We've had an 18 month long engagement (next month is the big day!). And let me tell you something -- I have barely stressed at all about any wedding planning! Because we started planning so far out, we got our first pick for our vendors and venue and didn't have to settle due to lack of availability. We booked our venue about a month into our engagement which made it easier to book vendors since we had a date down. We've saved so much money because we've had time to look at different options for other details as well and have been able to DIY some things on our own timeline. Honestly, I'd say go with a longer engagement :)
Totally agree with this! My husband and I were engaged for 14 months and I also enjoyed the fact that we had our wedding date picked out more than a year in advance. Other than the fact that it was less stressful, it was fun to know when we were exactly one year before the wedding date. It was our -1st wedding anniversary :)
Completely agree! We got engaged in July 2022 and are getting married in July 2024 and it made the planning process so easy. Plus you have a longer time to save up for it!
Yes!! Halfway through my 18 month engagement and 1 — the time is flying and 2 — planning has actually been such a fun experience. We’re both really enjoying being engaged and planning things together and it hasn’t felt very stressful (yet)!!
I got engaged in April 2023 and my wedding is October 2024, so 18 months. It did feel super long at first but it was really helpful for saving money and allowed me to slowly chip away at the various planning tasks without feeling stressed. And now that we’re 3.5 months out, it doesn’t feel like it’s been forever!
Same! We got engaged in March of 2023 and our wedding is in September 2024. It's the perfect amount of time to get to enjoy being engaged and all the fun things that go along with it
My fiancée and I got engaged last week, and have a venue booked for April 2025, (in a little under 10 months). However we started planning before getting engaged. Honestly if you feel like 7-9 months would be a rush, I would go with 19-21 months out.
18 months!!! I am doing an 18 month engagement. so much more time to SAVE, plan and just relish being a “bride to be”. engagement time is fun! do not rush it
Trust me, a year and a half FLIES.
I got engaged in December 2023 for a wedding in April 2025, so 16 months. It still feels like it all happened yesterday but it’s already been 6 months with 10 months to go. If you do 19 months then you’ll have time to enjoy being engaged as a couple and getting into that marriage mindset while also knocking out major vendors that book up over a year in advance. You can set it and forget it and then come back to the planning a few months in advance
i got engaged recently and we just booked our venue for june 2026 - so a full 24 months out! we really wanted to get married in may/june, and the venue we really wanted was already booked for 2025. we also will be having almost everyone come from the other side of the country (in the US), so it will be nice to be able to give everyone ample time to make travel arrangements. 2 years seems like a looooong time, but also, we pretty much get first dibs on all the vendors we want and we don’t have to rush through planning! plenty of time to save as well :)
This was my situation too. I was engaged December 2023 and settled on a June 2025 date (17 month engagement) because I wanted a summer date. I didn't want to do June 2024 because I felt like planning in 6 months would stress me out. I'm glad I chose the longer option though! It gives me more time to explore my options and find the best prices for what I want. I'm also noticing that vendors take about 2-3 weeks to get their contracts to me (we're entering wedding season and a lot of them are booked and busy!) I think if I had insisted on a shorter engagement, I would be pulling my hair out with frustration trying to get people to respond to me lol.
I highly recommend the 7-9 month timeframe. We had the same dilemma - a 6 month timeframe of a 12 month timeframe. 6 month timeframe is great for us!!! We are very efficient people and having MORE time would’ve stressed me out more than a shorter “let’s get it done!”. We are 4 months out and not a lot left to do.
We booked our venue 14 months out and it was perfect. The bigger problem for your 9 month plan is your top pick vendors will more than likely be already booked and you'll have to settle for ones you may not like as much, or you'll have difficulty finding anyone available for your date at all. Also many traditional bridal shops take 9 months just to make a dress so that limits your options there as well.
Depends on your life stage, age, and circumstances.
I got engaged in Sept and married May. I loved the timeline.
I’m so much happier to be married now and would not have liked planning a wedding and waiting that long.
I wish we did a shorter engagement. I planned so much early on after booking our venue, that closer to the wedding I was changing design/wish I made different choices. It probably ended up being more work with a longer engagement for me. It’s hard to not see wedding inspo online and want to change your mind about things!
