Long Engagements
August 8th, 2006 @ 5:56 pm by Mrs. Bluebell
We got engaged on Christmas Day 2005 and won’t be getting married until June 23, 2007. For those of you keeping track, that is a mere 2 days shy of 18 months. The reasons for waiting that long involved when we could have the wedding at our family house (a million people co-own it so it’s complicated reserving it just for your branch), and the surprise engagement of my brother about a month before ours - with the announcement they were marrying at that same house in June 2006!
We could have our wedding the weekend after my brother’s (eh) which would also be a week before one of my best friend’s wedding (”You can’t steal my thunder!!”), in September (hate to make all our family fly out there twice in one summer just for us), or June 2007, which seemed by far the easiest. So we hunkered down with our wedding magazines and books (haha, “our” :)), and daydreamed endlessly, but didn’t start planning for a looong time.
Then, one day, I realized it was June, which meant it was no longer “well over a year” before the wedding. Soon it would be “less than a year!” How did that happen? I decided we should celebrate our one year preniversary just like a real anniversary, but then I realized that we would actually be at our friends’ rehearsal dinner. At first, I was a little sad we couldn’t celebrate it just the two of us, but then I thought, really…what better way to celebrate our impending nuptials than at a wedding event for two people we love, and all the people they love? So, quietly, during dinner we shared a quick toast, and then the next day, at their wedding, we enjoyed our first day of less-than-a-year-to-our-wedding!
I’ve got to say, that feeling was almost as good as getting engaged the first time around! I am so excited to finally be able to say “June 23rd” when people ask when we’re getting married instead of a bleak “2007.” But, along with the heightened anticipation came the realization that now it’s really time to get down to planning…eeek….
How long is your engagement? How did you decide when to set your date? Do you wish you had allowed more or less time before the wedding?
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40 Responses to “Long Engagements”
My engagement is 3 days MORE than 18 months!! It is so long it’s killing me. I still have like, 3 more months until my preniversary. Right now I’m just annoying my fiance with the “3 Months until a year!” thing.
My engagement will seem like a lifetime of waiting. From the time we got engaged, March 2006, until the day we will get married, April 2008, it will be 25 months. I’m going to grad school and working FT. I’m slowly counting down the months. I’ve already booked ceremony site and banquet location, selected bridal gown, selected bms, and setting eyes on THE ONE bm dresses. =D
our engagement is a few days shy of one year..and it feels too long to me!
I got engaged on March 18th 2005 & we’re getting married on November 18th 2006, so it will be exactly 20 months of engagement. Now that I’m getting so close, it’s almost unreal. I feel like I’ve been engaged FOREVER but now I’m finally really about to be the bride!! I didn’t start really hard-core planning until May, so about 6 months before 
Exactly one year. We got engaged on the anniversary of the day we met. We both really like that anniversary and didn’t want another one.
We got engaged June 2004 and are getting married September 3 this year. Why over two years - 1 our jobs/school and 2 - my sister got engaged 6 weeks to the day after me and I let her get married first as my parents rule was no more than one wedding in a year!
The next year will fly by - I remember putting year, 6 month and then monthly reminders till my wedding day two years ago and now the last one - the one month to go just popped up last week. It really does fly enjoy the time you have had a year to prep and should know how you want to do things!
Well, ladies, so far I think I take the cake 
My fiance and I decided that we wanted to get married about a year or so ago. I have a ring, but he has informed me that it’s not “official”, although, we both consider each other as our fiance’s….and we don’t plan to tie the knot until…wait for it….2009 or 2010! That’s when I’ll be completely done with college, and so will he, and since we want to have a nice ceremony, we’d rather wait. So let’s see…about a 3-4 year engagement? Yeah, it’s really really hard, but at least I’ve got plenty of time to research every little thing. I’m going to know virtually EVERYTHING about wedding planning, so when the time comes to actually plan it, it will be easier, and less stressful.
K, my lord, girl. Here’s to you- you are much stronger than I am!
K, you definitely take the cake on that one
(oh and thanks for the comment on the chocolates… i’ve haven’t tasted either… but i always try to think conservatory on the mula side)
We got engaged in January and will be getting married in October.. just a little less than 10 months. To me it feels too long— I can’t wait. But as far as planning, I think I would be stressed out if it was anything less than this! Kudos to you girls with long engagements. That would be really difficult. Speaking of that… has anyone seen the movie “A Very Long Engagement” ?
