Definitely wait. You will change so much in the next few years.... wait until you're at least 24 to be sure you know who you are and what you want. There's no rush.
@amy_e: there are many girls that are engaged for two years or more, but personally why even be engaged at all then. I thnk the engagement could wait until you guys are in a posisiton that is more suitable for marriage. Engagments no matter how fun and exciting they are can be very stressful.
I know some girls that decided on a long engagement(2 years) and by their wedding day not only were they about to pull their hair out, but thier family was too. An entire two years of planning and talking about the affair can get tiresome. I feel it becomes a burden on the family.
Obviously like I stated before many girls were engaged for 2 years+ and loved it. SOme of there reasons were that they did not have to start planning so quickly and enjoy the engagement.
But, my honest question is whether or not you are selfish cause i do not believe that you are. Why is he propsing so early if you do bot think yall are ready for marriage? there is absolutely nothing wrong to not want to get married so soon. have you guys given each other a timeline?
Wait! You are so young-- plenty of time. It's a great goal to be more settled and financially secure first. 
SO and I are 25 and even we want a 2 year engagement. You're young, there is no need to rush, if you want to have a longer engagement it isnt a bad thing, it is more time to get to know one another and get used to living together.
@katy13: We haven't done a timeline. And we will be paying for our own wedding so that's why we have to wait a while. If we could afford it, then we would get married tomorrow. Emotionally, I feel like we're already married. We both are already on our own financially and both working jobs while in school. We're getting engaged soon because he's been saving for a while and we're ready for a deeper commitment. He's also talked to my dad and my dad is happy for us. We just want a nice wedding and will need time to save up for it.
@amy_e: Then in your situation go for it! I just thought that from your tone in writting, your SO would like to only be engaged for a year. But, if he likes it too then go for it!! :)
@katy13: Yay!!! I just need unbiased opinions. My friends don't help because they all "wish they were in my shoes" so everyoneeee wants me to get married soon.
However long you can until you are emotinally and financially ready. Plan accordingly and you will know how long till the wedding. No need to rush or drag it out. When the time is right you'll be able to realize.
I think it's wise of you to wait and shows your maturity level about the situation. It's not selfish it's rationale!
@amy_e: don't. people always get so caught up in the glorious wedding day, forgetting that it's the first day of the rest of your life as a married.
just wait. :)
If you haven't already, you and your bf could come up with an idea of what you envision for your wedding day (type of venue and size. all the bells and whistles? a lot of DIY? during the peak "wedding season"?) and then figure out how much time and money you might need to pull that off. If you can make that happen in 2 yrs or less, I say go ahead and get engaged soon. If not, might be worth waiting a little while longer...as a PP had mentioned, planning your wedding for that long might get stressful (for you and others). You do save with some vendors by booking ahead...but, it is more time to think, look at magazines, etc., and may end up spending more (or feeling like you have to). Good luck, and regardless, congrats!
I had a 2 year engagement and it was perfect for us. I'm not even a "young bride" but just because he popped the question didn't mean I wanted to run down the aisle the next day! We took an entire year with little to no planning at all, just to enjoy this time in our lives and enjoy being engaged. We did book the venue about 14 months out since things fill up so quickly in our area, but then it was another long break from planning. We did the bulk of our planning in about 10 months, so we were able to spread some stuff out, save up money (paid for it ourselves), and just enjoy being together.
Get engaged when you feel ready to be engaged, and wait to get married until you feel ready (financially, socially, mentally, emotionally, COMPLETELY READY) to be married. There is no expiration date on engagements, there's no need to conform to what other people think is a good timeline, and there's no authority on marriages that dictate how long or short an engagement should be :)
@DaneLady: Thanks for the insight. I think I'm too worried about when other want us to get married. I just need to take it one step at a time!
@amy_e: I think your post no.6 explains it all. We're having a 4 year (ugh, tell me about it) engagement because a lot of the reasons that you listed. I got out of grad school last summer and started working full time about a year ago. My fiance started going back to school in January while working full time too. We're also paying for our own wedding.
A long engagement can be frustrating, but in the end you'll be better for it.
@bellaluna290: that's what we're probably going to do. Now all I have to do is keep my mom from becoming bridezilla... Haha she's never had a wedding and she's talked about me getting married for years...
