How Long Should Your Engagement Be?
H2b has gone down on one knee. Your heart fluttered, you said yes! Now you need to set the date. Will you be having a summer wedding? Perhaps a wedding in Spring? Will you be aiming for school holidays or avoiding them?
The average amount of time to be engaged is one year. Many couples aim to be engaged roughly a year before their wedding. I famously planned our date for two and a half years from when we got engaged!
I was a student so we couldn’t get married that year, we weren’t earning any money and I was so busy with my course.
Then we needed to save some money… and I wanted a spring wedding so then it became two and a half years.
The Benefits of a Long Engagement
With all this waiting, I do find it hard to think of the benefits of our long engagement but the main benefit is that we are spreading the cost.
We booked the church, reception venue and photographer back in January 2010 and paid those large deposits back then. We have since paid a deposit to the dress makers, suit hire, flowers, stationary, favours, transport, DJ and more.
Spreading the cost makes the whole day seem more affordable.
Also, there’s no rush. We have had some hiccups in delivery dates being put back but because the wedding is so far off we don’t need to worry.
I can take my time making the seating plan and the other bits of stationary and decoration that I want to have for the wedding. There is no rush to make the seating plan by a certain date because of having all this time to spread out what needs to be done.
I do have to admit it is a fairly relaxed way to plan our wedding. Everything gets done in it’s own time, there’s no pressure to have everything ready. Of course I want it all ready for The Day but I can take my time.
The Benefits of a Short Engagement
There’s no waiting! I feel as if I have been waiting for my wedding day for year and years (which I have) but with a short engagement, you can see an end to the planning process and a special day looming ever closer.
At a wedding, last week, I met a lady who got engaged 2 months before her wedding date. There was a cancellation at their venue and they wanted to snap it up.
This meant that she had two months of intense wedding things, everything was done and finished with very quickly and from the photos she had an absolutely gorgeous wedding!
Other benefits are that your friends won’t be bored half to death, listening to you harking on about your wedding for years, as my friends and family have had to do.
Knowing What I Know Now, Would I Change the Length of My Engagement?
Probably not. I would still want the same wedding date as we have.
H2b and I had been together for six years when he popped the question.
I’d watched a lot of my friends meet their chaps, get engaged and married while h2b and I were together.
I was getting quite impatient.
If h2b hadn’t proposed when he did, I would have been quite confused about what he wanted from our relationship so I am glad that we got engaged when we did.
I do wish that we could have afforded to get married sooner, but as money is an issue, I think we would always have a two and a half year engagement.
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