Friend recently engaged but not planning wedding yet?

[bouldertcr]

I am curious to hear your thoughts of receiving an engagement ring but then not planning for wedding. I have a friend (female age 28) who became engaged in May. Her fiance is 31 and they both have been together for 3 years. At first when he asked her to marry him, she balked because she was so shocked that he proposed (she thought they were fine just being live in boyfriend/girlfriend; she also said they never talked about marriage). She later agreed and accepted his ring. Flash forward 3 months later and they still haven't talked about planning the wedding. After talking to her, it appears that she and he have no intention of even starting to plan. She said however if they do have a wedding they would like to have it on day they first met which by the way happens to fall on a Saturday in June of next year. Mentioning that to her, she then said that it is not enough time to plan a wedding. Ok, call me old school but I thought an engagement ring meant that there is an intent to become married? I just find it odd that there is no planning taking place let alone not even a discussion with fiance about the planning after 3 months of becoming engaged. My initial gut thought is that she's not sure about being married to him but she professes that she is madly in love with him and wants to be with him.

How long were you engaged? Did you start planning soon after being asked? My DH and I were married 18 months after but started planning soon after the announcement.

 

[NeverlandClub23]

I've been engaged twice (not currently) but never started planning one as I knew my parents would not pay anything towards a wedding (they got married for $500 and think anything over that is a waste of money and ridiculous). Neither my fiance or I had any money in savings and since I (we) didn't want a backyard BBQ or punch and cake in the back of a church and I have an ENORMOUS extended family who would all take it personally if they weren't invited, I knew it would be years before we could afford spending $4-5k on a wedding (a small, simple, nice wedding with a lot of guests) so I just never started planning.

I do think your friend and her fiance may both want different things out of the relationship. Did he not know she didn't want to be engaged? I do think it's strange to be engaged and not even interested in the marriage part. Because then it's essentially just having a pretty ring on your finger .

 

[HunnyPots]

You need to give her a dictionary so she can look up the definition of 'engagement'!
Honestly, it sounds like she has no intention of marrying the guy. Maybe she took the ring just to pacify him for a while?

 

[edandcolleen1995]

I am a GM for a wedding facility. We have brides that come in ALL the time that have been engaged for upwards of 3 years and are just now planning their dates.

Honestly, we see it all almost all the time. So it is very common

 

[Scurvy]

I'm with you - I think if you aren't planning to get married, you aren't really engaged. And I mean activiely planning, not just saying "someday we'll get married". Of course I also think really long engagements are sort of silly unless there's some big reason you can't get married - either you want to be married or you don't; I don't see any reason to stay stuck in the limbo of engagement any longer than necessary.

I do think it's becoming more common for people to get engaged without actually intending to marry any time soon - for them I think engaged has become a more serious relationship than dating, but not necessarily a relationship leading to marriage. So for them Engaged is relationship status. I find that sort of silly, personally, since I think of engagement as being a transition period between a dating relationship and a marriage, but not something that really exists on it's own. (If that makes sense - I hope everyone understands what I mean, since I'm not saying it well.) But of course people are obviously free to call themselves whatever they want whether I agree with it or not.

 

[cjlvsccm]

I am curious to hear your thoughts of receiving an engagement ring but then not planning for wedding. I have a friend (female age 28) who became engaged in May. ... I just find it odd that there is no planning taking place let alone not even a discussion with fiance about the planning after 3 months of becoming engaged. My initial gut thought is that she's not sure about being married to him but she professes that she is madly in love with him and wants to be with him.

How long were you engaged? Did you start planning soon after being asked? My DH and I were married 18 months after but started planning soon after the announcement.

I wouldn't sweat it, some people just don't move to the same drummer as others traditionally do. Hopefully, they both have seriously considered this life decision, and are happy with it and committed to it. But I don't think the ceremony has to be the focus.

DH and I had decided to marry, but I just wanted a single band with stones for a wedding ring, so I had nothing to show for being "engaged". When we were finally ready, we bought rings. Then after the nervousness of that step settled down, I just called our preacher on a Tues, followed up on Wed, and set up a private ceremony at church on that Friday. That was plenty of time to plan our wedding. All our family was (and are still) happy for us, and we were (and are still) happy.

Only one person was bothered at having been left out, but I guess she got over it, when I reminded her that our wedding was not about her. ((Hope you don't take that as being snarky towards you, not intended.))

 

[Pakey]

All 3 of my sons were engaged without having a wedding date set immediately upon engagement. The oldest 2 ended up getting married 2+ years after engagement. The youngest son has been engaged since January and there is still no date for a wedding set and no plans in progress.

I see nothing odd about it.

 

[brios86]

I was engaged over 3 years before we started planning our wedding, so I don't really see anything strange about this.

 

[Magic Mom]

Is there some rule that says you have to have concrete plans within so many months of the engagement? If they are happy with their arrangements and planning schedule, then be happy for them.

 

[NotUrsula]

DH knows a couple who have now been "engaged" for 14 years. They are in their early 50's, and have never lived together, but they do work together and spend most of their off-hours together as well. THAT one strikes me as odd.

