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Original poster

How long was your engagement?

131 replies

bluebellls · 17/03/2023 20:50

Trying to work out whats normal as we plan.
We don’t want a traditional wedding or to book a venue and invite hundreds of people.
Likely just to elope and spend our money on a fantastic honeymoon.
Do you think a 6-9 month engagement is too short? We are young and the last thing I’d wanna do is rush things and regret not enjoying the fiancé status for longer, even if it is just a stepping stone. How long was your engagement? Thankyou :)

OP posts:
bizzywiththefizzy · 18/03/2023 00:08

We had a very short engagement , 5 months but it was a long distance relationship and we had had enough of being separated so went for a quick wedding .

bizzywiththefizzy · 18/03/2023 00:23

MrNorrell · 17/03/2023 22:03

6 weeks, very recently. We didn't have much to organise as we just went to a Registrar's office, it was far more work trying to convince our families that I wasn't pregnant.

Me too I had a couple of aunts who were having sly looks at my abdomen . Although I wore a very slim fitting dress. One of them was mightily disappointed 😆

Templebreedy · 18/03/2023 00:44

We were never engaged, really. I think it went pretty much straight from ‘OK, let’s do this’ to giving notice to marry (same day, we both happened to show up with all necessary ID in case you needed it to make the booking, and they had a cancellation) and got married exactly the statutory 28 days later, during which time I finished a book and didn’t really give anything else a thought — no one else knew apart from our witnesses).

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Mentalpiece · 18/03/2023 06:00

We got engaged on our second date and got married just short of three months later.
Our second date was actually choosing the ring.

ThisIsNotARealAvo · 18/03/2023 06:20

We got engaged in November and got married the following summer because the wedding needed to be in the summer holidays.

Welshgirl10 · 18/03/2023 07:22

20 months- got engaged last November and getting married next August! No rush for us, need time to save up some money and a lot of vendors etc we wanted were booked up already for all of 2023.

MrsRickAstley · 18/03/2023 07:23

17 years. We never made it down the aisle.

catshreddedthesofa · 18/03/2023 07:37

14 months. That was when our venue had availability and we needed time to save up. I would have done it sooner if both those things were different. I'm

Unic0rnSparkle0405 · 18/03/2023 07:52

6 months, as someone said above why wait! My DH has some health issues and you never know what's around the corner, it's something we both really wanted so just went for it and we both have no regrets about doing it all in 6 months. Best day of our lives!

Highlyflavouredgravy · 18/03/2023 08:20

DramaAlpaca · 17/03/2023 21:59

Exactly the same here Smile

It'll be 33 years this June.

Show quote history

❤️
26 years here

Girasoli · 18/03/2023 08:42

Just under a year, got engaged in August and married the next summer. Had a big traditional church wedding. Hated the planning (and let DM do most of it!) but loved the actual day.

Blondbombsite · 18/03/2023 09:31

Even though I’d want a shorter engagement for myself and most people on here seem to have made plans quite quickly, I’d say that in real life most people I’ve known seem to be engaged for between a year and 2. Probably 18 months being about the average, with people needing time to save up.

Kernackered · 18/03/2023 09:35

15 years, 7 months and counting.
Had kids, had no money, realised we weren't really the big wedding sort of people, realised our families are way to difficult to want to share the day with. Haven't bothered to elope but probably will one day when we can afford a fabulous holiday instead of a fabulous wedding. We're not religious so feel as good as married as we are.

Tallulasdancingshoes · 18/03/2023 09:38

Just over 2 years. Got engaged at 26 and married at 28. We had some help with costs from parents, but we paid for a lot of it ourselves (totally fine) so we needed time to save, especially as we’d only bought a house the year before. We were fairly new in our careers too so not on massive salaries. This mean we had to wait a bit longer.

NewHopeNow · 18/03/2023 10:33

18 months but we were waiting to graduate. If not it would have been more like 9 months I think.

Dirtydiesel · 18/03/2023 10:43

About 18 months because that was the earliest we could get a suitably sized local reception venue on a Saturday in a school holiday ( didn't want to go back to work on the Monday). If that issue hadn't been there it would have been sooner.

Unic0rnSparkle0405 · 17/12/2023 18:19

6 months. Wouldn't change a thing Grin

PinkSparklyPussyCat · 17/12/2023 18:24

21 months and we'd been together 13 years when we got engaged

TeenDivided · 17/12/2023 18:49

6 months.

xogossipgirlxo · 17/12/2023 19:08

Mine was 3 years, but we got engaged after 8 years so you know😂 Long distance runners. 6-9 months seems ok to me.

QuickNameChangeForMeToday · 17/12/2023 19:10

15 months. We got engaged in December and didn’t want a winter wedding so went for a year in the spring.

Hbh17 · 17/12/2023 19:16

8 months. Pretty standard back in the day. Surely everyone is bored rigid if it's dragged out for longer than a year. And I think, if I were doing it now, I'd have a very small wedding and the shortest possible engagement (just a few weeks).

AutumnNymph · 17/12/2023 19:17

bloodywhitecat · 17/03/2023 21:12

I think we talked about it for about six months before we married (we waited for lockdown to lift a bit), we had a small wedding (just 15 of us altogether) and a very happy 9 months of marriage. I have now been his widow for just over a year, the length of engagement is immaterial in the grand scheme of things.

I am so so sorry for your loss! Life is so cruel.

FedUpMumof10YO · 18/12/2023 17:34

17 years. We split before making it down the aisle.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 18/12/2023 19:59

We never did ‘get engaged’ - dh thought it desperately uncool. We just decided to get married 6 months later.
We’ve been married for a very very long time!

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