Wedding Blog
I confess: I wish I was getting married next year.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I mainly wish I had more time to plan the wedding. So, I guess you could say, I wish I got engaged earlier.
Mr. Eggplant proposed mid January, 2007. By the time we kicked our wedding planning butts into gear, we were a mere eight months away from our big day. In the “real world,” eight months is a-plenty. But in “wedding world” eight months flies by… like, yesterday!
I can’t help but be jealous of the bees on this site with engagements of at least a year and a half. When I first told my friends and family that our wedding date was this year, I received many shocked stares in response. As the first in my circle to get married, I never would’ve suspected nine months was a short engagement. Apparently it is! And seven months into planning, I can now see why.
For the past three months, I’ve been wishing, “If I only had three more months!” There are sooooo many things that I want to do for our wedding, but simply don’t have time. For example, if I had more time, I’d save up money to rent a photo booth. I would’ve been more selective about finding the perfect dress. I mean, I LOVE my dress. I just wish I had a chance to visit more salons before making my final decision. Perhaps a trip to LA or NY would’ve satisfied my gown curiosity. If we got engaged earlier, maybe my dream venue wouldn’t have been booked. And I could’ve rented a petting zoo for the children. Ok, so no petting zoo. But I do wish that I had more time to spend in premarital counseling and on DIY projects.
I think the stress of planning is finally getting to me. In the past week, two of my co-workers resigned, and unfortunately all their workload falls on my shoulders (!!!). Not to mention, the little exclamation marks on my Knot checklist are scolding me. Last I heard, there’s still only 24 hours in a day!
With all that’s been going on recently, it has been harder to remember that our wedding day is about my marriage with Mr. Eggplant, and not how many crafts I can cram into one event or how much fun our guests have. Back in January, when we first became engaged, Mr. Eggplant did not see a reason to wait a year and a half to get married. He had a family member whose health was failing and it was important for us to have this person at our wedding, so we decided to get married within the year. Also, Mr. Eggplant simply wanted to start our lives together earlier. How could I argue with that?
Somewhere along the lines (or between the crafts), I have forgotten that our wedding day is not the end, but merely the beginning of a far greater adventure.
Anyone else feel this way at some point during your planning? How have you gotten past this bump?
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Share this post: A Short Engagement
We were engaged a very long time; the time doesn’t make all the extras go away. It’s up to you and fiance to keep the focus on what matters. You mentioned premarital counseling; that’s a great opportunity to focus on what really matters and what will last after the last flower wilts and is thrown away. It was the absolute greatest engagement experience for us. Good luck!
By the time we get married, my fiance and I will have been engaged for 7 months. We’re a month out now, and we are SO, SO ready to be married already. Granted, I’m not into DIY things, but I am just ready to be married and live with my man. I assume that not living together and … makes a big ifference though, but September cannot get here fast enough for us!
I have 8 days to go and we only got engaged in April. So 4 month engagement here. It has been a whirlwind, but it forced me to make decisions and stick with them, which I am very thankful for. For me, more time = more indecision and actually more time wasted. So, when I would have a great idea or see something I wanted and couldn’t do, I just thought, well what I have will be lovely. It’s the old, there will always be something newer/better/brighter. But what matters is what is yours! Enjoy it!
I’m feeling completely the opposite. We’re having a year and a half engagement but I really just wish we were married NOW. I’m sure all brides feel this way at one time or another, but sometimes I really wish we’d eloped.
Absolutely agree! I got backed into the short engagement as well - with the sweet (yet annoying!) arguement - I don’t want to wait to start my life with you.
I’m sure your day will turn out wonderfully! Until that, I sympathize and know deep down - Men have NO clue what all goes into a wedding!
I’m in practically the exact same situation. Engaged in late January and our wedding is in October. I do wish that I would have had some extra time for the extras. If we had 12 months and more date/location options, I could have had a cocktail reception (like I was dreaming of) instead of a lunch reception.
