How long was your engagement?

[Halo]

My mother couldn''t wait to marry my dad and was engaged for 8 months and said that "waiting that long" nearly drove her crazy, lol. But I guess being high school sweethearts and dating for 8 years before finally getting married would make me a bit antsy too

I think that I would need at least a year to plan my wedding properly, but my mother thinks that''s way too much time. However from everything I''ve read and such, a year seems to be the average amount of time these days. It just seems like there''s so much to plan, which can be more difficult with many of us getting married later in life and thus having such full and busy lives on top of planning a wedding, so extra planning time seems like a plus to me!

What about everyone here, how long was (or currently is) your engagement?

 

[museikchik]

My FI and I have been engaged for four years. We will be getting married next May so I guess that would make it five. My FI and I wanted to pay for everything for our wedding. Both of us come from big families and didn''t want to put a burden on our parents. I think the more time you have to plan the better. In the long run it is way less stressful.

 

[bootsiekin]

My engagement is 14 months. 3 more weeks until its over!

It seemed to me to be a perfect timeline. It certainly didn''t feel slow..I enjoyed not having to spend EVERY weekend doing some type of wedding errand. Ah, those early days were nice..

 

[kittybean]

My engagement will be one year and six days long. I think it''s a great amount of time, and since I started looking for venues and other vendors right away, I had my pick of the bunch. I spent over a month searching for a dress, and it was wonderful not to have the pressure to choose one right away--I ended up with the perfect gown.

 

[palomablancabride]

Our engagement will be 7 months. We''re getting married in the "off season" (December) so there were plenty of vendors for us to choose from. We''re having a small wedding (70 people) and I''m not DIY a lot of things. 4 months in and 3 months to go and I''m not sweating anything, yet!

 

[musey]

From start to finish, our engagement will have been 20 months.

If we didn't already live as though we were married, I probably would have been in more of a rush. As things are, though, we've enjoyed taking our time

It's flown by, though!!

 

[mimzy]

ours is 12 months, which i definitely thought was way too long for me personally, but i'm still in school full time and i'm DIY'ing just about everything. so while it would have been nice to have it be sooner, preferred season and other stuff going on has made the wait okay.

i would have liked to have been married about 9 months ago though!


i think a little over a year is about average. lots of people take 1.5 years to plan theirs - i know just about everyone in my family has!

 

[Gwyn]

Officially got the ring and the question in April. marriage was set for October the following year. So... 1year 5 months

 

[snlee]

12 months.

 

[Shoopy]

We can't decide on a date. If it's in October then we'll be engaged 1 year and 3 months; if in December 1yr5mths; if in January 1.5 years

My mom planned her wedding in 4 months. But then again back in those days it wasn't that hard to do (or expensive)

 

[Italiahaircolor]

my engagement lasted just shy of one year...it was the perfect time table, for us at least.

 

[SarahLovesJS]

We got engaged last Feb and are getting married next June so about a year and 5 months.

I''d like it just to get here already so I can see all of my planning be worth something!

 

[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!

 

[Sha]

2 months - but I started planning 6 months before that.

 

[emilina22]

we will be engaged a year and a half...we got engaged december 15th, 2007 and our wedding is June 14th, 2009....we think its a long enough wait, enough time for me to finish undergrad, for us to save, and for him to become super secure in his job...and so far everything is falling into place!! i cant wait!!!

 

[marchswallowbird]

I''ll have been engaged for 18 months by the time we finally get married. Waaaaay too long. I''ve got much of the wedding planned already, have my dress, could have put everything together in six months. Well, maybe eight.

 

[PearlDahhhling]

We haven''t set a date yet, but we''re planning on Spring of 2010, so that would be a year and a half. I''ve always thought I''d need at least a year to properly plan a wedding and although I kinda feel like a year and a half is an awfully long time to wait to be married to my love, I know that it will be better in the long run to have a long time to plan everything so I won''t get insanely stressed out.

