Wedding Blog
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?
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Share this post: The Long And Short Of It
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.
Ours is 14 months with 6 months to go and I’m already thinking, how much longer?? We’re both ready for it to get here… I now tell all my friends to do it under a year!
Ours is almost 16 months (only 1.5 to go - woohoo!). I seriously wish it had been shorter as it absolutely gives you too much time to second guess your decisions. I had to make it longer though as my sister met someone and got engaged within 2 months (total!) and decided on getting married in March. Though I wanted to get married this summer (07), we did not get engaged until Aug 06 and our wedding would have been too close to my sister’s with everyone already traveling for hers. Therefore, we picked the beginning of Dec.
Ours is 13 months. This is great for us since we’re planning our wedding from overseas, and vendors aren’t quick to reply to us at all. I also wouldn’t want to be stressed out about it for any period of time. I have no idea how some couples manage to plan everything in less than 6 months. That just amazes me! Maybe it’s because I tend to be a little more scatter brained.
ours is 8 months and i thought it was wayy short! i wanted to have lots of time to research and ladidah. i do wish i took more time to search for more dresses because i think i felt like i was so late already. but maybe the shorter engagement lit a fire under me. and yes, no matter what, the last few months are hectic anyway, whether we took 8 months or 18 mos.
Ours was 16 months! I think we could have done it in 8. In the midst of it all, I had a wedding planning withdrawal and just didn’t want to deal with it for 2 months at least.
Let’s just say i’m glad it’s over and I can move on with life!
Ours will be 21 months - a very long time!! But that is because of our financial situation. We just built a new house so instead of rushing our wedding planning, we are saving up. I would have liked a shorter engagement, but in our situation - the longer the better!! He’s not goin’ anywhere!!
Ours was 10 months, which I think was just enough time for us… I started to wish that it was shorter, so everything wouldn’t be “wedding, wedding, wedding!” But the time actually flew by. After next Sat. I will be ready to move on from wedding planning and just enjoy my hubby.
ours is 8 months also. got engaged this past june, and are getting married this coming february, but really didn’t start planning until the beginning of august. we’ve been together for almost 5 years, so we knew that a long engagement was out of the question. it’s been going well, but with a few minor freak-out moments…
6 months!! I was crazy the last month (this past June), but had just recently finished an internship, gotten 2 new part-time jobs, graduated college, and was making plans on where to live and work in California. For us, anything longer than 8 months would have been wayyy too long. We had a short courtship too, however; we got married 1 month short of our 1 year anniversary. I wouldn’t suggest it for everyone, but it worked out wonderfully for us. We just had our three month anniversary, we’re happy in California, and I couldn’t imagine waiting any longer than we did!!
Our engagement will be 17 months, but we had a few reasons for doing this. Our wedding is in the city we live in, but none of my family or friends live here, so I wanted plenty of time to get things done, the way I wanted to without the benefit of much help, also initially we thought we were going to have to pay for most of the wedding ourselves and we had to take that long to save enough money for it, it turns out we are basically going to be much better off because we are saving all this $ earmarked for the wedding but my parents and his are covering most of the wedding expense after all. Also I had, had to have it in the summer, I had always wanted it then and since we got engaged in february, noway was I going to book everything in 5 months. Finally I wanted to enjoy being engaged and being a bride, but I do get that you second guess your decision a lot more. I do that all the time, but I think everyone has those moments regardless of how long you were engaged for
10 months for me, and I’m pretty happy about it. I would love to get married NOW actually (our wedding’s June 2008) , but my family would kill me. The only problem about it being so short was finding a reception hall - we really had to pick the first one available since all of the choice places were booked for our date. But in the end it doesn’t really matter!
Ours was 15 months - perfect time I think. I got everything major sorted right away and the details are getting done as we go along. Not much stress!
We got engaged in March of 2007, and we’ll be getting married in November of 2008, so approximately 20 months. It was okay at first, because we were planning on a long engagement, so we made an agreement not to start planning just yet.
However, NOW it’s all that I can think about! So between work, school, home life and the wedding - I have no time.
Plus, it’s correct what everyone says - you second guess yourself constantly. I mean, just look at the recent post on my blog - I can’t decide on colors! It should be easy, right?
smartl - Thanks. What’s funny is I have 0% doubt that this is the guy for me (I had plenty of time before we were engaged to figure that part out). It’s more like I want to come into the marriage with a clean slate financially and somehow emotionally. As I type it out, I realize it’s more of a nebulous fear than anything specific.
I want to plan the marriage as much as I want to plan the wedding. But the marriage part will last a lot longer than the wedding…I’ll have some time to keep planning it no matter when it is. 
Ours was 4-1/2 months…and it was perfect, and pretty efficient. It helps you make decisions quickly, and you have to let go of the small stuff. We were married 3 weeks ago, and I have to say that the joy of having all your friends and family around far outweighs any minor thing that can go wrong. The day goes so quickly, and in the end, no one really notices the details, just the overall effect and the happiness. Also, in that time, we moved in together, I got pregnant (yay! I’m 41!), and bought a house…a lot, but w/ the right person, it all works out. The only advantage I can see to a long engagement is saving money, and being emotionally ready.
Our engagement was 7 months, which was perfect for us. Every day, though, we counted down to THE day — I just wanted to be married and living with him, finally! But 7 months was the perfect amount of time for us - time to get everything done, but not TOO long.
Ours is eight months, and I agree with the previous posters about that (or similar) timeframes: it’s enough time to get everything done, but not so much time that you worry too much, plan too much, etc.
