How long is a “long engagement”?

[NewGardenProject]

Just that really,

Future FIL made a comment the other day about us having a long engagement and it annoyed me a little bit.

Our wedding is booked so it’s not like we are one of those couples who will be engaged for ages and ages with no wedding in sight.

It will be just under 22 months from proposal to wedding which I’ll admit is longer than I wanted but it’s all we could get between the venue we want and other stuff going on. I still feel it’s a reasonably normal timeframe though.

When does an engagement become “long” to you?

We got engaged March 2020, our wedding is September 2023 😂🙈

I’d say over a year and a bit. So, where you could be doing it this year, but it’s next year.

My friends have been engaged for 30+ years

Anything over a year is "long". We were engaged for 8 months, which felt a bit too long itself as I was a bit weary of making arrangements etc by the finish. Although it was a very long time ago!

Under two years is pretty average . I had an 11 month engagement and was told that was short . Anything after two years I would consider a long engagement but then again it really depends on circumstances.

We were engaged for 3 years but DH was working abroad at the time we got engaged. So we waited until he had finished his contract and got a job in the UK before we got married. He was back about 6 months before the wedding.

Ours was 6 years!

We got engaged 2016, wanted a long engagement so booked 2020.. thanks to covid we got married in 2021! That was a long time.. our friends were told 15 months was a long time

I think it’s long if it’s much more than a year or if someone else could get engaged after you but married before you. A friend got engaged recently and hasn’t set a specific date yet but doesn’t want to get married until 2024. DP and I aren’t engaged (in that there’s no ring and no one has got down on one knee) but we are in agreement that we want to marry each other once a specific life event has happened next year. So it’s plausible we could get married first despite not being engaged yet. Which feels rude somehow to my friend!

My first thought was anything over around 18 months.

Mine was 5 years, I proposed when I was 19, finished my studies, needed a job, learn to drive and get a job. Got married soon after my ticklist was done.

I'd say anything over 18 months or so. What on earth is the point of saying you are engaged if you don't plan the wedding? I got engaged in September and married that December, we had been together for four years so why hang about any longer? And no, I wasn't pregnant.

28 years for us, my mum told me not to rush into anything....

I think times have changed. Weddings are bigger and take longer to plan and pay for.
That's why engagements are longer.
Not uncommon to have a 2 year engagement now. Perhaps when FIL was young it was usually a few months.
A long engagement is 3 years plus I'd say.

I think times have changed. Weddings are bigger and take longer to plan and pay for.

changed since when ?
The weddings my dc and nieces and nephews go to at the moment aren't bigger than the weddings my friend and I went to in the 80s and 90s. Well, except the Indian weddings, but that is cultural not chronological. As a whole, I'd say, overall they are a bit smaller if anything.

@Cheeselog I know what you mean. I got engaged almost 2 years after a cousin of mine, but she & her DP had done practically no planning in that period. As I wrote before, we had booked a date within a couple of months of getting engaged, but the date was over a year away. However, it was like our having a date spurred her into action, realising I could be married before her! 😂She got married a few months before us in the end.