 

[puffy]

a bit more than 1 year

 

[supergirl10]

It will be 19 months. Where i live reception venue needs to be book at an absolute minimum of 1 year before. Our date is set for 4th April 2010. I graduate October 2009 and due to the extreme heat in northern Australia April is the earliest after October 2009 that we could POSSIBLY dream of getting married. Also same reasons as others, we are paying for it ourselves.

 

[bee*]

Ours will be 19 months, the main reason is that the venue is very hard to get a date at. It''s been nice though not to rush things and always having it to look forward too. We''re nearly engaged a year and it''s flown by.

 

[Pandora II]

19 months.

I was engaged in December and wanted a summer wedding - there is a minimum year''s wait for a summer venue round here, so that was that.

DH and I had been living together for nearly 4 years anyway, plus we both have very stressful jobs, 99% of our guests were OOT and I DIYed a huge amount so I was grateful for the time.

My BIL also got married in the September after our wedding and that was in Chicago which meant we all had to save up for tickets to the US, hotels etc etc and it wouldn''t have been fair to everyone to have the weddings too close together.

If you don''t live together I can understand wanting an earlier wedding.

My parents were engaged within 2 weeks of meeting and married just over 4 months later.

 

[buttercup80]

8 months. . .22 days left!!!

 

[honey22]

Date: 9/20/2008 1:58:46 AM
Author: supergirl10
It will be 19 months. Where i live reception venue needs to be book at an absolute minimum of 1 year before. Our date is set for 4th April 2010. I graduate October 2009 and due to the extreme heat in northern Australia April is the earliest after October 2009 that we could POSSIBLY dream of getting married. Also same reasons as others, we are paying for it ourselves.

Hey supergirl10 - I am an aussie too

Where abouts are you getting married? We are getting married in Palm Cove QLD next September (we are finalising the date in 4 weeks when we fly up there to visit my parents).

 

[brooksie]

8 months and 16 days. My fiance and I dated all through college, then broke it off when I graduated. We then began seeing other people seriously...one almost ending in marriage. I always knew I still had feelings for him and it just happened that we broke up with our significant others at the same time. We haven''t looked back since. We wasted enough time with the wrong people so we both knew we didn''t want to have a long engagement.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Seven months. It felt like FOREVER.

D joked that men wait and wait until they are absolutely, positively ready for marriage to propose. Then as soon as they do, they have to wait ANOTHER year to get married, haha.

I think that if you enjoy wedding planning and have specific vendors you want to use, a longer engagement is nice. If you''re not big on wedding planning and have flexibility with vendors, a shorter engagement is better. The only thing we did in the first month was book the venue, get the dress and send the STDs. Everything else waited until 3 months before the day and I still felt like it was too much time...when you have too much time you end up getting stressed about the details. It''s all the stuff you stress about AFTER you book all the big stuff that drives you crazy, haha.

 

[Selkie]

19 months (which seems to be popular around here). Got engaged in January ''06, and wanted a summer wedding but 6 months was too short, so we waited another year. Our wedding was pretty simple and I got the planning done efficiently so it felt like a long wait.

 

[Izzy03]

If you really want to take your time with the wedding planning, a year would be best. I am a little on the neurotic side so a year of planning might just drive me up the wall! I will be giving myself 8 months to plan, and I really am not cramming at all. Finding the venue and the dress were time consuming, but the rest (so far) has been fairly simple. I know plenty of people that have planned it in about 6 months and were okay.

If your have a very demanding schedule give yourself at least a year, otherwise go plan it for the time of year you would like to have it.

 

[KimberlyH]

8 months.

 

[motownmama]

4 1/2 months - I thought it was plenty of time, but I''m REALLY decisive - like "show me the choices, OK - done!"

 

[Haven]

We were engaged for 10 months, together for a bit over four years by the time we were married. We did not live together before we were married.

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.