We considered waiting until 2008, but ultimately, we wanted to start our lives together. We figured its not about the one day. Instead, it’s about officially starting our family and bringing the people we love together to celebrate with us. Why delay something as wonderful as that?!?
we have a 9 month engagement too..but if it were up to us..we were all set for a 7-8 month engagement~! but alas, the FMIL put her foot down and said that our proposed date (in february) was much too cold for a wedding and that her family would not come if it was too cold. with that said, i’m totally enjoying all of my diy crafts (and driving my fiance crazy adding more details~!), and at the same time, if we could push our wedding date up earlier, i would in a heartbeat 
i can’t wait to start the rest of my life with my man.
When all said and done I will have been engaged for 19 months. 6 months ago, when I got engaged it felt like I had all the time in the world and already I feel like I am a bit behind. I think time does give you the opportunity to walk away and think about things. Right away we booked our venue (which really dictated our date) and then I went into research mode and we just booked our caterer and photographer. I now have put a two month kibosh on anything wedding related (well except for dress shopping, too many sales coming up!). It really helps to be able to take the breaks and enjoy my FH in this time of our (very long) engagement!
It’s interesting that you feel this way. I am getting married the same day you are (I think), and while we got engaged at the end of December, we didn’t start planning until about the same time you did (factor in graduation, moving home for the holidays, and then me moving to a new city at the first of the year.)
I find myself sitting around waiting for certain things. Waiting until my dress came in to figure out alterations, then book bridal portraits from there. Wait until the heat wave has passed, so I can order the (meltable) candy for the candy buffet (not to mention wait long enough so the candy with still be fresh!) Waiting until something to continue on with three more somethings. I’ve often mused that if our engagement was any longer, I’d go crazy because even now, two months out, I have everything I need already taken care of and have to just twiddle my thumbs to pass the time.
Of course, this could stem from the fact that I am only working part time. I wish I had a full-time job to occupy my time and my brain more, because I wind up sitting around thinking up things we don’t need and driving FH nuts every time I make a new suggestion.
I think 10 months from engaged to married is plenty of time to figure it all out. You don’t even get that much time to plan for a baby, and that is way more demanding, stressful and expensive than any wedding could ever be.
By the time we get married, we will have been engaged for 2 years and 3 months! I’m tired of being engaged. I didn’t even start enjoying the whole process until about 3 months ago. Now we five weeks to go, I’m finally excited. Being engaged so long hasn’t really benefited me at all. We only did it because I didn’t think I’d have time to work full time, go to grad school and plan a wedding at the same time.
I actually wish the opposite, we start planning the wedding in January of this year (wedding is in a few weeks) and I kinda’ wish the planning time was shorter. For the past eight months, my life has been consumed by wedding planning. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed it for the most part but sometimes I just sit back and am amazed that all this time and effort is for ONE day!! I’m more than ready to just BE married and start our other adventures together.
The shorter planning period would have meant a less elaborate event but in hindsight, the extra months of non-wedding planning craziness probably means more to me than having the perfect programs or centerpieces….
We are about halfway trhough a year’s engagement, and I wish we had set it at only nine or ten months! Everything that needed to be done early is done; everything else can’t be done for another couple months. I’m in a lull and it’s driving me crazy. I want everything to be done so we can move on to marriage. I find myself dreaming up all kinds of time-consuming, stress-inducing, money-blowing crafts just to have something to fill the time.
