Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 6 7 8 ··· 13 14

Original poster

to not understand people announcing that they're 'Getting Engaged'.

330 replies

atthewelles · 18/02/2013 13:12

I mean, either you've agreed between you that you want to get married or you haven't. Tellling everyone that you're 'going to get engaged at Christmas' or that 'we're going to Paris to get engaged' doesn't really make sense. Surely its more exciting to wait until you have the ring and then make a general announcement that you 'are engaged' instead of letting everyone know in advance and then expecting them to get excited and ooh and aah when you appear with a diamond flashing on your finger.

I'm not giving out about it, I just don't understand why people want to take the excitement and surprise out of the occasion like this.

OP posts:

YouOldSlag · 19/02/2013 18:28

Pigs- that what I did. I didn't miss the point. We had a lovely time and I came back wearing a ring.

I agree with Worra's post on p1. People get excited about future events. Why the nitpicking?

Booyhoo · 19/02/2013 18:31

"I don't think I really want to as you're being quite rude.

Yes I stuck a pretend smile on my face, pretended to look shocked and said yes. He pretended to be shocked at my reply.

We'd got to the point in our relationship where we had discussed marriage and children. I has no idea when he would propose, I genuinely thought we would have a baby first.

So yes I was surprised. Get over it. "

life must be quite hard for these people who interpret someone disagreeing with them as being rude.

Pobblewhohasnotoes · 19/02/2013 18:40

My engagement was apparently a pretence and oh yes, it was all his decision as we don't communicate. Apparently.

Maybe I'm just not uptight, some people obviously like their lives mapped out down to the last detail. Including the day they get engaged.

nkf · 19/02/2013 18:42

It's totally weird. And all those people who've looked at rings together and discussed marriage. It's just one of those things you either get or you don't get. I don't get it at all but there you go.

Booyhoo · 19/02/2013 18:49

well it was a going through the motions wasn't it? as you say you had already agreed to get married so the asking wasn't really asking it was just going through the motions of proposing as he already knew you were going to marry him. the only surprising bit was that you weren't sure what date you would have to pretend to be surprised on really.

"Maybe I'm just not uptight, some people obviously like their lives mapped out down to the last detail. Including the day they get engaged. "

yeah you're a real fly by the seat of your pants gal. you let him 'surprise' you with a proposal that you had already discussed and agreed upon

nkf · 19/02/2013 18:58

It's showing off really. It's look at me. I've decided to do something in the future. Aren't you interested?

Pobblewhohasnotoes · 19/02/2013 19:40

Well at least I'm not an attention seeker. 'oh I'm getting engaged next week'. How interesting. Let me pretend to be surprised for you.

Obviously I've perfected my surprised look being as I had it when I was proposed to.

FakePlasticLobsters · 19/02/2013 19:51

I think there is a difference between discussing the stage your relationship is at and being aware that your partner is thinking along the same lines as you with regards to marriage and actually announcing "We are getting engaged on X date" though, which I think is what the OP was talking about.

Booyhoo · 19/02/2013 19:51

i didn't say you were attention seeking.

FakePlasticLobsters · 19/02/2013 19:52

Thread has moved on since my phone rang, sorry.

Booyhoo · 19/02/2013 19:56

i agree fake
for me, having that discussion about marriage and agreeing that you will is getting engaged. it is a bit odd to agree to get married and based on that conversation then announce that you intend to agree to get married again at xmas/on holiday/whatever. you have already gotten engaged!

Aftereightsarenolongermine · 19/02/2013 21:06

As LRD has said as have I there may well be religious/cultural reasons that you may not be aware of. Even though I knew I was going to get engaged (shock horror) We could not wear our rings until they had been blessed by our priest in a religious ceremony attended by our families & more specifically our witnesses. It would not have been a valid engagement in the eyes of our church unless the priest had done so.

So yes actually I think quite a lot of you are being quite rude in thinking that your way is the correct way whereas in other cultures & countries your way would be invalid.

ConfusedPixie · 19/02/2013 21:15

DP and I are technically engaged by these standards I suppose. We know we're gong to marry and if people ask us we tell them it'll happen when he leaves uni in three years time. But I wouldn't say we're engaged.

It's not official, it's not something we have told family/friends about really (unless asked, or if people ask us what we are saving for and the answer is "Wedding, house, kids and future really..."), there's no ring, etc. When either of us pops the question and it becomes 'official' I'd say we're engaged.

I don't think I've heard anybody say that they'll get engaged at X time or place!

