These days the length of an engagement has dropped, with most averaging around 15 months. So we ask the question, how long should an engagement be?
When it comes to saving money so that you can spend it all on your dream day, long engagements can be more beneficial than short ones. But the extra time can make a bride or groom impatient; they feel they have too much time on their hands, the excitement from the proposal is lost, and close friends and family get engaged AND married within their engagement time-span.
@inspiratgifts says on Twitter “17 years to get the ring, and a year so far!”
If you like it…
For some people, the first step after putting a ring on it will be to set the date. Booking your venue will be the next big thing on your mind after the proposal, but your dream venue might not be available for your dream date. With a long engagement and the right amount of organisation, you can almost guarantee getting the wedding you want. On the other hand, shot-gun weddings can bring discounts in the form of last minute availability and cancellations, but it can be a risky strategy.
“We got engaged in June 2011 and are getting married in October 2012, so we’ll have about 16 months planning. When we got engaged we both said we were getting “engaged to be married” not “engaged to be engaged”. We knew we wanted to be married in less than 2 years. H2B’s sister had quite a long engagement…we just knew this wasn’t for us”
Autumn Bride, Wedding Ideas Chat
Don’t get cold feet!
Prolonging the engagement sometimes gives couples time to change and re-analyse things. Occasionally this ends up with someone getting cold feet. If you get married quickly, cold feet are less likely when you get caught up in a whirlwind of wedding planning and financial commitments. Of course, getting cold feet is a worst case scenario. More common changes of heart include debating whether the blue bridesmaid dresses work as well with the theme as you first thought they did, or questioning whether the floral centerpieces were worth all that money. Indecisive minds during a long engagement are taunted over time as they pick up on new and better ideas everywhere they go.
So, what do you think? How long was your engagement? How long should it be?