It really, truly, is not about how many crafts you can cram in or how much fun your guests have.
aw miss eggplant, 9 months is NOT short at all. i had 8 months to plan our wedding, and yes, i agree there were times when i wish i had more time. but we still had a BEAUTIFUL wedding. in fact, 3 months later and people are STILL talking about how wonderful the wedding was. the time is all relative. as long as you booked all your big vendors, you can DO IT!! =) be positive and just focus on how happy you’ll be when it’s ALL OVER!! =)
awwwww miss eggplant. you know i think everyone no matter how much prep work feels this way at some point. i know i had a mini breakdown because i felt like i didn’t have enough time to do everything i wanted to do and trying to make everyone else happy. but in the end of it all there was a lot that i didn’t actually plan and i didn’t even know what centerpiece i was going to have till a couple days before. in the end of it all i figured what’s the worst that could happen? so i don’t have things in order… oh well. i concentrated on partying and loving the fact that i was a mrs. 
so don’t let the little things stress you out, chances are things will be perfect in it’s imperfections
We had a January to October engagement too, last year! The wait seemed excruciatingly slow to me, until it got closer, and then it sped up and I realized that there was a lot that I could never get done and I just needed to let go. Just try to keep in mind how happy you will be when you get to marry your guy!
My honey and I got engaged 6/24 and our wedding will be 10/5. A country inn on 100 acres of (organic) farmland and gardens was our first choice, my gown is perfect (found after only a few hours at one store) and everything else has truthfully fallen into place.
Our only concession is a Friday 1pm wedding (saved us 60% on the venue fees and food while we’re already spending a total of 10k for 60 guests). Almost every single guest is coming from out of town/country. A Friday afternoon wedding enables them to relax over the weekend with family before traveling home for another work week.
I am so thankful for this short engagement. It forces us to make decisions promptly rather than endlessly mulling over options. (And we can MULL! Took us six months to finalize paint colors for the master bedroom!) My honey and I are planning our entire wedding on our own. At times it has been challenging at times because we live an hour apart and both travel a lot for work (we’re away on business as I type this message).
Would a longer engagement been beneficial? Perhaps. But again, we haven’t ever really hit a point where we feel crunched. We both have our eye on the ball: marrying eachother and living together as husband and wife. :)
I feel the same way the fastest 5 months of my life, but its all worth it!! I think i would of driven myself crazy planning for an extra year! I’m happy is only 23 days away!
I’m the opposite — we’ll have been engaged for a year-and-a-half and it’s WAY TOO LONG for someone like me. If we could have had it our way, we would done the wedding in Sept (making for an 8 mo engagement) but family and friend pressures stopped us. I wish we would have just done what we wanted! Though, I’m sure in about 10 months I’ll feel differently
I’m so glad I have a short engagement because I just want to be married after dating over 4 years but I need the extra time so much!
i feel the opposite. by the time we get married, we would have been engaged 1.5 years. if you’re indecisive, it’ll kill ya. i keep telling myself “oh, no need to decide right now. i have time. let me research some more and see what else is out there.” not good! and what happens? i usually go back to the original plan/idea.
besides, from your posts, looks like your wedding will be amazing!! 8 months or 8 week, you would have pulled it off just beautifully. don’t be sad.
By the time we’re married, we’d have been engaged for 2.5 years, together for almost 9 years. Honestly, I’m ready for the day to come already
I feel as though my engagement went by too quickly as well. I got engaged in mid-January, and now the wedding is only two weeks away…where did my summer go?
To each their own, I wish I had a shorter engagement.. oh the agony! I want to be married already, but yes we all go through this one point or another… take some time out and do something low key but fun and non wedding related with your soon to be… yes there’s a lot of planning and stressing and of course diying.. .but most importantly, don’t forget about each other and why you’re on this path in the first place! I’m sure your wedding will be fabulous!!!
*sniff sniff* Awww, thanks for the encouragement, guys. I *do* feel better after reading all of your comments. maybe I just need to get to the “i don’t care anymore!” stage. i hear that’ll be coming as i near the one month mark. hehe.
We will have been engaged just short of seven months when we get married September 29th. It does feel a bit rushed sometimes, but I rather this than a long engagement.
