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Are you actually better off having a longer engagement period than a shorter one?
Mr. Petunia surprised me the other day with this tale. While in a study group for a ginormous Calculus II test, the guys he studies with commented: “wow, so you’re getting married…what’s that like?” and Mr. Petunia said: “listen, all I can is, whatever you do, when you guys get married, keep your engagements short!”
I was surprised and asked him if he said this because I was turning into a total Bridezilla. He said: “You’re not driving me crazy, but you’re driving yourself crazy” — and he’s right.
The average engagement period in the U.S. these days is about 14 to 16 months. Ours falls right in the middle at about 15 months. I figured having more time would let me mull over decisions carefully and take things slowly, get the chance to do things little by little, but it seems that the more time I have on my hands, the more I just rethink the decisions I’ve already made and just come up with even more new ideas!
If I’d stuck with our first notion of getting married in November, our wedding would only be one month away, but I wanted as much time as possible (and Spring Break for a honeymoon…), so it seems I have 4 more months of madness ahead of me!
The stress is already basically killing me: it doesn’t help that I work full time, have an adjunct teaching job on top of that, and two months ago took on tutoring work to make extra money to cover wedding costs, too. I guess all I can hope for is that it all pays off in the end. In the meantime, it’s a mad mad mad world in Petunia land, and I can’t imagine I’m the only one driving herself just a little bit too crazy. I realize, of course, that this is all par for the course when planning a wedding, but I wonder if it gets worse when you give yourself just a little too much time.
What do you think?
How long is/was your engagement and do you think you are/were better off with more or less time?
Ours was (is) 19 months. That’s a loooong time. Then again, we live in LA when things book up fast, so I think it was smart. Despite that, sometimes I scare myself with what isn’t done. And no one can say it was because we didn’t have time! 
Ours is 18 months, and like you, I’ve officially gone insane. I tell all my to-be-engaged friends to keep it to a year or less, OR ELSE… (and then i do the big 2 hand point to myself).
The advantage to the long engagement is that any vendor you want for the most part is free.
The disadvantage is…
*points to crazy self*
We were planning on a year, but we’re actually contemplating having a surprise wedding in a few months (so we have 100% control over how the ceremony goes with no comment from the peanut gallery until it’s too late). But that would make for 5 months of engagement.
I’m not worried about having time to plan (we’ll have a big party later) but I am worried about actually being ready to be married. I’m afraid I need more time emotionally and financially. I know a year would be plenty, but I find myself getting nervous about moving it sooner.
I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts.
4 months - and it was perfect. I loved not having too much time to mull over decisions!
I did pay a little extra to put a rush on my dress - but that probably wasn’t necessary - it was more for my piece of mind! We were lucky our location and all our vendors had an opening for the date - I think that’s usually the cause of wedding dates being pushed back - and engagements lengthening.
What’s that saying. When you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to begin ASAP 
Ours will also be 19 months. However, we’ve been planning an Iowa wedding from Seattle, and the time has been a huge help. Trips back to IA, having my dress custom made, getting insane deals on some stuff. I haven’t gone crazy (yet) but we still have 6 months to go.
We have an 11 month engagement. At first I felt like it was plenty of time and was constantly checking off “done” projects, but now we are done to 5 months and I feel like I’m running out of time and so much to do still.
One more thought. We’ve both lost parents in the past 3 years - so we’ve learned too well that ‘LIFE IS SHORT’. I think that’s another reason we didn’t have a long engagement
Our engagement was 2 and 1/2 years, but really planned the wedding in 6 months (an intimate wedding of 50 guests). Six months was plenty of time to plan our wedding, not too long, not too short. Funny thing is that I didn’t know about weddingbee until AFTER the wedding was over. In a way, I am glad because you ladies are so creative with DIY and everything that I’d have changed my mind thousands of times!!!
Ours is about 15 months and I would highly recommend keeping it shorter than that if possible. The upside, is that I could plan everything at a leisurely pace and not worry about stuff getting booked up. The downside is way too much time on my hands to overanalyze and second-guess my decision. If I could do it again, I would aim for a 12 month or less engagement.
in the bf’s world, once we’d get engaged we’d be married within 3 months. he later relented to 6 months. luckily we’ll be having a civil ceremony first before the church wedding so that’s absolutely fine with me. i don’t have a preference…but knowing how fast he’d prefer to marry makes me so glad i started the research. whew.
Our engagement was 19 months long. We had a specific day and year in mind, so we just had to wait. The nice thing about being that far out was booking our photographer/videographer. It was our first vendor and that gave me plenty of time to pay it before the big day.
