How long was it between your engagement & wedding?

[karibritt01]

We waited 13 months from when we got engaged. Our wedding was Feb 1994. I don't think I would be willing to wait that long for my wedding, since the main goal is to be married. And if it took me that long to save the money, then I would have a REALLY hard time spending it all on a party that lasts a few hours at best.

Whay not look for a different venue than a hotel ballroom? You could get a convention room or a meeting room in a lesser hotel. Or what about a wedding on the beach... very few bees there. I do not think I would skimp on the photographer, but I would call around and find a good deal (craigslist might help you there.) Maybe you or your finance have a friend or relative that can make your cake? For our reception, we did heavy hors'duerves. (sp?) We bought some at Sams, and had family friends bring in the rest. I have had to find caterers for scout functions and such, and have found that many restaurants have great deals if you shop around. We skipped the alcohol and had punch. I bought a nice floral arrangement for the church, and had it moved to the reception afterwards. I did all my bouquets out of silk flowers. As for clean-up, I think you need to ask your and your finance's parents/family to handle that after the reception is over. Most weddings that I have been to, the family cleans up after the guests have left. And lets be blunt... you are not asking them to pay for the wedding, so clean up is the LEAST they could do, KWIM?

Last suggestion is to decide how much you can afford to spend on the wedding, and set a limit to the guest list. I know parents (in general) that do not want to pay for a wedding, then have no problem inviting 150 people. Tell the parents they can invite X number of people, and anything over that they will need to help pay for the reception.

 

[Nyla]

My fiance and I have been engaged 14 months and will be married exactly one month from today. We're getting married at a beautiful new country club that lets us rent the place for 4 hours free, if we purchase their catering. We got dinner at $19.00 a head, and only invited 75 people. We made my bouquet, a friend is making the cake for us, another friend is handling the photography, we managed to get the dj to come down $600.00 off his price. So all around, not much more than $4000.00.

It's doable, but it takes some serious planning and strategy. I don't think 4 years is too long, if it's something that both of you are okay with, and will manage to give you the wedding you desire. Good luck and lots of congratulations!! <3

 

[barkley]

Okay... I'm going to try to be rational and not be offended by this.

You don't know me or my fiance. We love each other and want to be with each other.

However, we also want a big, fun, unique celebration. I don't even remotely see how wanting that somehow makes us love each other less.

If I just wanted a wedding, I would have enjoyed the gala my parents threw for my first. I did not. Instead, I stayed in the bridal changing room most of the night. I didn't even eat. I also would not have waited 10 years to get engaged again.

Personally, I want to elope and have a fantastic honeymoon but he has a huge family and they want a wedding. Sicne we HAVE to have a wedding, I want it to be a nice wedding. I don't want to be cleaning up the room with my soon to be husband after people leave the hall after the party.

i'm not trying to be insulting but i thought that one of the things you were unhappy about with your first wedding was that your parents made the decisions despite what you begged them not to do. you said you did'nt enjoy it (or it sounds like realy participate). now you're saying you realy want to elope but you "have" to have a wedding because it's what your df's family wants.

we know what you want-what does your df want? if it's no big wedding and a great elopement/honeymoon then don't make the same mistake you made the first time. it's the 2 of you getting married the only "have to" in the equation should be that you "have to" do your best to accommodate both of what only you 2 want and can afford.

 

[wendy46001]

13months...and that was mostly because we wanted a certain reception site in EPCOT and had to wait for Mickey to have an open day

Do I think four years is a long engagement, yes
But do what works for you as a couple…
you could always have a simple wedding then a great five year anniversary party/renewal

 

[Inigo]

20th anniversary was yesterday.

Our engagement was two and a half months. It didn't occur to me until years later that people probably thought I was pregnant to have such a rushed wedding...but no, baby #1 didn't come around until 18 months later.

Wow. I thought I was fast, doing it in three months. Of course, we only dated for three weeks before getting engaged. Seriously. We're at year 24 this November. It sounded like a good idea at the time. (We kinda knew each other before, but not really since he's 9 years older than I am.)