You lot are putting me off of the tradition of asking the parent though! never really thought about it before!

LRDtheFeministDragon · 19/02/2013 21:18

Are you Orthodox too, aftereight? (Just being nosy, btw). That's what DH is.

Aftereightsarenolongermine · 19/02/2013 21:22

LRD yes I am suppose the priest blessing the rings gave it away...,

LRDtheFeministDragon · 19/02/2013 21:23

Pretty much.

Aftereightsarenolongermine · 19/02/2013 21:25

LRD

weegiemum · 19/02/2013 21:26

Odd. We got the ring. then we went to visit my folks. Dh was v trafitional, asked my dad for my hand (this was 20 years ago!).

Then we went out for a walk and he did a formal proposal. But I'd already said "yes" weeks ago when we bought the ring (he was a 5th yR medical student, it was £27 from Ratners!) so our walk was a 'formality'. Dad was som"surprised" that he had had champagne in the fridge from before we arrived that morning!!!

YouOldSlag · 20/02/2013 08:43

It's showing off really. It's look at me. I've decided to do something in the future. Aren't you interested?

How could discussing future plans and intentions with close friends or family be showing off? To me, that would be normal conversation along the lines of I want to change career or I'm planning Baby No 3, or we're going to move house.

Normal!

Original poster

atthewelles · 20/02/2013 11:51

I think its perfectly clear from my OP that I wasn't talking about people in specific cultures where there are rituals around the engagement process.
Why do some posters always do this kind of thing ,

Anyway, in my view, (and if you are not part of a religion or culture where you have to get engagement rings blessed etc) once you have agreed to get married and are about to plan your wedding you are engaged, whether or not you have a ring and if you have no plans to get married or organise a wedding you are not engaged even if you have a couple of grands worth of diamond flashing away on your left hand.

OP posts:

YouOldSlag · 20/02/2013 11:56

TBH Op I don't think anyone will alter their stance because of someone else's pedantry. When people say they are getting engaged I always think "that's when she gets the ring", and I wish them well. I don't sit there and nitpick in my head about technicalities.

I find this thread a bit mean and bad natured. People are happy. Let them be happy.

It is not harming anyone.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 20/02/2013 11:56

Alright, calm down. It wasn't obvious to me, but fair enough.

All I was doing was illustrating that you're wrong about how engagements work in some cultures/religions, and you're being a bit daft to assume everyone else will agree with you.

I don't fancy the whole 'ooh, I'm getting engaged next summer and we'll spend the next six years talking about a wedding in a castle before splitting up', but if other people do I don't quite get why it matters. And I am quite a judgy person.

Original poster

atthewelles · 20/02/2013 12:07

Where did I 'assume everyone else will agree with me'? And where did I mention how engagements work in some cultures and religitons. You seem to be reading things into my post that aren't there at all and going off on a complete tangetn. Fair enough, but don't then try to twist things around to suit your argument.

YouOldSlag The majority of people on this thread have agreed that they don't 'get' couples announcing their intention to get engaged as they see the engagement commencing at the time the two people agree to get married. There is nothing mean minded and nasty about that, simply because you don't agree with them. You can argue your point without resorting to name calling, you know.

OP posts:

EllieArroway · 20/02/2013 12:10

LRD To be fair, very, very few people who get engaged in this country & within our culture go through a "getting the rings blessed" formality thing.

I think it was abundantly clear that the OP was not talking about that.

People who rabbit on about "going to get engaged" are usually showing off and milking their moment in the spotlight, which is what so many weddings seem to be about these days.

It is, as others have said, really childish.

And, yes, YouOldSlag - of course people are entitled to, and yes, it's nice that they are happy (for the 12 months that the marriage lasts) but that doesn't mean that we can't discuss it, surely? Isn't that what a discussion forum is meant to be for?

LRDtheFeministDragon · 20/02/2013 12:14

It just felt as if you thought you were right, atthe. You seem to think there's some completely objective meaning to 'being engaged'. There isn't. Sorry.

ellie - I know. That's not why I mentioned it. I mentioned it because the OP seems to reckon everyone ought to view 'being engaged' the same way. Obviously, they don't. Examples like mine or the other people on this thread only demonstrate the extremes - that some people view engagement in very different ways. But you'd also expect loads of people to disagree more simply with the OP.

I just don't get why she assumes her way is the only right way. It's peculiar.

Flip

1 2 ··· 6 7 8 ··· 13 14

Swipe left for the next trending thread