Engagement Party

[Cleopatra]

I have a question. My wedding isn't until August of 2008 - My fiancé's mother and godmother along with my MOH want to throw us an engagement party. When would be the right time for that? I think it's too early for an engagement party....Any suggestions?

 

[Dandi]

We had our engagement party about 7 weeks after we were engaged, we may have even had it sooner had we been able to book the venue earlier. After all, it''s a celebration of your engagement, not the wedding itself

Here in Australia we don''t typically do bridal showers so the engagement celebration is the first major thing on the pre-wedding calender!

 

[Pandora II]

We got engaged 24/12/06, had engagement party on 14/2/07 and wedding is 26/07/08.

We threw it ourselves and just invited all our friends rather than family (all OOT)

We reckoned having it so far in advance we could invite anyone we liked rather than feeling we could only invite people who would be invited to the wedding.

 

[havernell]

There seems to not be a lot of hard and fast rules about engagement parties since (I get the sense) it is a newer concept/ being done more these days than in the past in the US. So, really, the party can be anytime you all want, I suppose.

However, I agree with Andi that it makes the most sense to celebrate the engagement close to the time the engagement happened. It would be kind of weird to celebrate an event that happened a year ago, you know? Most parties directly follow the event they are celebrating (i.e. baptism parties are on the same day as the babptism, b-day parties fall on the date the person was born, etc...) Of course, it's (usually) impossibe to have an engagement party the same day as you get engaged, but having one shortly thereafter makes the most sense, at least to me. Personally, we got engaged in mid-March and my FILs threw and engagement party for us in early May.

Is there some other good logic you are following as to why it's "too early" to have the party now that we may be missing?

Good luck with it!

 

[blushingbride]

I got engaged on August 29, 2006 and the party was November 4, 2006 (getting married August 25, 2007 - yikes just 16 days to go! ).

We actually had a brunch with my family and my FI''s family during the day and then we did a double whammy - Engagement/Housewarming party that evening since we had recently moved into our new condo.

We invited about 45 people to the evening party who were just siblings, younger cousins and our friends. We had it catered and made sure the bar was fully stocked! Since our building also has a lounge, we brought the guys out to the terrace for cigars and some people were able to play pool and hangout. It was definitely a great time!

Oh the other thing is that we made sure that we were registered because even though our invitations did not mention our registries or gifts, people still brought a gift. Most people found out where we were registered through word of mouth and it was a nice way to get the things we needed.

Everything worked out really well!

 

[Cleopatra]

Thanks for the help! I was just thinking that because our wedding is a year away, that it was too early to throw any parties relating to our wedding....Just something that I was contemplating.

Most of my friends had much shorter engagement periods than I do. For example, one of my girlfriends getting married this October JUST had her engagement party this past July. That was my reasoning for questioning how soon is too soon.

But I think we''ve settled on having an engagement party a few weeks after my girlfriend is married in October. That way, we don''t steal her thunder! ha!

 

[Tacori E-ring]

We had out engagement party a year before our wedding (we were engaged for 2 months at the time). I didn''t think it was too early. My parents threw it and DH only visits them once or twice a year so we had to be flexible.

 

[Krissie]

We just got engaged; our wedding isn''t until October 2008; and we''re having an engagement party mid-September (about 6 weeks after the engagement). We''re just throwing ourselves a casual brunch, though - so it''s not a formal party. Friends of ours did something similar and it worked out really well.

I say go ahead and have the engagement party sooner rather than later!!

 

[Class n Sass]

One of my close friends got engaged in March and her engagement party is in a month from now.