Acceptable incubation time for a wedding date?

[ride_ski]

So I was thinking of taking a poll. What does everyone think is an acceptable time between an engagement and a wedding date being chosen? Just curious how long that should take. No particular reason as I'm already married. It's just something I had been thinking about recently. Anyone had experience with people who seemed to drag it out???

 

[Native Vail Gal]

Well, as a newlywed (in fact 100 days as of today!), I would say it depends on when you get engaged and married! We wanted a Winter Wedding and were engaged on Christmas....so we decided to wait just under a year.

Just curious...why do you ask?

 

[ski diva]

Yeah, this is something I can't figure out either. I mean, if you're engaged, why not just get married and get it over with??? Especially if you're already living together. I mean, why not? Is there one young Diva in particular who'd care to comment???? Hmmmmm?

 

[num]

I'd figure it'd be skewed a lot by life stage. You know, the couple who met in college and dated the first three years, got engaged and decided to get married after grad school, or some similar story. Long engagements make perfect sense to me when a couple knows they want to commit to each other but want marriage to come at a later stage in their personal development.

 

[Native Vail Gal]

Is there one young Diva in particular who'd care to comment???? Hmmmmm?

Ummmm....I'm not the young Diva she's referring to....in case you were wondering! :ROTF:


Actually....we weren't living together and had 2 homes fully furnished (still do)......so timing was weird....we had some other life planning and other things to put in place....plus....we wanted a "destination" Vail wedding and we wanted to pay for it ourselves....so we had to save a bit.....actually... A LOT!

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Me either. I had a really long engagement. 3.5 months. I think the in-laws were wagering bets as to when the baby would arrive. (They all lost, it was 6.5 years later.) They also lost the bet about how long it wouldn't last. MIL conceded we were okay at year #15. ("Okay, I was wrong...") We're way past 15 now!

 

[ride_ski]

I understand that there could be factors that could delay things- like finishing school, getting a job, etc. But I would think that you could at least have a "rough idea" when you'd be looking to have a wedding...Not saying that the wedding would have to be all planned by the time you have your first anniversary of your engagement.....

 

[SnoBunny]

hey, I agree: what's wrong with a good old-fashioned elopement?

 

[ski diva]

Bite your tongue, SnoBunny!

 

[num]

Drama for your mama!

 

[SnoBunny]

Bite your tongue, SnoBunny!

sorry! I couldn't resist!

to ride_ski, I think you should choose an actual wedding date as soon after the engagement as possible. really, there's no reason to just postpone and postpone forever, right?

 

[ski diva]

Good girl, SnoBunny.

(In the interest of full disclosure, SnoBunny is my daughter!!!)

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Good girl, SnoBunny.

(In the interest of full disclosure, SnoBunny is my daughter!!!)

AHA!

 

[altagirl]

I guess technically at some point my husband and I were "engaged", but it was more of a discussion for a month or so of what we were going to do when I finally got to move up to Utah and after listening to my parents complain about how they didn't want to travel anywhere where there might be SNOW for a wedding (my parents who live in MICHIGAN), we never got formally engaged - just went and got married at the courthouse and said :p "no wedding for you!" to the complainers.

 

[veggielasagna]

So I was thinking of taking a poll. What does everyone think is an acceptable time between an engagement and a wedding date being chosen? Just curious how long that should take. No particular reason as I'm already married. It's just something I had been thinking about recently. Anyone had experience with people who seemed to drag it out???

Hmmm how recently were you pondering this thought?
Lets see...my take on it. Hmm yah, I have no idea.:ROTF:

-veggielasagna

 

[sibhusky]

Assuming you're not living together already, a year or two. If you're already living together for 10 years, then why wait at all?

 

[pinto]

Mine was 4 months. Maybe 4.5.

I spent my early 20s watching friends with long engagements spend the entire time planning and fretting about their wedding ... so for me, the shorter the better.

 

[Pequenita]

Anyone had experience with people who seemed to drag it out???

Sort of. I've a non-immediate family member who's got Romeo & Juliet-like family issues, so I think he and his fiance -- both in their mid to late 30s -- have been engaged for years (like, the domain name for the wedding website was registered in early 2005), except no one on my side of the family has known. So, we (incl. his parents) found out about the wedding 10 days ago. Wedding is Friday. I intend to schmooze with the groom's friends to figure out the scoop.

 

[ride_ski]

Sort of. I've a non-immediate family member who's got Romeo & Juliet-like family issues, so I think he and his fiance -- both in their mid to late 30s -- have been engaged for years (like, the domain name for the wedding website was registered in early 2005), except no one on my side of the family has known. So, we (incl. his parents) found out about the wedding 10 days ago. Wedding is Friday. I intend to schmooze with the groom's friends to figure out the scoop.

OK, so this one sounds interesting......

So my story is- got engaged a few weeks before Christmas, picked a venue in Feb (so picked a date then too), got married the beginning of September.

 

[Kimmyt]

Well, gee, I guess I didn't realize engagement time had to be acceptable to anyone but the two people involved. :p

It'll be nigh on 2.5 years by the time we actually get married; we got engaged on April 12, 2007 and won't be getting married until Oct. 10, 2009 (we just picked the date like, two weeks ago).

Honestly, I'm in no rush. I don't want to plan a wedding, despite the fact that most people think that just cause someone has a set of breasts they have to be good at or enjoy wedding planning. Add that to the fact that I've got about 3 really close friends that are getting married in 2008, 2 of whom asked me to be in their bridal party and the third who lives across the country, and that means that I'm all wedding'd out. Not to mention financially strained.

Honestly, a wedding to me is not a hugely important deal. I think that a strong commitment and living together is just as huge a deal if the people involved make the deep commitment. So, why get it over with quickly? With a 2+ year engagement, not every minute of our time is spent on weddings. We talk about it maybe once a month, spend a weekend doing active wedding stuff maybe once every 2 months. We can still focus our energies on skiing and climbing and our various sports without feeling like we can't do anything fun on the weekends because we have to look at flowers or interview caterers or whatever.



K.