Ours is two years and twenty days.
We live in Williamsburg where the payscale is decidedly lower than that of DC, where we formerly lived. My fiance is in law school and until he’s finished, it’s all we can do to make ends meet. While his family is wealthy and could assist, we did not want them to carry the burden of a wedding and my own family is blue collar and, again, barely making it paycheck to paycheck.
So, we’re getting married after my fiance graduates from law school (May 2007) and takes the bar (July/August 2007), making it the fall of 2007. We’re marrying in my home state of NH to make things easier on my family, since the cost of travel would be more burdensome for them than my fiance’s family. His family is thrilled with the plan and looking forward to a “destination wedding” on a lake in NH.
six months and one day… and i wouldn’t make it a minute longer than that!
Kanipark - I am that way too. I live for sales, and I’m always hunting for a bargain. A hates it, but he’ll thank me for it one day!
At times, I wish we were getting married sooner…heck, every day, I wish that…but, we gotta get stuff under control first. We’ll be about 24 & 25 when we get married, so hopefully we’ll have everything figured out by then.
looks like Valerie and i have the same wedding date November 18, 2006. FI and i got engaged November 28, 2005, so we will be engaged just shy of one year.
for me, i think it’s the perfect amount of time. not too little that i had to check multiple things off in one day! i like the breaks between planning. much less stressful, at least in my head.
I was engaged on October 28, 2005. Our wedding is aso on June 23rd of ‘07! I am very envious of brides who are able to pull everything together in under a year. Me however, I need as much time as I can get!
K you are still very young
We got engaged in September of 2005 and are getting married next May 25th–so about 19 months–sure didn’t seem that long, so far! I didn’t start planning the wedding until this June, though, since we’ve been so busy with school. I suppose the engagement is on the long side of things, but when you think that we had only dated for 5 months before getting engaged it doesn’t seme that long at all
we have a long one… and when i say long, i mean LONG! April 22nd, 2009 to be exact, so it is a three year engagement. Both of us are in grad school in the next year and we are still in that college/transition mode. we wanted to be engaged because we knew it was comming so when the question came up if we were going to wait for our wedding and not be engaged or be engaged and do our planning over the next three years, i took the three year deal.
When we got engaged on March 31st, P’s brother told his wife on April 1st- April Fool’s day. So he told her, “Amber and P are getting married!” The wife says, “Oh! That’s great! When?” and P’s brother says, “In two weeks. They kind of HAVE to, if you get what I mean.” She was stunned, and then he finally told her, “Nah, in like, two years.” She slugged him in the arm and told him to never do that again! Thank goodness my “pristine” reputation was saved!
ours will probably be around 2 years. we got engaged this may but he is starting business school this fall, so we’re waiting until after that. it’s kind of hard b/c 2 of my cousins and one of my good friends all got engaged around the same time and are getting married next summer/fall.
Kanipark…yeah, we’re 20, and (almost) 22 respectively.
And I’m not alone! Chelles is having a loooong engagement as well! hehe
Well, we aren’t engaged yet, but we’re getting married Nov. 4 so our engagement will be around 3 1/2 to 3 months… eek!
I’m glad I’m not the only one with a long engagement. I got engaged in December of 2003. Several things got in the way of us not getting married right away, mainly he started school and had to go far away for a while. In addition, we had no money…so it’s taken us a while, but now we are ready and both of our parents finally met a couple of weeks ago! The annoying thing is, my parents are traditional Chinese and if any of you know this, it is a lucky lunar year to get married - which means we are suppose to marry before the end of this double lucky year. Also, the groom’s side of the family has to select the lucky date…so it’s Sunday, January 21st…for now anyway. Though that can change to. What is really amazing is the fact that we’ve forever been engaged, but we’re going to cram plan our wedding in less than 7 months! So, yeah, not too happy about that, but who knew it was so important…I thought we could just pick a date and year and then get married…not so easy…*sigh…yet, now that I’m actually planning things out, it’s been alot of fun and very exciting!!!
WOAH 3-4 years!
We got engaged this year, June and we will be getting married May 2007. So I guess that will be a little less than a year! But I think it’s just the right amount of time for us.