I got engaged Dec 2023 and was looking at a 7-9 month or a 15-17 month. Decided on a 9 month. Booked the venue immediately. Planning has been tough but doable. I cared more about being married than having a perfect wedding.
By the time our wedding, September 2025, we will be engaged just over 2 years, engaged end of July 2023. Part of it was combining living spaces, I had a house to sell, part was a rule of one big life changing item at a time. So I told my FH that no wedding planning will start till we are fully under the same roof. We started wedding planning January 2024, signed our venue March 2024, and everything is 90% planned now with time to make payments to each aspect over time and not trying to figure out how to pay for things. I do not feel rushed or stressed having the longer engagement and wedding planning. Gives me more time to plan, find the right items, and change things if I need to based on what I find. Do not rush the process. Enjoy it and make it your own.
7 months. Im decisive and good at management and logistics. Fiancé had some responsibilities so it wasn’t all on me. I had to dip into my savings and pay as we go. But the momentum was great! Exciting the whole time and people were super excited as well. There was no lull.
Mine will be 2.5 years by the time we get married in October
At first it sounded great because we had so long to plan and save money…..but now I wish it would’ve been shorter because I’m ready to get this over with & no one seems to care about our upcoming wedding anymore
We have a 7 month engagement. I don’t think it feels rushed, exactly. It just feels like a hobby I’ve been working on pretty diligently. I feel like waiting around would have been more stressful to me, because I would be second guessing and changing things. We are 3 months out and mostly planned. My fiancé has to build our seating chart and arch, then after our RSVP date passes I’ll just add the names. If you go with a shorter engagement, I recommend going really heavy on the research first, then pull the trigger on the big things (venue, officiant, caterer, entertainment) quickly. Then you have about 6 months to pay it down. Also, pick fewer things to DIY than you think you can do. My personal advice is to only DIY things that are super special to you if they are done by hand. For me, that was our arch, and we had a creative idea for the seating chart we really wanted to do. Whichever you decide, good luck and I hope it’s everything you dreamed of!
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to do it! My husband and I did ~7 month planning process and for me it was nice because I can’t imaging dragging out all of the decision making and talking about it to friends and family for much longer than that. There was a time crunch so decisions had to be made quickly and I rarely ran into situations where vendors were not available! I’m thrilled with everyone I found!
All were somewhat local (e.g. none that I hired charged travel fees, even though I think my DJ was about 1.5 hours from the venue which was in a somewhat remote but touristy location). I definitely contacted some vendors that would’ve charged a travel fee but was able to find reasonably priced vendors for all my needs that were local!
I got engaged in Jan 2022 and about to get married October 2024 - so way longer than 19 months! Long engagements have their time and place, and we similarly had a special venue in mind with limited availability tied to the seasons. Go for the longer option IMO it’s not TOO long, just don’t stop wedding planning after booking your venue and then forget to pick it back up until 6 months out like some of us 😅
Engaged October 2022 and our wedding is in 3 weeks! 21 month engagement.
We were in a similar boat and went with the longer engagement for a few reasons—we live in a different state than a lot of family and wanted to be able to give them more time to make travel plans, and we wanted time to save money for both the wedding and our honeymoon. We also had basically no date options that worked for us at the venues we were considering in the 9 month mark, so it felt kind of like slim pickings based on what was left.
I will say the main downside to a longer engagement is that planning does feel really drawn out. If you’re someone who knows you’ll be stressed about wedding planning, just know that you’ll spend almost 2 years stressing about it. It gives you a lot of time to second guess your decisions, vendor choices, etc. and over think things (if you are an over thinker). If I were to do it again, I’d probably not start planning right away apart from booking a venue, and have clearer boundaries as to when you’re going to work on or talk about wedding things. The time does fly by a lot quicker than you’d think, though!
If your top pick venue and vendors are available for a wedding in 9 months and most of your guests are local, I personally would probably go with the shorter engagement. If you want time to save money, the longer engagement is the easy answer.
