r/wedding • u/RecognitionTimely560 • 22h ago
Discussion Engagement Party
My fiancé proposed over the weekend in VA. We are over the moon excited and want to celebrate with our friends, but we are saving for the wedding itself and don’t know how long that process will take. We’re expecting probably 4 years before the wedding, to give ourselves ample time to save up money and fully plan a wedding. Additionally, we live in FL but think it’s highly likely we’ll get married in VA, and that’s over 15 hours away by car. Since the wedding is so far away, both time and location wise, I want to be able to celebrate with our friends now.
Would it be weird to have our own engagement party now, when we really don’t know much about how the actual wedding will look and when it might actually happen? What are the rules and etiquette for this kind of situation?
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u/ste1071d 21h ago
There’s no way you’ll know who you’re inviting to the wedding four years ahead of time so it could result in a lot of hurt feelings for those who don’t make the guest list cut & lots of questions about what’s going on.
Four years is also a really crazy timeline - it gives the wedding is more important than the marriage energy & it also correlates to a higher divorce rate.
Plan the wedding you can truly afford within 1-2 years.
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u/Ok-Indication-7876 21h ago
THIS- 4 years away for a wedding? you might not be friends with some at engagement party. I would save the money for the engagement party to make the wedding sooner
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u/DaBingeGirl 21h ago
This. My eyes bugged out at 4 years. A friend spent 2 years planning and that seemed excessive.
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u/_momma_NAJ871622 19h ago
I disagree here. Sometimes, people just know what they want and it has nothing to do with the *energy " it's giving
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u/ste1071d 18h ago
Statistics are clear on this issue.
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u/_momma_NAJ871622 12h ago
Lmao and where are these "statistics" you are referring to?
You say statistics, but I think you mean "society" and I really DGAF what society thinks. We booked our wedding 26 months out and we'll be together 10 years by the time we're married, so you're saying that my marriage will end in divorce?
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u/Ok-Programmer-2100 20h ago
You're going to just end up spending even more if you wait 4 years. Majority of vendors raise their prices yearly.
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u/superfastmomma 20h ago edited 19h ago
Have a super casual party, soon, and then announce your engagement at the party. Don't call it an engagement party. You don't want to lock yourself into inviting these people to a wedding.
Frankly no one will be excited for a wedding taking place in four years.
You have no idea what your wedding will be. Four years is an eternity. You might give up on saving money. You might find it that you can only afford a small guest list. Your families could move from Virginia. Don't be so certain you know who you would invite.
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u/BaileyAMR 20h ago
I was thinking they could make an arrangement with a local bar, like a $2000 tab, and just send out a casual invite: come today our engagement! First drink's on us!
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u/Odd_Obligation_1300 20h ago
Would it be weird? Yes. A little. You won’t be close with some of these friends in 4 years. Some won’t even remember that they went to your engagement party.
But weird doesn’t make it wrong.
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u/mm_honey 21h ago
lots of engagement parties happen the day or week of the engagement so I doubt the couples really know anything about their own wedding or have anything decided. I would say don't wait too long to have the party. If it's months after the engagement, it feels less relevant (just my opinion)
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u/RecognitionTimely560 21h ago
I’ve had that thought as well. I read somewhere that a good guideline is within 3 months of the engagement if your wedding is at least 2 years away. We also haven’t announced it to anyone beyond family and our closest circle yet. I wanted to wait until we had some engagement photos taken. And we should be doing those within the next month or so
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u/mm_honey 21h ago
I see. We're also coming up on holiday season so you may be better off either planning for like in the next few weeks, or waiting until mid-Jan
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u/RecognitionTimely560 21h ago
I was thinking January. Give everything a chance to calm down holiday party wise.
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u/DaBingeGirl 19h ago
Just go out to a bar or nice restaurant to celebrate. You're turning this into a much more elaborate and expensive thing than it is.
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u/yamfries2024 20h ago
The only pertinent rule you need to know about is that everyone invited to the engagement party needs to be invited to the wedding.
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u/_momma_NAJ871622 19h ago
Why is that a rule? I never even knew engagement parties were a big thing. I went to one like twenty years ago and they were the only ones who I heard of ever having one (and she called off the wedding)
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u/yamfries2024 19h ago edited 19h ago
For the same reason that anyone invited to any pre-wedding event, especially gift giving events like showers, should be invited to the wedding. Why would you invite someone to celebrate your relationship, then tell them they don't make the cut for the wedding guest list?
