Curious about proposal length

[CurlySue]

10 months. We got engaged in December, wanted a fall wedding, and didn''t want to wait more than a year to get married.

Why we didn''t want to be engaged more than a year? We are both the kind of people that love checking to-dos off our lists, so we knew we wouldn''t need a long time to plan things. Plus, we''re both in our mid-30s, so the sooner we can get hitched, the happier we''ll be. We''ve waited long enough!

 

[RaiKai]

About ten weeks.

Reasons were we were were that it was quite spontaneous, and we were ready to get married as soon as we were engaged which is for us why we got engaged after all, we were not worried about the time of year it happened, DH had the time to take on most of the planning at that time, we did not want a massive wedding, instead wanted something rather small, intimate and somewhat spontaneous, and it all just worked out wonderfully (i.e. we got the resort/venue we wanted for the entire long weekend at wonderful prices, etc). The weekend we picked also worked well for us as it was during the holidays so I could get away from work for a couple extra days, and DH also had a break, and most of our guests had no problem making it happen at that time of year (it was a destination wedding on West Coast of Canada).

And that was even more than enough time than we needed. We would have done it in 6-8 weeks if not for fact there would have been some problems for some of our already very small guest list to attend. I cannot imagine planning for 6, 12 or more months to be honest, never mind years! It only took us a couple weeks to actually "plan" it all and then we were already thinking we had a long time to wait

The short time frame was not at all stressful for us; and we would not change a thing about the wedding itself - even if we had had months to plan it!

 

[Amzizzle]

Ours is about 13 months long.I''m at the 7 month mark and all my vendors are booked except for hair and makeup.I don''t feel like I''m under a time crunch,and I also seem to be able to get anyone I want which is good too.

 

[lilyfoot]

It will be 10 months, when we get married in October (FI proposed Christmas of 2009).

We didn''t want to wait until next year to get married, and he isn''t allowed to take time off his job in November or December, so October is the latest we could do it this year. October is also FI''s birthday month/"favorite" month, and I liked the idea of the autumn-type weather.

We could get married sooner, but there are some personal things going on through the summer, plus we need time to just enjoy being engaged!

 

[marlie]

when we get married, we will have been engaged for just shy of 14 months. That''s one month for every year we''ve been together!

Obviously we didn''t plan it around that, just something we noticed! It''s a good amount of time, if not slightly too long. I think 10 months to a year is a good amount of time to get it done without rushing.

 

[zoebartlett]

Let''s see, we got engaged in mid-May of ''07 and our wedding was in mid-July of ''08. So our engagement was 14 months. It was actually a good length for us. I would have loved to have a fall wedding but with my job (teacher), it wasn''t easily doable. We decided to get married in July -- enough time for my school year to end and take care of the last minute things before the wedding.

 

[zoebartlett]

One reason I liked having a 14 month engagement was that there was plenty of time to plan without having every weekend devoted to something wedding-related.

 

[gls]

Ours will be a 2year 1week engagement (being that we dont change the date at this stage).
We are both quite young (23 & 24) and wont finish our studies until June of this year. FI is working full time in the meantime but I have been a professional student for the past 6 years

.

For us we were in no rush to marry and it is also a great way to research everything in our own time and put in the attention to detail that I crave, oh and the small fact of saving money

.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for all of the replies! I love hearing all of the individual responses and reasons. I thought (briefly) about the whole two weddings thing because for several reasons I''d really like to marry my FI this summer at a small, intimate gathering, then have a big event in his home town the following year on the date that we''d picked. I think at this point though I just need to slow down and really experience the next 14 months before saying "I do".

 

[wannaBMrsH]

Our engagement was exactly 9 months long. It was perfect for us because we wanted to have a destination wedding and didn''t want to pull kids out of school to be gone for a week.

Since we paid for the wedding and travel for our families, there wasn''t any backlash on the short time schedule. We were engaged in November and had Save the Date cards out by January. Plus, much to my un-engaged dismay, DH had been telling everyone since well before our engagement that we were going away to be married so save money and vacation days!

We had 43 guests total plus the two of us and it was great.

 

[Nov2109]

Ours is 18 months...imo too long!

We got engaged October 2008. My church is a very strict catholic church. We have to start planning with no less than 12 months from the time we contact them, they sometimes make an exception for 11 months. No marriages allowed during lent either!

I didn''t contact them until after the holidays that year, so January 2009. I missed out on a fall wedding, unless I wanted to wait 2 years! No way! We went with June because it seemed like the most stable month (not too cold, not too hot and no hurricanes!)

I would say 10-14 months is probably ideal. I started getting the itch for this to all be over and get married already last month, which put me at 15 months.

 

[DearBuddha]

14 months. I''m a teacher and wanted to wait for my summer vacation, and his best friend became engaged in the same month we did, so we knew the weddings would be back to back. Because they were in each others weddings, we decided to space them several weeks apart.

 

[kittybean]

Ours was 12 months, 6 days. Having a year was nice, but toward the end, I was getting really antsy and just wanted to be married! I think 7 months would''ve been my perfect engagement length if I''d been able to guarantee I''d get the awesome vendors we had with shorter notice. I think my husband knew I wanted a summer wedding, and he figured a year to plan was about right, so he proposed in June.

 

[Laila619]

Ours was 5 months...we didn''t want to have a long engagement.

 

[gwendolyn]

Our engagement lasted 12 months and two weeks. If I didn''t have immigration to contend with, it probably would''ve been longer so we could have a fall wedding, but meh.

 

[kiett98]

Ours will be 4 weeks... with 19 days left until the big day!

He got a new job and we wanted to be married and move to the new city before he starts his job.

 

[lucyandroger]

Ours will be 14 months (which seems to be a pretty common answer!). Everybody keeps saying that it''ll fly by.