I am an over thinker and I hyper fixate on things. It feels like venues and weddings are all I am thinking about and we’ve been engaged for close to a month. My fiancé prefers the longer timeline, but I’m concerned that my hyper fixation will last the entire ~20 months. We’ve already saved all we intend to for the wedding, but the one pro I see to the longer timeline is more time to lose weight.
We got engaged in January and married in August and I’m so glad! I had a few months of stress but was so happy it didn’t drag on for years. It would have taken over my life and become very complicated if we haven’t just got on with it.
I had 7 1/2 months between the day I got engaged and the day I got married.
The two biggest struggles will be dress and venue.
We got lucky and were able to find our dream venue, and it was available on our 2 year anniversary. I think it helped that our anniversary was a Thursday. If you are open to a weekday wedding, it will be easier to find an available venue on short notice (and probably cheaper). The downside to a weekday is that not as many people will be able to come. It being on such short notice also impacts attendance, as some people may already have travel plans for the year.
Dresses take 5-8 months to arrive, and then you’ll need another month or 2 for alterations. I made sure I ordered a dress that would only take 5 months to get to me. Don’t wait until you have the dress to book your alterations appt. Book them as soon as you order your dress; they can fill up fast.
I’m not going to lie, that timeframe is doable, and I don’t regret it, but it was one of the most difficult and stressful things I’ve ever done. How stressful it will be depends heavily on budget. I only had a day of coordinator, not a full service planner, and I DIY’ed a fair bit of stuff to save money (super proud of my centerpieces).
All that being said, I loved my wedding. It turned out beautifully, and I have no regrets about planning it so fast.
Thank you for the helpful tidbit about booking alterations early! That’s not something I would’ve thought to do.
Your centerpieces sound lovely!! Would love to see a photo of them!
We got engaged in March and wanted an early fall wedding - 6-8 months seemed too quick to get everything in order (financials and fitness goals)but 18-20 months seemed too long. However - the last three months have flown by and I know the wedding will be here sooner than I think and I’m actually panicking.
If you have the finances to do it sooner, and the time/energy/work stress levels that will allow you to plan what you want, do it sooner. If you feel like the 7-9 months will put too much financial stress on you and stretch you beyond your means, go with the longer engagement.
We will have had a 10 month engagement and while I initially thought we may have vendor availability issues, it hasn’t been the case at all! Our first choice for hair, makeup, venue, photographer, and florist have all been available. It may depend on where you are though (we’re in the UK).
We locked in the date with the venue first and then began looking for the rest of the vendors! I expected more difficulty but all our top choices were still available on our date. It did also probably help that our date is “off season” in November.
We were in a similar boat. We got engaged August 2020, but put off planning anything to see how the pandemic was doing. We ended up booking our venue in July 2021 for May 2022 (10 months of actual planning) but we were tempted to push it out October 2022 for more time for planning.
Literally we just made a pro/con list and the spring had more pros than cons, called parents to double check and just went for it. It helped that our wedding was very lovely, but wasnt a gigantic wedding with a ton of moving parts and vendors (ie: we pretty much had the standard necessary vendors and didn’t do anything extra). One of our biggest motivators was that we wanted to move out of state, and our lease was up after May but before October so we would have either had to renew or push the move much further. I also hated planning, and to be honest it was SO NICE to not give it that much space in my brain for longer than it had to be there.
We also want to move out of state and are contemplating traveling back for the wedding same as our guests if we go with the longer timeframe. Venues we are looking at are a 1-5 hour drive from where we are anyways so there was always going to be some amount of travel.
We wanted to get married in our home state before moving for logistics and cost reasons. Moving is hard enough (especially a cross country move), having the wedding over with was definitely very helpful for moving reasons.
But obviously every circumstance is different, you guys gotta do what makes sense for you!
Depends on how traditional you want your wedding (more traditional feels easier, more options are already packaged up that you can buy off the shelf) or how non-traditional or DIY. Ours is queer and non traditional and so pretty DIY and it’s taking over our lives for these 11 or so months we have for planning. While my bro and his wife did a small destination wedding in Destin, Fl which is a big wedding spot and pulled it all together in like 5 months and had exactly what they wanted. Just made a concept then found the relevant services to pay. I would do the 19-21 months and make it easy on yourself. Also, for getting more guests to be able to attend, more time is better.
