long engagements!!! I would totally recommended it for everyone. Less stress.

 

[LaraOnline]

engaged in march, married in January. This was basically because January was a good time for us to leave our business, I would happily have eloped, or be married earlier.
The whole wedding really fell into place with a few days planning, really, once I had decided on the dress and the rings. Although I s'pose you need to let the guests and the caterers know your intentions!

My pastor was fantastic, and I loved my wedding ceremony. That planning basically happened two days before the ceremony.

 

[Sparkalicious]

Getting married September of next year ... We will have been engaged for 18 mos.

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Engaged February 12th and Married March 9th.

That''s like just under 4 weeks.

 

[SuLi]

My fiance and I are getting married next week. We were engaged in April of last year (so about a year and a half), and have been together for almost ten years.

 

[Nocturnius]

Answer: way too long.

We were engaged for three years before we got married.

 

[musey]

Date: 9/21/2008 11:31:03 AM
Author: Laila619
5 months!

And we could have easily done it in 4 months. It's a myth that you need a year to plan. I'm having a large wedding with all the trimmings. You just have to be decisive and move quickly.

AND:

-Live in an area that doesn't book up early
-Have lax ideas about what venue/photographer/dress/etc./etc. you want (as that stuff will disappear closer to the date)
-Have enough free time to devote a significant amount to wedding planning each week -OR- have a big enough budget to hire a planner
-Not have a proportionately small budget to the average for your area


If you don't have most or all of those things, you'll have no choice but to have a longer engagement. Even with our generous budget, we found that the reasonably-priced-but-great-quality vendors booked up WAY earlier than we'd expect. The super-duper expensive ones were certainly still available

 

[Laila619]

Date: 9/22/2008 6:34:41 PM
Author: musey

AND:

-Have lax ideas about what venue/photographer/dress/etc./etc. you want (as that stuff will disappear closer to the date)

-Have enough free time to devote a significant amount to wedding planning each week -OR- have a big enough budget to hire a planner

If you don''t have most or all of those things, you''ll have no choice but to have a longer engagement. Even with our generous budget, we found that the reasonably-priced-but-great-quality vendors booked up WAY earlier than we''d expect. The super-duper expensive ones were certainly still available

I definitely did not have lax ideas about what I wanted, I was just lucky that the people/places I wanted were available. I was pretty picky. But regardless, if they had not been available, I would have gone with my 2nd or 3rd choices over having a long engagement because I did not want a long engagement under any circumstances. Getting married in the ''off season'' (November-March) certainly makes things easier.

 

[musey]

Date: 9/22/2008 7:15:00 PM
Author: Laila619
I definitely did not have lax ideas about what I wanted, I was just lucky that the people/places I wanted were available. I was pretty picky. But regardless, if they had not been available, I would have gone with my 2nd or 3rd choices over having a long engagement because I did not want a long engagement under any circumstances. Getting married in the 'off season' (November-March) certainly makes things easier.

That's precisely what I meant by having "lax ideas about what you want." You got your first choice stuff out of luck (most people don't, with that lead time), but you would've gone with something else rather than put off the wedding. That defines the "lax ideas" I was referring to! Many (not saying most, but many) would rather choose a later date (and therefore a longer engagement) to get their "dream" vendor(s).

FWIW, we had to go to our 5th choice venue just to find one that was available 18 months in advance

(and that was also within our budget). So in our case, we had to have "lax ideas" about what we wanted just to have that length engagement. To be fair, we live in Los Angeles. Sure, we could have found a venue that was available at a closer date... but it would have meant either stretching our budget or completely changing our ideas about the "feel" of our wedding (like switching to a beach wedding, not what we wanted at all--but it would've been available!).

I'm just saying that it's not a "myth" that you need 1 year to plan a wedding. There are a lot of things that have to be just right in order to plan a wedding in a short period of time. You don't need at least 1 year under ALL circumstances, but it's not possible for anyone in any circumstance to do it in less time.

 

[Izzy03]

If I knew then what I know now, I would have planned for a 6 month engagement (that is, if my photographer and venue had coinciding dates available) instead of the 8 1/2 month engagement I will have.