We got engaged June 7 of this year..and right now we’re planning on having the wedding sometime in the summer/fall of 2008 or 2009. We still haven’t picked a date but he’s starting bschool in the fall and I will hopefully be starting bschool next fall (2007)..and both of us are working full-time while going to school so I think I’d rather push the date out until at least one of us has graduated. I’m so excited b/c this means I get to do a lot of detail planning without rushing
we got engaged in january of this year, still haven’t even picked a date, hoping to do it this year still. We’re not good at planning ahead…it does get tiring not having a date to tell people tho..
Looks like I’ll have some company in 2009/2010!
We got engaged July 1, 2006. The wedding is December 16, 2006. 5.5 months. I really wish it were sooner. I’m not super detail oriented. I don’t care if my cake is ivory or white. But I love seeing everybody’s details.
Well, I must say that this makes me feel a bit better…we got engaged 7.3.06. and are getting married 6.08 (yep, just one month shy of 2 years). I start grad school this fall, and I want to be able to focus on that AND I am a producer, and want to give myself as much time as possible to leisurly plan this wedding so that my producer self doesnt kick into high gear and start making it just a “project”…you know what I mean?
I will have been engaged for three years this coming October. Lots of reasons for that one…grad school, different citzenships, long distance relationship, and even lukewarm feet, etc. We had planned a wedding for May of 2005 and I’m actually (I’m not lying to you or myself) really glad that it didn’t happen then (I would have still been in school). The time has made me more appreciative instead of just rushing towards some date so I can be married already.
One of my best friends got engaged in June, and will be married september 23.
Ka-ra-zeee!
Engaged March 06, planning on April 2008 wedding. Long engagement mainly because, like K, we’re in college. And also like K, we’re young. I feel like people are a little weirded out because we’re only 20. I read about how high the statistics are for young married couples to get divorced, which worries me. Sometimes I’m glad we’ll have a lot of time to grow and change together and to make sure this is forever.
I’ve been engaged since August 2002 and we just set our date of July 2007. Yup, our engagement will be FIVE YEARS long!
I was just proposed to on September 2nd, and we’re looking at getting married in June of 2007. Narrowing down the receptions places so we can pick a set date. So it will be about ~9 1/2 months.
We’re both in grad school, so we’re working around both of our school schedules. We could wait til Summer of 2008, but I don’t want to stress for a whole extra year.
I think I’m the youngest here……I’ll be getting married about a month and a half after I graduate high school…….I’ll be 18 and he’s 19…..I’m excited!
We got engaged on my birthday this June and are not getting married until May 2009. I am glad I ran into this discussion, because I have felt on the defensive with so many comments and even a few chuckles when we give people the date. I am sure I’ll get used to the comments, but people can be SO weird.
Just following up, I posted (#36) –
We were engaged 9/2/06- and are getting married in 2 weeks (August 18, 2007). 11 months was perfect for us - not too long, not too short. We’re both grad students, and we’ve planned the wedding from where we live (330 miles away), and it worked out fine!
We didn’t want to save for a whole extra year and then spend the extra money we had saved on just the wedding (isntead of toward a house or something for when we’re done with PhDs…) so we did what we could with what we had in (almost) a year.
Also, we dated for like 8 years, so no reason to put it off any longer!
I am SO glad I’m not the only one on this planet with a long engagement. We got engaged Feb 14, 2008 and planning for a Nov. 13, 2010 wedding. A year after we’ve graduated from nursing school. I think thats pretty darn reasonable!
Mrs. Bluebell, New York
Age and Occupation in 07: 26, Finance Manager
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Playing with the cat and/or Consulting
Engagement Date: December 25, 2005
Wedding Date: June 2007
Venue: Bride's family summer home in the Adirondacks
About Me: Trying to find the perfect balance between family tradition (marrying at the house everyone else in my family gets married at), making our's modern, interesting and different from everyone else in my family's, and incorporating some Chinese tradition for my Chinese fiance. I really have no idea what it's going to end up looking like!
Also, I picked Miss Bluebell for my name because I have blue eyes and I'm a loser like that.
We had 6 months to plan the wedding, and in retrospect… we didn’t need any more time than that. I think it was the perfect amount for us.