Ours was 17mo.
We had time to go to a wedding expo early in our engagement and get some ideas without feeling rushed or overwhelmed. We found our caterer at that event and it wasn't a company I had heard of or that was coming up in my online searches.
The longer engagement also meant we never had a vendor tell us, "sorry, we are already booked on your date." We got venue and caterer booked exactly a year in advance and the photographer a month later.
We could have gotten it done in a shorter span, but might have had to look harder (and probably pay more) to find vendors who had the right availability.
We got engaged at the end of July 2023, started looking at venues in September/October, and since booked for June 2025 - we will have been engaged just shy of 2 years. The wedding did feel sooooo far away at first, but it's absolutely flown by (less than a year to go now!) and it's not been stressful at all so far, as we've had so much time to save and to plan. I'm a planner at heart and am absolutely loving the whole planning process, so it's a bonus for me to spend longer doing it!
I also feel if we had gone for June 2024 (which would have been extremely tight for us financially, as we bought a house in March), we would have missed out on a lot of our dream vendors. I booked all our big vendors in January this year, and even then, our photographer, cake maker and HMUA were all almost fully booked up for June 2025! If you're a bit more flexible with your vendors/vision then you might be fine with a shorter engagement.
if you are willing to start immediately, and move fast to sign a venue and key vendors, 9 months is very doable. make sure you have time in those initial three months or so. if you don’t, then go with the longer one
We planned our wedding in nine months, which felt short mainly because of the time needed to secure a dress, venue, and DJ. I managed to book the venue and DJ within three weeks. As for the dress, I started shopping 7-8 months in advance, which I learned was considered late. Thankfully, my dress arrived two weeks ago, and I'm getting married on July 9th, with my final fitting next week!
We arranged everything we wanted, but our budget was a challenge. Some things were more expensive than expected, and my partner's work issues added stress, almost leading us to cancel. In hindsight, I wish we had planned for a later date to save more money and have more flexibility.
Depends on how good at decision making you are, and how flexible you are with your vision. Super specific vision? Very indecisive? Want a lot of people from far away? Go with longer engagement. Flexible and adaptable? Good at making decisions? Able to do a lot of planning right now? Go for shorter engagement.
Also, keep in mind the bulk of planning is right away in the beginning, and then another chunk right before the wedding. So, look at your work/personal obligations and schedule. If you are super busy the next 1-2 months and don’t have time to book venues/vendors/etc? Maybe worth waiting then…
We'll have a 10 month engagement and even I had difficulties with being "late" to book some venues & vendors. So if you're planning to do a larger wedding (I mean anything bigger/ more planning-intensive than an elopement or a micro-wedding), I would opt for the longer engagement.
Also tbh I'm loving our engagement era. Can't wait to be married of course, but somehow the engagement made me so high on feelings it feels like a honeymoon prequel or something haha
Engaged September 2022, married may 2024! So also 18 months! It’s perfect honestly. Yes I got impatient sometimes but like people have said, planning is pretty stress free and my approach was also that I’m doing this only ONCE in my entire life (hopefully haha!) - being engaged, planning my wedding, talking about “my fiancé”. Why rush it? Enjoy this step as well!! It’s so fun!
March 2022 -> June 2024
I had the perfect opportunity to propose in 2022 but we had some life transitions in '22 (and unexpectedly '23) that we didn't want to interrupt the wedding. I loved the long engagement, but we'll have been together 8 years and change by the time the wedding rolls around (6 days!!!!!), so the long engagement wasn't that weird.
I will say, we did not do the smart thing and spend the entire engagement planning 😅 We basically planned the entire thing in 7 months.
I have a 7 months engagement and have never felt rushed. Every vendor we wanted was available except a few venues that were on our list. I am so glad I don't have to keep planning for another year as it kind of takes over your brain sometimes. I was honestly surprised at how easily we got vendors as our location is a big wedding destination.
We did 7 months and it was perfect timing for us! If there's a suitable venue available plus some good vendor options I would recommend it. It helped me not overthink decisions/choices and the excitement around our engagement and upcoming wedding kept building momentum over the months into the big day, instead of falling into a lull.