Our engagement was just shy of 7 months and that was perfect for us. Wanting to have it in a shorter span of time meant that we knew going in we would have to be flexible and because we had told ourselves that ahead of time we were always grateful and surprised when we ended up getting what we wanted (which happened in practically every vendor decision). Also, knowing my personality, I see now that I avoided all the self doubt and second guessing that would have happended over theme, colors, flowers, etc, etc.
When it is all said and done it will be 17 months and I’m also going nutz. I planned really early. I’m such a planner and now I’m over planning it! We want to go get married tomorrow but still 127 days to go.
2 years and 2 months!
Felt so long before.. but now with 15 days left, we keep saying to each other “where did the time go?!?”
If you are paying for your wedding by yourself or with minimal help and don’t want to skimp on everything I suggest this route. 26 months gave us time to space out our deposits and save money. So now, we are not struggling in the last few weeks to pay for everything. Takes a lot of pressure off. I’ve also enjoyed being engaged, first and only time.. I wanted to really enjoy it.
20 months (2 down!), but considering that a) we won’t be living in the same city til 4 more months from now and b) we’re planning things long distance, i’m hoping things will be spaced out enough to keep it from dragging on forever. i’m sure, however, that i’ll drive myself crazy with planning stuff.
Ours was too long. In NYC standards, it was average (1.5-2 years) due to the cost and housing costs being so high, but honestly, if I did it again, I’d say no more than a year and just have the wedding you can afford and call it a day! There’s lots you can’t plan for or put deposits on yet. Trends change. Vendors come and go.
4 month engagement- with three weeks to go! I’ll let you know later how that all goes. I’m a scenic/lighting designer and I thought I would mull to long over the minute details and spend more money on frivalous things.
Similar to Jillian’s post “Life is too Short”, FI’s father recently passed away and his mother just turned 80. So it’s worked out so far!
ours is about 16 months and i would totally do it in 8-10 if I had it my way. it’s driving me CRAZY having this much time to obsess. I love planning a wedding, don’t get me wrong, but this is just too much time for us.
we waited mainly because no one else in our immediate circle of friends or family was in favor of a fall wedding for a variety of reasons — other weddings, school, etc. on the up side, we have more time to save.
my advice? do what is best for you and your fiance re: timing. ignore everyone else.
10 months! It was hard to find a reception site so we had to settle for a Saturday. With my school schedule, I don’t get a summer vacation so we had to either get married in May of 08 or after I graduate in May 09. We’d already been dating for 3 years and talking about marriage for 2.5 so I didn’t want to wait any more. Even with my hectic schedule, I think it’s too long! I just want to get married already!
Ours is 16 months total I believe. We got engaged in january and will be getting married in May. We had to wait until I was graduated and I wanted a may wedding… so that was it.. now we’re down to under 7 months, woot!
Ours was a few weeks short of 12 months. I wanted a lot of time to do things and not stress but then ended up wishing I had more time. However because I had 12 months, I did end up driving myself crazy and kept changing my mind about everything (then in turn wishing I had more time)!
Our engagment was 6 months, and to be honest, I would have liked for it to be shorter. The more time I had, the more I debated over decisions I had made, etc. Looking at websites like this one, I’d see ideas that I loved….AFTER I had already decided on something else. If I had more time, who knows what all I would have changed…and rung up the wedding bill even more LOL!
Seriously, 6 months was plenty of time and any longer would have driven my nuts!
oh you guys are worrying me…i don’t know what i’m going to do! odds are 10 to 1 that i’ll be engaged in april, and i am dead seat on a mid to late august wedding (thus it doesn’t interfere with the start of the ncaa football season, or my absolute NEED of tiger lilies and the weather won’t be so terribly hot in michigan at that time of year). however, that makes for either a four month or a year and a half long wait… i can’t plan a wedding in four months but i can’t wait to move in and live with my finance for a year and a half (we’re both in agreement that you only live together AFTER marriage)! we’ve already spent the past four years waiting, i don’t want to make it almost six! what to do?
kaymarie - Even if your engagement is only ‘4 months’ that doesn’t mean the wedding planning can’t begin before that. Since the engagement isn’t going to be an out of the blue surprise - why not start researching now! You could even discreetly put a deposit on your dream location to make sure it’s available for your date. I’m not sure what deposits might be. But what’s a couple hundred dollars now to ensure you’re not waiting until next August! Of course everyone is different - but when my friends get engaged and plan the wedding more than a year in the future my though is “What??!!??” - that’s just me though - I think 6 months is the longest engagement I could handle. I was kinda in your boat - I knew I did not want a summer wedding! I was partial to spring - but would have loved fall or winter too. Well seeing as the proposal happened in Dec - it was either a 4-5 mo engagement or longer than 9 mo. I def opted for the shorter!
Of course with a short time frame you may have to take your second choice of venue, or flowers, or baker - but really - does that matter?? I guess you just have to decide what’s the most important to you.
Additionally with a shorter engagement you maybe have to pay a little more to get a rush order on your dress. I ordered mine 4 months in advance - and prob didn’t ‘have’ too - but I wanted to make sure I had it in time to take bridal portraits and what not. I think it was an additional $60 or $70. Worth it!
So get to it - starting buying the magazines - thinking about flowers and colors and what you just ‘have to have’. Then you’ll be well on your way and able to plan the wedding quickly
Seriously - even with a 4 month planning time - I felt like there was at least a month during that when I did nothing wedding related - cause there was nothing to do
Also be prepared to hear the murmurs - “Is she pregnant?” which no doubt people assume with a short engagement!
thank you, you have the best advice!
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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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