@amy_e: I voted "other" just because I feel like you should wait as long as you feel comfortable. If you and your significant other really want to get married sooner rather than later, you should go ahead with it. It sounds as though you'd like to wait, though ... And there's nothing wrong with waiting 2 or 3 years (or even longer if necessary!).
I think the fact that you're both in school does make a bit of a difference. It's great that you recognize the importance of having financial stability in your lives, and I don't think it makes you selfish to feel that you should be able to support yourselves before getting married. I'm an "older" bride, I guess (currently 28, will be 29 at the time of our wedding), so my fiance and I have established ourselves a bit more in our careers. We're not rich by any means, but we do live comfortably. We're planning to pay for our wedding ourselves (though I'll definitely admit that the costs can be intimidating at times!), but this is something we would never have been able to do if we'd gotten married at a younger age. If your parents are planning to help with wedding costs, this may not matter as much ... But if the two of you want to take care of things yourselves, it might be in your best interest to wait until you both feel more financially secure.
It's not just the cost of the wedding, but the cost of everything else that may go along with being married (i.e. buying a home, having children, etc.). You'll want to be able to support yourselves, and it shows great maturity on your part to consider the big picture instead of simply getting caught up in the excitement.
@angelinthesnowxo: Thanks!!! All these comments are making me feel soooo much better about going ahead and getting engaged!!!
Yes, definitely wait until you have that financial stability. That's exactly what my SO and I are doing because forever is FOREVER and it's best to begin on the right foot!!!
@amy_e: There's nothing wrong with it per se, but get ready to hear a lot of "when's the wedding going to happen?!".
I always thought of an engagement as the period to prep for the wedding, so 2-3 years does sound like a long time to me... but as you say, you are young and have reasons for waiting.
If you want a big wedding and need to save, then it's a good thing to have a long engagement. If you just want to marry in city hall or whatever, do it. I'd probably opt to elope and have a shorter engagement personally.
@canarydiamond: PersonLly I would love to elope. Even thinking about planning a wedding stresses me out to the max, but my family would be heartbroken... So who knows what I'll do.
@amy_e: Sucks how something involving 2 people seems to involve so many more!
There is nothing wrong whatsoever with a long engagement. Don't let other people's expectations for how long they think engagements generally are to affect your schedule, get married when it works best for both of you!
Honestly there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with a long engagement, if it works best for you! You may feel emotionally ready to commit, but getting married in the next year may not be feasible, for whatever reason. So you can get engaged without having to start planning right away! I personally don't believe engagements are just about planning a wedding, getting engaged is another level of commitment in a relationship to me. You would not be selfish at all in having a long engagement.
I will have a 3.5 year engagement, 11 months into the engagement now and I am happy we got engaged when we did.
I voted "other." Why get engaged at all if you aren't ready to be married? I don't see the difference in being engaged without financial security/secure jobs and being married without those things. Getting to that point falls in the "do this before deciding to get married" bucket rather than the "do this before it becomes official" bucket. f
I suppose I don't understand the sentiment behind needing to be secure in a career before getting married versus it being okay to be engaged in that situation. I personally think there is a difference between being settled in a career and being a financial trainwreck in a mountain of debt. The latter would be a dealbreaker, but the former has been the reality for millions of newlyweds who have been quite successful.
@amy_e: I think you're being sensible by wanting to wait until you're financially stable to get married. It's not selfish at all, it's admirable!
Besides, my engagement will be just over 2 years, and even now I'm being told by vendors that I need to book in soon! It'll give you plenty of time to spread out cost and research carefully what you want and how to get it for the best price.
In the UK, the average engagement is 18 months to 2 years, I think it's perfectly reasonable.
Ya'll are around my FI's and I's age. We're having a long engagement (2.5 years) so we can save up and my FI's family and friends can save up for flights, hotels, etc. We'll be getting married on the east coast of the US in my hometown, but all his family lives in Western Canada (which is also where we live). We talked about having a long engagement though before he proposed due to not only financial reasons, but the fact that he's 21 and wants to wait till he's a bit older to get married. I'm 23, but I wanted awhile to plan and save up for stuff so I could get good deals and the vendors I really wanted. So yeah, I think 2 to 2.5 years is a good amount of time for a longer engagement.
Wedding planning will take as long as you let it. Save yourself years of headaches, do it sooner! We will be engaged 6 months when we get married!