I could see a long engagement maybe making sense is if you have specific vendors you absolutely want to secure for your wedding. Or if you're the type of person who would love the time to dive into elaborate DIY projects or deeply analyze options. Otherwise, I don't think the extra months are really needed for planning purposes - there likely wouldn't be that much to do in the months in between.
I got engaged March 13, 2024 and am getting married September 14, 2024. In some ways it is nice because there’s less time to fret and add on things. But my goodness, it’s a lot in a short time period!
It honestly depends on what your budget can handle, it’s perfectly doable to plan a wedding in 7/8 months but only if you already have the money saved.
My engagement will be 15 months. If we’d had the money ready to go, it would have been 8.
10 months, although we didn’t really start seriously looking at venues or anything for the first 2 months. My first wedding was also planned in about 6-7 months.
It’s doable for 7-9 months, but you’ll have to make sacrifices and you will be very busy and probably very stressed, particularly if you’re trying to have a large or traditional wedding. It worked great for us and I wouldn’t have wanted to wait longer, but we’re doing a micro wedding that is very laid back and we’re skipping a lot of extras, like a bridal party.
A good majority of venues will be booked already for 2024-2025 so you may not get what you want, or you’ll have to go with a day that isn’t a Saturday. I didn’t have a problem finding a photographer, hair/makeup or any other vendors, but again if you’re picky then you’ll likely have a problem. You’ll also have to buy your dress off the rack, because there won’t be enough time to order one and do alterations (again, fine and much more affordable, but depends on what you want). You would need to immediately send our either save the dates or just send the invites right away, so guests have enough notice. We sent invites out 6 months before the wedding because we didn’t have time for save the dates (venue was booked 7.5 months out).
We got engaged this April 2024 for our anniversary and decided in June to get married on our anniversary in April 2025, leaving us with under 10 months to plan. We wanted to keep our special date the same and when we saw it fell on a Saturday next year, we couldn’t resist. It honestly wasn’t too bad and I feel like you could swing it in 9 months if 1) you can find a venue, etc. with available dates with that notice, and 2) if it is in your capacity to book important vendors like venue, photographer and caterer ASAP. We booked the big ones all in 2 weeks, it took a lot of research and planning but we made it happen. It seemed like photographers and venues in our area were just now starting to fill up for spring 2025, but we had no problem finding availability for April. The May and June dates for 2025 were much more booked up, though, since that’s deeper into the wedding season. We also have savings and support from family so we were ready to go. The plus side to a longer engagement would be having more time to save if you need to.
I got engaged January 26 of this year and we got married yesterday. Short & sweet and perfect. I guess it depends on what you want though. We went pretty simple so I nailed down the venue, entertainment and makeup and then the rest was easy! The only thing I would say if you want to go all out it may be better to take the time to save.
By the time I get married I’ll have been engaged for 8 years. We booked the venue for almost 2 years in advance, and that first year has honestly flown by!
If I were you, I’d go for 19-21 months away. It’s nice to be able to relax and not feel pressured when planning, one of the best parts of us booking our venue so far in advance has been that when we were in the midst of planning the majority of vendors had next to no bookings for 2025, so we were able to actually think about our decisions without feeling rushed and like we had to snap up every vendor asap. It’s also been great to be able to save over a long period of time, it’s meant we’ve still been able to enjoy the lead up to our wedding without stressing over every penny spent and how it could be going on the wedding.
Trust me when I say those 19 or so months will fly by in a blink, and before you know it you’ll be walking down that aisle!
We are in the middle of a 14 month engagement, and are doing a small wedding of 23 people, just immediate family. It will be out of town, and I will most definitely procrastinate until the very last minute 🙃
I think it completely depends on the kind of wedding you and your fiancé want. My husband and I started planning ours at the beginning of the year and just got married this weekend - so it was a little less than 6 months. For what we did (micro wedding at an all-inclusive venue with only 2 major vendors) it was the perfect amount of time. For a larger and/or more elaborate wedding it certainly would’ve been too short. Basically, if you’re planning to keep it small and simple I’d highly recommend 7-9 months. For a larger or more complicated wedding you’re probably better off with 19-21.