I have a friend who’s in the midst of planning a 100-guest wedding on a TWO MONTH timeframe!! Guess it’s all about perspective — now all I have to do is think of her to make my own 8-month engagement seem positively lengthy… 
If it makes you feel better, it doesn’t matter how much time you have because at the last minute you keep adding more and more ideas. I got engaged while we were both still in school and because of lots of different things and events our engagament will end up lasting close to three years!!! (I know! ridiclious!!!) But that doesn’t stop me, months before the wedding adding on hundreds of new DIY projects. There’s always something more that can be done.
i’m just like you! i got engaged in feb, wedding in oct. 8-9 mos sound so much worse when it’s within the same year. i got the same reactions that you did when you announced your date. so we took a week to enjoy the engagement and then quickly got cracking. i’ve had drama and have been working on my diy invites forever, but just like you, i totally wish i could have taken my time to shop for my dress. at this point, i really just want to be married already and lose all the drama. in trying to please and plan for our guests’ enjoyment, i’m also trying to focus on the fact that i love my FI and that’s the real reason that our guests will enjoy our wedding.
I totally loved your blog for making me feel more normal. The only even teeny thing I have fought about with my fiance is the fact that our engagement was so short. We were engaged mid-May will be married in mid-October of this year. Besides all kinds of people asking me (rudely, I think!) if it’s a “shotgun wedding” there are tons of things I wish I had more time for. I simply wish I had time to breathe and enjoy the process. But, we wanted to get married outside and the alternative was to wait another 6-9 months more, and when it comes down to it, starting our life together is the important part.
We are having a long engagement b/c of work/location circumstances but I can promise you there are downsides…eventually once you’ve combed through all the wedding websites and blogs you start seeing the same stuff over and over again and it’s easy to get either overwhelmed with wedding stuff or just plain tired of it. It’s a very cyclical thing…there are new brides coming in all the time so what may be a new and exciting idea for a new bride is something that you feel like “oh everyone is doing that.” A lot of times I have to remind myself “no one coming to my wedding will have done as much wedding research as me so all these ideas WILL be new, different, and interesting for them.” I think one year is the perfect engagement time…plenty of time to plan without getting too sick of it all.
Miss Eggplant, if it makes you feel better, we decided to have a short engagement because (1) we’d been together so long we wanted to get married asap, and the bigger reason, based on my sister’s wedding: (2) we wanted to keep it as simple and stressfree as possible, and we thought that the longer we waited, the more things we’d think of that we had to do and there would be more time for my mom and various other relatives to drive us nuts. So maybe you’re actually avoiding a lot of stress by having it sooner!! =)
We started planning in early June for our Sept. 23rd wedding. I love this short engagement! I would die from stress if I had to plan this damn thing for a year.
Also, ignore theKnot. I think it’s designed to make women feel inferior.
I’m engaged for 1 yr already and im getting married next June. Trust me, 9 month is perfect. you dont want to wait for too long, you might end up become a Bridzella. LOL. JK….. i wish next yr comes sooner.
I’m trying not to focus on it but I’m going to have around a 14 month engagement and I still don’t think that’s going to be enough time. I live in Maryland and the wedding is going to be in NJ or NY (a good 4 hour drive). Like you, we just had a huge turnover and I’ve been so busy at my job to pick up the slack. I also work part time after work every day to try to help fund the wedding so I’m doing 12 hour days. My fiance and I also want to spend at least 3 months for couples counseling before we get married. I’m getting worried, even though I have a whole 13 months left (possibly more if I push it back to 2009..) I have bought NOTHING for the wedding! *worried*
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Mrs. Eggplant, San Francisco
Age and Occupation: 28, Human Resources
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Associate Marketing Manager
Engagement Date: January 19, 2007
Wedding Date: October 20, 2007
Blogging Since: May 31, 2007
Venue: Ceremony at a cement and stained glass cathedral and reception at a boutique hotel ballroom
About Me: I'm a shopping junkie who lives to discover great deals and a craft addict that loves to scrapbook and knit. My profile picture was taken on the day I got engaged which is why my smile is so huge!
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