My engagement will be just over 7 months! Many people have told us that's too short, but it is what works best for us and where we are in our lives right now. If a long engagement works best for you, then do that. As long as your SO is on board, there's nothing wrong with it!
Getting engaged means getting engaged to be married, not engaged to hang out for 3 years until you're ready to be married. I honestly feel as though if you are not financially, emotionally or mentally (not saying that you're not, just saying) then you shouldn't be engaged. Wait until you have everything in order.
@amy_e: We are older, I'm 34, FI is 44, and we have a 1 year 8 month engagement. It was nice to enjoy our engagment and planning the wedding. We are down to 3 months!! Trust me, time flies!!
I say wait as long as you need! I'm going to be getting engaged very shortly and am planning on waiting at least two and a half years until the boyfriend is out of the military. I might even wait another year after that until we're settled here. What's the rush!
I voted "3+" but what I really mean is, "Wait until you're ready, whether it be sooner or later." FI have been together since the beginning of his PhD program, which he just finished. For us, that meant 6+ years of dating before the engagement. Now, our engagement is a solid 1.5 years on top of that. It's what worked for us and our life goals.
Don't let anyone pressure you or try to convince you to get married earlier OR to put if off if you really want to do it. It's your lives!
I got engaged in June of 2012, and FI and I set the date for October 2013. Our engagement will be just shy of 17 months. Its funny, it has FLOWN by! we are at just under 8 months until the wedding day and it just seems like it is going by really quickly. We chose our engagement length based on the fact that he is a tax accountant and having a spring wedding would have meant less than a year-long engagement, plus he'd be working long hours in the months coming up to the wedding and I would be stressing out and doing a lot of the work on my own. I hate the summer, I hate being hot and I would hate having a summer wedding (no offense to summer wedding people!! Its just a personal preference!) so our next option was the fall. We began dating on October 15th, so we decided to go with a Saturday close to that date, and suddenly we had a wedding date!
Your engagement length is completely up to you. If you're going to get engaged, I think that you should be actively working towards getting married, meaning you should pick a venue and put down deposits on vendors. If you're not actively preparing for a wedding, you're basically just dating, so whats the difference? But do whatever makes you happy and feels right to the two of you. After all, thats what this is all about, right?! Good luck!
I love my long engagement. It's been fun. I rarely talk about the wedding because it wont be here for a while. Every now and than I'll hit a wedding phase and All I want to do is look up wedding ideas and watch wedding show but it'll only last a month and I keep it to myself. We've been engaged 3 years and really want to be engaged for at least 3 more.
It can be a bit annoying though. Like my family was set on us marrying right away so we pleased them and told them it'd be about a year. We weren't fully lying to them because the thought of us getting married within a year really did cross our minds but it wasn't want we truly wanted so we didn't. At least half the time we see someone from my side they are bring up how we still aren't married but we just shrug our shoulders.
The best advice I can give you is marry when you want to marry. You'll know when it's the right time. Be honest to everyone if you want a long engagement.
We are getting married in October and at that time we will have been engaged for 2.5 years. Who cares? We will be celebrating our 12th anniversary in July (been together since we were 15). Honestly if you're sure its the person you'll be with forever then what difference does it really make? I got a lot of weird looks when I told people we were waiting so long to get married but honestly I couldn't care less. We went to Europe for a month and bought a house rather than planning a wedding 5 minutes after getting engaged. Not one regret about it.
@amy_e: That sounds great then. Try to remember though that when you look back at the day it will be the love and only him you remember and not the chair covers etc which cost extra.
I waitressed at a very simple wedding the other day which had glass jugs with daffodils in them, a simple cake, no chair covers a nice band, small marquee and bubbles as favours with little RSPB (Royal Scottish Protection of Birds) badges inside paper daffodils for decoration on the tables. Was so pretty, didn't look expensive but looked lovely and was unique and the couple looked like the didn't even notice!
Plus, if there is anywhere to find ideas for lowering wedding costs weddingbee is the right place! x
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So I am getting engaged soon (in a few weeks) and SO and I have been together for 3 years now. We're both still in college And young (21 and 24). He's getting 2nd degree and we've been living together for about 6 months now. My question is, is it wrong to have a long engagement? Like 2 or 3 years minimum. I want us to both be financially stable with good jobs but is it selfish of me to want to wait To get married?