 

[Angelhalo]

6 months

 

[Angelhalo]

4 years seems a bit extreme but whatever floats your boat

Alos our wedding location was a country club. It was very classy and we had TONS of compliments and it only cost us $500 plus their in house catering to book it, so it ended up being $2,500 for location and food for 225 people. You can DEFINITELY find a nice place for less than $10,000!

 

[karibritt01]

our 'favors' were gold foil covered chocolate coins we used as decorations on the tables-guests (esp. kids) loved gobbling them up.

We have seen Hershey's kisses done, and thought it was beautiful. You can get red and white near Valentine's day.

You are saying it's going to take the both of you 4 years to save up 10,000? That is 2,500 a year less than 25.00 a month.

Shady math here. They would be saving $200+ each month to get $10K in 4 years.

 

[Angelhalo]

We have seen Hershey's kisses done, and thought it was beautiful. You can get red and white near Valentine's day.



Shady math here. They would be saving $200+ each month to get $10K in 4 years.

We had the kisses on our tables. On the bottom of each kiss we put a sticker with Cinderella castle and our name and wedding date.

 

[DisneyBlonde]

With my practice marriage rolleyes1), I got engaged on New Year's Eve and married Nov 21. The 2nd time I got engaged was on Valentine's Day and we were married the following June, so a little over a year.

I don't think you need 4 years to make it a nice wedding. I did a lot of things myself. I made my own invitations and they came out very nice. I saved a lot of money on my dress by ordering it from Pearl's Place. There are a lot of things you can do to have an elegant but affordable event. Have you checked out theknot.com? Loads of ideas there, lots of things I would have never thought of. There are local boards for your area where brides will talk about vendors they use and give reviews, etc. I highly recommend it.

Congratulations!

 

[Aisling]

I was engaged for 8 months.

 

[megthewonderful]

We were engaged 9 months before our wedding. I was in grad school and my DH was just starting out, but we made it work with a little help from our parents. Neither one of us was interested in a huge wedding. We just wanted to have a great day celebrating with family and friends. We had about 100 people and rented out a great space in a restaurant overlooking the ocean. We spent around $12,000. I don't think I could have waited 4 years to get married and looking back at it all, I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Congrats on your engagement! Enjoy planning your wedding!

 

[mumom95]

Our engagement was exactly 18 months. We got engaged my senior year in college, my dh's junior year. We got married 2 months after he graduated (I wanted him to have a couple of months on his own before getting married).

My MIL (future MIL at the time) threw an absolute fit, and I mean a huge fit. In her eyes, you have a 6 month engagment, no more, no less. She banned us from telling anyone in my dh's family or home town (when she found out we had told his best friend, she went balistic on the friend) until we were six months from the wedding date.

She basically ruined the relationship with her future DIL (me) all over the fact that our engagment wasn't six months

Have the engagment that you want, for as long or short as you want. It's your life.

 

[castleview]

engaged after 11 months of dating, married 10 months later - ten veeerrry long months.

 

[Scurvy]

We were engaged for just over 3 months. We were still in college and considered having a longer engagement, but we were ready to get married and didn't want to wait just for the sake of having a larger wedding. We had a small wedding but it was exactly what we both wanted. I would have been perfectly happy to elope just so we could be married, but we were able to include our families and closest friends and in retrospect I am glad we waited long enough to plan the ceremony that we ended up having. However, I wouldn't have wanted to wait any longer than we did - we were ready to start our life together.

Personally I think four years is unusually long for a couple who isn't in school and could marry if they wanted, but if that's what works for you then that's what you should do. I think it just depends on what your priority is - if you are really wanting a larger wedding than you can afford right now then I think it's wise to wait till you can afford what you want. If you are really wanting to be married now then I think it's foolish to wait just so you can have the wedding that others might expect. Neither one of those choices is right or wrong for everyone. The people that matter most are the two of you - you should do what will make you both happiest.

 

[GoldieSaysMeep]

I just found out a local restaurant might be able to do it for around $2250 (rental of their function room, staff, and catering) This would be for 75.

