to think that 'getting engaged' is a means to an end not an end in itself?

[MrsSeanBean]

increasingly, I am noticing that acquainances (mainly via FB) seem to announce, proudly, that they are 'getting engaged', but with no plans for any wedding.

Am I BU, or maybe old fashioned, to think this is a very illogical thing to do if you have no plans to marry?

I also think 'long engagements' are odd - ie, "yeah... we're getting married.... in 2012" - ?!
Surely, an engagement is just the period between acceptance of a proposal and the arrangement of a wedding, which takes 6 months maximum.

Congratulations, SoWhat!

We decided to marry, and the next day we went to the Registry to see when we could get a date (DH has always worked shifts so we needed a date/time when he was off because funds were scarce at the time).

We only waited a bit after the mandatory 14-day wait period in Scotland to get his day off.

We married at Leith Registry House where his own birth had been registered a fortnight and 3 days later.

We saw two suits sitting on a bench and approached them to be our witnesses.

After checking it out with their boss and promising to send photographic proof - including a photograph of our marriage certificate! - they were game.

We treated them to a nice meal at Zizzi in the Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre afterwards. Free champers for the table! It was their first wedding.

I don't think they made it back to work in the Executive, but we heard from them once more later they didn't suffer any negative consequence - came back with tons of photos and the proof of the license, and I sent their boss a nice written thank you and a voucher from Boots .

So it was all good!

YANBU. But even more ludicrous is the Promissory Ring. I knew a couple at uni who had bought 'Promissory Rings' for each other. Had no idea what this meant until they explained that they represented a commitment to getting engaged!!!! Two steps away from bloody getting married! How 'commited" can that really be? Made me gag...

well DP and I have been together for 13 years and engaged for about 8!

Life has just sort of got in the way of the hearts and flowersstuff,one house ,two kids,dps long illness and dd sn stuff sort of put paid to wedding bells.

We will do it one day though,hopefully

Dh and I always 'planned' to get engaged on my 21st birthday, but at least we did get married 18 mths laetr and that was nearly 19 years ago

I remember that at the party that MIL threw for us his cousins had also miraculously 'got enagaged' to their then dps. None of them are still with those dps Even then it was deemed by some as the next step in the relationship not the means to an end.

We did the 'proper wedding' for our parents really - for us the only improtant thing was that we made vows to each other in church, but looking back I am glad we did, I think weddings can become real family affairs and it is important to take other people's views / wishes into account if you can.

We never got 'engaged' in the accepted sense. I was at school when we met. After a year, he bought me a friendship ring and as far as we were concerned, we were engaged. Mind you, we did not marry for several years as we needed to save for a house and the wedding, and, as I say, I was very young. Got married at 21, been maried over 25 years and love each other as much now as we did then. Yes, we did do the white church wedding, but nothing like as OTT as some appear to be nowadays. The wedding was great and we have some lovely memories, but the marriage is better!

I do wonder why some people bother to get engaged when they clearly have no intention of actually marrying. But then I gues I am an old fashioned girl when it comes down to it!

Just let me think DP and I have been engaged for 10 years he asked me at a friends wedding (think he got carried away on the free chmapers and the moment and asked me when we got back to the hotel room) anyway we were planning on getting married but as someone else said life has somehow always got in the way.

We really should just nip down the registery office and be done with it, I could never spend the money on a big day and with 3 DC now feel I am beyong the big white wedding thing.

Oh, am so glad I'm not the only grumpy old duffer thinking the world's gone stark raving mad! If you agree to marry someone you are engaged, there's no "planning to get engaged" about it.

Long engagements for a proper reason, like saving up, studying, whatever, are fine (I would say that, dh and I were engaged for seven years). But planning to get engaged or treating engagement as some kind of achievement in its own right is just daft.

YA totally NBU. It is naff.

yes, engaged to be engaged.

ffs.

either shit or get off the pot.

I didn't get engaged. We decided to get married and told everyone we were, and then we gave them a date once we had booked the church.

No, YANBU. it is madness really: one becomes "engaged to be married" - no matter how long it takes, there should be a wedding in some kind of view or you're not really "engaged to be married".
Just being "engaged" is meaningless, literally, figuratively and legally.

Showed this to DP and we're going to get married next summer (will book when we register the new baby in August).

I've been told we're 'going to get reigistered then come back home for a bloody big barbecue and a pissup'. Oh hurrah, he can read my mind!

Will be nice to have all the DC there, and god willing it'll be warm!

god you lot are grumpy. does it really matter how and what other people do to get engaged or married.

Do you know, I sometimes wish that I had waited until having DD before getting married, because even though we didn't spend that much, if we did it now we wouldn't make a big deal out of it and wouldn't spend anything and would be about 4k better off! (Though we would have had a nice honeymoon). When my friends talk about weddings now I just switch off as I just cannot get excited about all the pointless things like wedding favours and table names and colour schemes.

What I find weird is couples who have children together but are too commitment phobic to get married .

Lol DH and I were engaged for 4 years. we got engaged after being together for 3 months. I was 17. I was far to young to get married be we wanted to be more committed to each other as we'd just moved in together. We never really thought about setting a date.