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u/_momma_NAJ871622 19h ago
Just because there is an engagement does not mean there will be a wedding. Couples elope.
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u/RecognitionTimely560 20h ago
Anyone we would invite to the engagement party would be invited to the wedding, I just don’t know that all of them would be able to make it to the wedding, which is part of why I’d been thinking of doing the engagement party, so that I’d get to celebrate with people who might not be able to travel for the wedding itself.
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u/superfastmomma 20h ago
It's four years out. That's a long time. You might not be friends with these folks anymore.
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u/Puzzled-Safe4801 9h ago
In four years, you won’t even be in contact with a bunch of these friends.
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u/Warm-Pen-2275 20h ago
You’re free to throw a party anytime you like but the only “etiquette” I can think of is that you want to keep the list of invitees kind of light, because you’ll have to invite them all to the wedding. Otherwise it feels like a gift grab.
I suggest even if you want to wait to have the wedding, start to work out your guest list now and figure out your numbers. You’ll see that it adds up fast and maybe you have 8 cousins who have to all get invited and you have to sacrifice some casual friends to stay under x number. You don’t want to over include those casual friends in your wedding planning process to blindside them with no invite. Stuff like that.
It’s all fun and games and happy casual when you’re freshly engaged but once families and bridal parties and exclusive guest lists enter the picture it will get complicated.
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u/chattygirl1969 19h ago
The point of being engaged to marry is to marry! Four years is way too long! 1-2 years max!
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u/Mrs-Ciz 21h ago edited 6h ago
Where in Virginia might you have the engagement party?
We live in Richmond and had our daughter’s engagement party at Main Line Brewery for 65 people. They didn’t charge a room fee and let us bring in our own food (Chipotle burritos, Chipotle chips & dips bar, cupcakes, water) and decor. We paid the bar bill (beer, wine, seltzer) for our guests. I can give you more details if you’d like.
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u/RecognitionTimely560 20h ago
The wedding would be in VA, the engagement party would be down here in FL.
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u/EmceeSuzy 20h ago
Do you expect people to travel to the engagement party? I ask because if you do, you need to entertain them lavishly which would not support your goal of saving for a wedding.
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u/RecognitionTimely560 20h ago
No, the engagement party would be down here in FL, where we live, with our close friends and found family. It would likely be a dinner/casual party situation. We have a couple friends who are about 4 hours away that we would invite for the whole weekend, but we would happily have them over for the weekend any time.
My mom might travel from NC, if she wants to, but we got to spend the weekend of the engagement with both sets of parents, so they got to experience all the initial joy with us.
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u/natalkalot 19h ago
OK, too odd.
The engagement period is the period of time it takes to plan a wedding, average a year.
Four years engaged is a big nope. 🌸 Just enjoy dating.
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u/courtneywrites85 21h ago
Why VA?
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u/RecognitionTimely560 20h ago
Because he’s from VA really close to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and his family still lives there. My mom and stepdad are about 5 hours away in NC, and we really love the area in the fall and want that kind of setting for our wedding. There’s just not anywhere in SWFL that really matches that vibe.
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u/_momma_NAJ871622 19h ago
I can't believe these comments! Enjoy your engagement party. Invite who you want to invite. Enjoy your wedding planning. We got engaged on new years and are getting married in April 2028 so we can cash flow as much as possible. We've been together 8 years already. People get so caught up in timelines that they forget what this is really about- being with the love of your life.
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u/superfastmomma 6h ago
But this is the exact opposite of this being about being with the love of your life. If that's the case, OP would get married a lot sooner. This is about a one day wedding.
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u/Beginning_Curve2268 21h ago
Congrats on the engagement. A 4 year timeline is long but makes sense when you are saving up and planning from distance. I think having a party now is fine, people will be happy to celebrate with you even if wedding is far away. Just keep it casual, maybe a backyard gathering or something, not too formal. Most friends wont care about exact rules, they just want to share the moment.
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u/HedgieCake372 21h ago
As someone from FL getting married in NC next week, I want to say it is very doable to plan a wedding in VA and I have full faith in you! Go ahead and throw an engagement party now while it’s fresh. You can send out save the dates in a few years when you start planning.
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