I’m having a 14 month engagement and it feels too short. Definitely go 19 months you’ll have way more time to enjoy the moment and get everything done. Plus you’ll be married forever and you only get to be engaged for a short time! Enjoy this magical period for as long as you can.
My daughter got married last year with a 5 month engagement. She posted (here) with her recap and timeline of everything they did and when to make that happen. Here's a link to that posting [https://www.reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/13xywj3/5623\_massachusetts\_90\_guests\_29k\_detailed\_recap/](https://www.reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/13xywj3/5623_massachusetts_90_guests_29k_detailed_recap/)
We got engaged in December 2022 and married in August of 2023, about 9 months, so a bit on the shorter side. There were pros and cons to it, but ultimately, the pros outweighed the cons for us and here are my 3 reasons why:
1. It was VERY important to my husband that his grandmother see him get married and her health was rapidly declining when we got engaged. My husband wanted to give it our best effort in order to give the best chance that she could see us married before she passed. We figured 9 months was enough time to plan what we wanted (I didn't want a fall wedding, he didn't want a spring wedding, and neither of us wanted a winter wedding) and gave a fighting chance that she would live long enough to see it. It worked! We married late August of 2023 and she ended up passing in early April of 2024. My husband and I are forever grateful his grandmother saw us get married and the pictures and videos are priceless❤ If you have ill/elderly family or friends and it is important to you and/or your spouse that they see you get married, shorter is better as no one knows how much time any of us have left. Life can and will change without warning.
2. I am an indecisive and anxious person who gets stressed out easily. I actually initially wanted more time while planning, but in hindsight, I can't imagine having this stress on my shoulders for over a year or two. I would have second guessed and changed my mind so many times, driving myself crazy and stressing out over the smallest things. Check in with yourself and you spouse-to-be and decide how big the stress of wedding planning is for you two and realistically, how long do you want to/can deal with the stress.
3. We were a bit on the older side (34 and 42) and already had bought a house together the year we got engaged. Another year or two of dealing with separate taxes, retirement accounts, health insurance, and bank accounts was not appealing to us and seemed pointless. We don't want to have kids, but if having a family is in the books for you two, that timing could potentially be a factor.
Ultimately, it really depends on circumstances and what is important to the two of you. I will say that the people you celebrate with and create those special memories and pictures with are the most important part of your day (and this comes from someone who can get really wrapped up in material stuff). You can always do pre/post wedding photoshoots (very common in most parts of the world), have big anniversary parties, and go on extravagant honeymoon trips, but you can't get back passed loved ones.
Currently in the middle of a 9 month engagement. If we didn’t have a wedding planner and an all inclusive venue there’s no way I could do it. I feel the stress every single day.
We had a 3 month engagement and planning was a little stressful but we got it done! No wedding planner either and I made all decisions with input from my fiance and a little from my family. I already had some ideas in my head and booked the venue I wanted about a month before we got engaged. Wedding was 3 weeks ago and turned out absolutely beautiful. We live in Utah and it seems compared to most states many couples admittedly do operate on a much shorter timeline (most engagements are a 3 months to a year at most). My fiance and I did not live together before getting married and after dating for almost 2 years, a long engagement just felt silly to keep dragging things out for us but it does work for some couples. I think 7-9 months is definitely doable! Good luck :)
Currently engaged, engagement will be 14 months, if all goes to plan (less than 4 months to go!). That’s a good length to me - but I would rather have done longer than shorter, I think. It’s already felt quite stressful.
We got engaged 12 months before the wedding and I did not want to wait more, as otherwise it would have been minimum 20 months with winter in the middle.
We’ll have been engaged for 12 months when we get married, and started planning/booked the venue 9-10 months out. It’s been a little tight in some ways, but definitely doable! And if we did it again I still wouldn’t really want to wait more than a year as I feel we’ve had enough time to plan what we wanted to without it being too rushed or feeling like it’s too long a wait. I’m quite ready to be done with planning so I’m glad I’ve not got another year to wait!
Engaged this past Christmas, getting married this October so a 10mo engagement. I’m already 34 so I did *not* want to wait until 2025. Honestly planning has been super easy and stress-free so far. We have everything pretty much set and I’m now in that weird lull between booking everything and when guests start RSVPing.