I will have 20 people (Though my parents of course want to invite every cousin I haven't seen in 5 years, and their own friends, but too bad). Fiance will have around 50 people (he has a very large close family).

Lets see...

Music. We're definately not having a dj. I have an awesome ipod set up and his brother has a great speaker system that will work just fine. My brother is a total ham and he'll do the announcements.

Bridal party... I will have no MOH or bridesmaids. I will have a man of honor, and my fiance is perfectly cool with this. He suggested it actually. Fiance will have 5 groomsmen. So it will be uneven but we don't care.

I see no need for a limo... my parents have a huge vehicle as does the guy who will be the man of honor. I can get a ride. I don't need to pay someone with a limo some ridiculous amount of money for a 20 minute car ride.

The aforementioned restaurant comes with nice candle centerpieces and table linens at no extra cost.

Open bar. No. Nuff said. If people want to say it's tacky, so be it. We will provide an open bar of soft drinks and spring water.

Dress. I will order something cheap online. My friend just found her dress online for $163. She is not wearing white and neither am I. Hers was an elaborate prom gown in her fiance's favorite color. Mine will be something in either black and white or solid purple (my fiances favorite color).

Tux...

Favors. Candy probably. Maybe small candles or wine stoppers. Something useful. If it can't be used or eaten, we won't get it.

Photographer. They average 2500. Fiance has 3 friends who are very good amateur photographers. I've seen their work and they're as good as any pro I've ever seen, IMO. I edit digital photos as a hobby and have come up with some pretty cool effects (nothing weird, just touching up lighting, softness etc.) so as much as I'd love a pro, I can't justify the cost.

 

[mjkacmom]

I can't imagine waiting 4 years to have a 4 hour party, especially in my 30's. I had a 9 month engagement (after dating for 6 years), and my parents paid for it all. However, if I had to foot the bill, I'd be using the $ for a downpayment on a house, college fund for the kids, retirement... To NOT be married for 4 years in order to save for a wedding? I'd elope.

 

[LaurenLC]

We got engaged on June 21, 2005 and were married on October 12, 2006. We also had a second reception on November 4, 2006. We needed every second of time we had between our engagement and our wedding..... Planning, planning, planning!

 

[DisneyBlonde]

I just found out a local restaurant might be able to do it for around $2250 (rental of their function room, staff, and catering) This would be for 75.

I will have 20 people (Though my parents of course want to invite every cousin I haven't seen in 5 years, and their own friends, but too bad). Fiance will have around 50 people (he has a very large close family).

Lets see...

Music. We're definately not having a dj. I have an awesome ipod set up and his brother has a great speaker system that will work just fine. My brother is a total ham and he'll do the announcements.

Bridal party... I will have no MOH or bridesmaids. I will have a man of honor, and my fiance is perfectly cool with this. He suggested it actually. Fiance will have 5 groomsmen. So it will be uneven but we don't care.

I see no need for a limo... my parents have a huge vehicle as does the guy who will be the man of honor. I can get a ride. I don't need to pay someone with a limo some ridiculous amount of money for a 20 minute car ride.

The aforementioned restaurant comes with nice candle centerpieces and table linens at no extra cost.

Open bar. No. Nuff said. If people want to say it's tacky, so be it. We will provide an open bar of soft drinks and spring water.

Dress. I will order something cheap online. My friend just found her dress online for $163. She is not wearing white and neither am I. Hers was an elaborate prom gown in her fiance's favorite color. Mine will be something in either black and white or solid purple (my fiances favorite color).

Tux...

Favors. Candy probably. Maybe small candles or wine stoppers. Something useful. If it can't be used or eaten, we won't get it.

Photographer. They average 2500. Fiance has 3 friends who are very good amateur photographers. I've seen their work and they're as good as any pro I've ever seen, IMO. I edit digital photos as a hobby and have come up with some pretty cool effects (nothing weird, just touching up lighting, softness etc.) so as much as I'd love a pro, I can't justify the cost.

based on what you've written here I don't think you need a 4 year engagement. sounds like you have it mostly figured out.

 

[C.Ann]

First marriage, 10 months..

Second marriage - 2 and a half years..