4 years later I was 21 and kind of sick of waiting around for him decide. So I gave him aan ulimatum marry me or split up. It worked we got married within 2 months. Was a very small wedding. We've been married for 10 years now.

You're right theres no point in getting engaged if you have no plans to set a date in the near future.

sorry that was "an ultimatium"

Not getting married is not necessarily a sign of commitment phobia, bumperslucious. I know several couples who just think it's a meaningless ceremony, because they know they're committed anyway and don't feel they need to take any vows in public about it.

Or because they have survived abusive marriages and have traumatic memories about it.

Of myself and my 3 siblings, the two who got married were the two (myself and youngest db) who had foreign partners, so it was necessary for the visas. Not sure if it showed a higher degree of commitment- except insofar as you probably are fairly committed if you're going to leave your own country and travel to an unknown place for the love of somebody.

Bumperlicious why is it wierd if couples with kids don't want to get married?

Dp and I don't want to get married but have to to protect us all if one of us dies,we'll miss out on benefits etc. We're not particularly religious and think a piece of paper saying you're committed is pointless. We're going to regard the ceremony as a celebration of our years together but would much rather that we didn't have to do it at all.

We've been together 20 years supported each other as students at different times,survived 7 years of IVF,redundancy,re-locations,2 scary pregnancies and having 3 dc under 18 months oh and grown up together. I think that means far more than a piece of paper that is often torn up less than 5 years on.

Not getting at you but it gets my goat when people look down on unwed couples with kids especially as half the time they haven't been in a relationship as long as I have

So some parents have a marriage certificate, big deal,it doesn't actually guarantee anything. We started our long IVF journey when we'd been together a long time(longer than many couples are married), enough to know that we were in it for the long haul. We didn't need a piece of paper telling everybody that to somehow make us more committed

Amongst the young, the whole "we're engaged" thang is, I think, often used as a, "see, you have to accept/respect/let me shag at home my (vile) boyfriend now..."

I have two younger cousins who have done this. Neither engagement lasted very long; it just meant that their blokes suddenly "had" to be invited to family parties and be seen as more than spotty adolescent oiks.

Milamae, sorry to piss you off! And I'm certainly not looking down on you. You are obviously in a very committed relationship, but what I meant is the people who willingly have kids but don't get married because they are scared of the committment or because they are not sure if they will stay together. I think having children with someone is the ultimate committment and find it odd when people see getting married as more of a committment than children. If you get married you can get divorced and not see each other again. If you have children you are forever going to be entwined in your partner's life through your children. Do you see what I meant?

We got married at a beautiful manor hotel and had a fab day with all our friends and family. It was one big party with our wedding at the beginning. Some say it was the best wedding they'd been to; very relaxed with a great atmosphere. We gotvengaged the year prior and then decided on a Christmas wedding. It was planned in 8 weeks by myself without a wedding planner so it can be done if you're sure of what you want!! Wink

similar here colliewobbles, except we didn't really get engaged - we just decided to get married, and 7 weeks later, we were. No engagement announcement/ring/party.
Mind you, I was pg with DS and DH is Australian so that contributed to the decision.

No offense taken Bumperlicious

However a lot of married parents who are still together for the sake of the kids shouldn't be. Also a lot of couples get married just to have kids then split up in exactly the same way that they would have done if not married. The only difference being they've payed huge amounts on a wedding and divorce lawyers.

Having kids it's such an amazing thing nobody wants to miss out on it. Society today is different than it was. Society doesn't dictate that couples stay together for years in an unhappy relationship so there will be more couples raising kids separately.

It's an interesting point though, I'm just peeved I've got to do the whole thing in order to get the same benefits as a widow that married women get.

My dd 4 has been nagging us to do it and to my horror recently divulged what she's expecting-me in a ballgown,dp and I riding off on a unicorn!!!!!!! We've got some serious letting down gently to do. Dsis's wedding this year should get the ball rolling,will be a v laid back affair think she's going to feel very hard done by the both of us!!!!!

Must admit that I'm one of these people who have been "engaged" for nearly 10 years and still no wedding in sight. My FB status does not say I'm engaged though if that makes any diffrence lol. Over the years we've thought yeah lets do it but we've never really got round to it. I also have an eternity ring we just missed out the middle bit. Who knows once I get the house sorted and DS's open heart surgery out the way we might do it, might not ... It doesn't really bother me one way or the other, we love each other and stay together because we want to, we don't need a certificate to say that. Plus I look stupid in a dress

I agree with the OP, but I confess that I had a long engagement. We were at uni together (met at school) and University rules meant that we weren't allowed to get married while we were students but we were tired of calling each other 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend'. DH proposed and we were engaged for 3 years since DH did a 4 year course (although the wedding date was set very quickly). I didn't want a long engagement but that's what the circumstances demanded.

Btw, I'm not trying to say that people who aren't engaged or married aren't committed to each other. In our situation we just felt that we wanted some sign of commitment since we were getting tired of people (mostly PIL) thinking that it was just a teenage fling when it wasn't.