I also got to enjoy just being engaged. Of course at the time it drove me crazy waiting that long (only 570 days to go we would say).
The downside is that I got lulled into a sense of “we have all the time in the world” and ended up doing a lot of things with 3 months to go. But then there are just certain things that can’t be done 19 months out (dress fitting etc.).
So I guess, in the end, I’m not sure. It was fun being engaged and just having the luxury of not having to make absolute decisions about wedding plans. On the other hand, I let the wedding stress get to me for a longer period of time.
Haha - I probably win this one. My hubby and I were engaged for 42 months! Yep, 3.5 years. We wanted to finish school, find a place to live, move in, then get married. It worked out really well since the wedding was never really the most important thing in my life until the last 6 months. It was great booking vendors super early and getting cheap rates as well as spending time on the DIY projects I wanted to complete. I don’t recommend it for everyone but it worked for me.
Ours was 8 months… and while the last month felt frantic, I think it was the perfect amount of time for me The last month would have been frantic no matter if I’d spent 24 months planning the wedding anyhow!
My husband and I were engaged for 2.5 years. It was alittle longer than I would of liked but it did give me more than enough time to find the right vendors, decide on flowers/colors, etc.
Engaged 09/03/07. Will be married 10/25/08. Both of us would prefer getting hitched sooner rather than later, but due to many different factors the event will take place next fall.
We knew we were getting engaged like a month before we did, so going from that point, it ends up being 14 months or so.
We’ve got about 8 months to go now and while part of me is glad to have the time and to not have to rush so much that wedding planning takes over my life, the other part of me is like “Damnit, why is it so far away?” 
Ours is 20 months long (so far we’re at exactly the halfway mark.) I would have loved to have it shorter. In fact, initially we wanted it to be an 8 month engagement and get married this past August. In the end though, the reason we moved it was because all the venues we liked were already booked so we decided to put it off for a year because we really wanted an August wedding.
20 months has been too long. I do like having a long engagement because of the extra time, but now it’s just dragging on. I would have preferred a timeline around 10-14 months for me personally.
Miss Banana - I went through a 3-month phase near the beginning of our engagement where I completely FREAKED OUT at the idea of getting married. I knew deep down that my husband was the one for me, but I worried constantly that I was making a mistake that would be very hard to undo. I got so disillusioned during that time that I went kind of emotionally numb and didn’t feel in love with him (which only fueled my worries that I was making a mistake, of course.) I realized after awhile that those feelings were normal and just something I needed to work though, and eventually I did and I feel great about my relationship with him now. But I think it’s VERY important to work through those feelings before tying the knot. The engagement period is more than just flowers and photographers and parties, it’s also an emotional journey that you must allow time to complete. Trust your gut. If you’re worried about moving up the ceremony by several months, then don’t do it. It doesn’t mean you don’t want to marry your fiance, it just means you need more time to sort out your feelings about it and that is perfectly normal. A shorter timeline may work for some people and maybe you just need more than 5 months. I know I did.
You could still throw a surprise wedding anyway, just do it closer to your reception date.
we have a seven month engagement… because of our work and school schedules, it was either get married may 08 or may 09. may 09 would be a 19 month engagement and it was just too far off, so we went for this may. it’s a little stressful, thinking of exactly how much i have to do before then, but now that i’m engaged, i’m glad it’s only seven months - i couldn’t wait any longer!
Our engagement period was only 9 months, and it was plenty of time for us to plan and have a great wedding. We had a destination wedding in NC, so we didn’t have to worry about finding a place in PHilly that wasn’t booked already… The 9 months flew by, but we were ready to get married and now I’m loving it!
We’ll have a 13 month engagement by the time it’s all done. He wanted something sooner, but I had my heart set on spring flowers, and we got engaged in March, so….
We have decided to push things forward a little bit though, and I’m planning on moving in with him (and thus cross-country!) two months before the wedding, so that all the big change doesn’t happen at the same time.
Part of our thinking in a year-long engagement was to be able to save money to pay for vendors, but having to put down deposits early still meant a heavy outpouring of cash early.
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Mrs. Petunia, Ft. Lauderdale Age and Occupation: 31, College Professor Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Engineering Student/Part-time Barista Engagement Date: December 8, 2006 Wedding Date: March 2, 2008 Venue: Riverside Hotel Blogging Since: August 6, 2007 About Me: Our original idea of running off to get married quickly turned into an event with 100+ guests once other people got involved and I, too, got swept away in the lovely madness that is wedding planning. Mr. Petunia and I are obsessed with all things World of Warcraft, Monopoly, and Nintendo, so we’re planning on including some fun “game-y” details into our wedding.
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