Being engaged for a year or so without really planning the event doesn't seem very weird, especially if one or both of them are still students. Saving up takes time.

 

[LuvCuteBoys]

Are they both happy? In my book, that's all that really matters.

 

[Jennasis]

I don't know why or how this affects you. Their lives ya know.

FWIW, my uncle and his girlfriend have been engaged (with a ring) for 20 some-odd years.

 

[Ember]

I was engaged for two years before getting married. And the first year I didn't plan a thing. When people asked I told them it was going to be in Disney World - that was all the information I had. After the first year I started actually planning, though Disney won't let you confirm anything until 8 months out.

Personally, I enjoyed having a long engagement. It was fun!

 

[dakcp2001]

I've been enganged since Dec 2007 and no current plans for a wedding. Weddings make people crazy. Once you get engaged you are CONSTANTLY asked when is the big day? What are your plans? And if you trll anyone you get the barrage of reasons as to why your plans are going to offend someone or why it wont work, or how someone's cousins brother did that and it was awful. Our moms went nuts, OTHER PEOPLE had way too much input and it ruined the fun for us. We are going to elope. We are not telling anyone ANYTHING.

I think your friend is smart, she is prob just keeping her plans to herself so she doesn't have to listen to eveyone say what they do not like about them. Maybe she is saving up for a wedding. Maybe she is planning to elope. Maybe she wants to keep the details to herself. She just doesn't want anyone raining on her parade.

I would be more concerned if they were rushing to the alter. SO no need to worry about them and their relationship. Relationships are in no way rated by the speed in which you marry.

 

[castleview]

I've been enganged since Dec 2007 and no current plans for a wedding. Weddings make people crazy. Once you get engaged you are CONSTANTLY asked when is the big day? What are your plans? And if you trll anyone you get the barrage of reasons as to why your plans are going to offend someone or why it wont work, or how someone's cousins brother did that and it was awful. Our moms went nuts, OTHER PEOPLE had way too much input and it ruined the fun for us. We are going to elope. We are not telling anyone ANYTHING.

I think your friend is smart, she is prob just keeping her plans to herself so she doesn't have to listen to eveyone say what they do not like about them. Maybe she is saving up for a wedding. Maybe she is planning to elope. Maybe she wants to keep the details to herself. She just doesn't want anyone raining on her parade.

I would be more concerned if they were rushing to the alter. SO no need to worry about them and their relationship. Relationships are in no way rated by the speed in which you marry.

I've said many times that if I could do it again, I would have eloped. Don't get me wrong, our wedding was fun and I didn't stress myself out until near the end (my mom is lucky she's alive! ). But it just wasn't necessary to put all that energy into it. So take the dream vacation and get married while you're there. The courthouse is fine too!

 

[luvmy3]

Being engaged means 2 people are planning on marrying eachother, I really don't think time has anything to do with it. I know plenty of people who rushed into marriage as soon as they agreed to become engage, and now they are married to other people because it didn't work out.
Personally I don't think its a big deal to hold off on planning a wedding, and I don't think its any one elses business how long you plan on being engaged, or why it may end up being a long engagement, no offense OP.

 

[Pumbaa_]

8 months from official engagement to wedding. Sorry, I don't get long engagements. Either you want to BE married or you don't.

To each their own

 

[hopemax]

DH and I got engaged April 1995, we didn't get married until July 1998. We didn't book the location until April 1997. DH and I were Juniors in college when we got engaged, and DH really didn't want to wait. I actually held off officially accepting the engagement for about 9 months, otherwise we would have gotten engaged in 1994! But we both knew that we didn't want to get married until after we finished school, and we wanted another year on top of that so we could save some money and switch gears from being students to being adults out in the world. Once we graduated, it was full force on the rest of the wedding plans, and I was so glad I didn't have to balance that and school. And like I said, DH didn't want to wait to be engaged.

So I don't think long engagements are necessarily a bad thing, if both people are on the same page. Your friend is older than we were, but perhaps there are other things in life she wants to do before being married. Maybe she is afraid that once they are married, the kids will come and it's harder to do other things like travel, or concentrate on career, etc. I'd be a little concerned that the ring startled her so much and I hope she didn't take it just to make him happy. If the ring prompted a discussion between the two of them, and they came to a decision that both of them are comfortable with, then that is great, but it's their business. So long engagements aren't your thing, so don't have one

 

[Disney Doll]

I was engaged for 14 months and it was a tad too long for me. I would have preferred it being maybe 10 months.

I agree that to me, engagement is the planning period before one gets married. I wouldn't be engaged for 14 years or 20 years. But that's me...obviously from this thread, a lot of people think differently.

 

[AshleyW]

My fiance and I got engaged March 2008 and haven't started planning yet. We want to get married, sure, but don't have the time to plan a wedding right now. We've tentatively set a date for New Year's Eve 2011, but it's not set in stone. He finishes his bachelor's degree in October, and we'll start planning it once he's done with school. I don't see the big deal with having a long engagement.. it's usually not simply a matter of wanting to get married or not, like a few people have suggested, there is also time and money factors for most people.