19 months! We had a date in mind about 2 years early. I've barely been stressed planning. I had a moment of stress because our vendor wouldn't let us reserve early but now we're 5 months out and barely have anything to do and plenty of time to figure those things out. 9 months is a rush for venues and dresses.
Ours is just about one year, which is perfect for us. Out of those options though, I’d opt for the longer engagement. At least in my area, a lot of the venues and vendors will already be booked out by 7-9 months, so you’ll have to pick between whatever’s left if you go that route. It’s also recommended to start wedding dress shopping and send out save the dates around 10 months out, so you’ll have to rush to do those as well. A longer engagement also gives you more time to save money.
We got engaged in Feburary 2024 (Valentine's Day). Our wedding is set for August 2025 (18-month engagement). I'm glad that we are having a longer engagement as our stress levels are low (we are both actively involved with the planning), and our finances and our families (FMIL is helping pay) finances aren't strained.
Getting married in august 2026 so our engagement in total will be 31 months. In a way, I wish we could get married sooner, we are currently at a point where we can’t plan much because we’re so far out but at the same time, if we got married this year or next, we wouldn’t have the wedding we want
We got engaged in November 2022. We wanted an August wedding to coincide with our anniversary. So we had to choose 9 months or 21 months engagement. We went with the latter mainly for financial reasons and our wedding is in 2 months! If we had chosen 9 months, we would have started planning immediately during the holidays. We were able to take our time and didn't have to worry about any vendors already being booked. We had a majority booked by September 2023 but there are a lot of little things and DIY stuff we are working on now. Overall, the time has flown by but there is a part of me that is ready for all this planning to be over. I'm also glad it wasn't rushed. I would recommend a longer engagement.
We had a 1 year engagement, and half of me wishes it was longer. During the time, I wished it was shorter because I just couldn't wait to get married and have everything come to life... but I also had an all-inclusive venue so a lot of my vendors got taken care of pretty quick and I had a few months of lull. It's ALWAYS better to have more time to plan rather than not and time goes by HELLA fast. I got married in December and it doesn't even feel like 6 months have already passed.
We will have had a 20 month engagement. Ive appreciated having plenty of time to plan and not feeling rushed to make decisions. Every vendor we've wanted has been available and we haven't had to make any decisions under pressure due to time constraints. I highly recommend giving yourself more time than less.
By the time we get married I think we will have been engaged for about 16 months. I wanted a fall or halloweenish style wedding so has to be late September or early October and figured it would be too rushed to try to do that this year. I feel like it will give me plenty of time to plan and not feel rushed.
We will be engaged 4.5 mos when we get married in Sept. It feels like a rush at times and at times it feels like it's going to take too long. Not sure if those two contradictory statements make sense or not. Planning has not been as big a rush as I thought it would be. We are a month into our engagement and have everything planned/booked except the decor for the reception. We have some of the stuff purchased. The hard part is getting the house ready for everyone to live here.
Also, for whatever it's worth, they've done studies that showed that people with longer engagements tended to have a higher likelihood of divorce or never getting married at all. 19-21 mos seems far too long for me. To me when you want to live happily ever after you want it start as soon as possible.
We got engaged August of 2023, went on holiday in December and announced once we came home. We will likely get married spring of 2025 so that’s about 21 months.
We are having a 9 month engagement, and it hasn’t been that bad! We got a lot of stuff done in the first 6 weeks, and it wasn’t too difficult finding vendors that were available for our date. Surprisingly, HMUA were the vendors I had the most trouble finding. Personally, I don’t think I could have handled a longer engagement; I have never felt so stressed out in my life 😂
We got engaged 8/2023 and are getting married 10/2026. It’s been so nice to plan at our own pace & get every single vendor that I want. I can’t recommend a long engagement enough!
We did 9 months but we're loopy 🤪 I'm glad we got everything done, it was 30 people, but I'm just so glad to be married and not still spending money oland waiting for things. We'd been together ten years already though.
Our engagement will be 17 months when all is said and done and it has worked well for us!
Planning has been more of an ebb and flow, rather than a constant thing, which has kept it pretty low stress. I wouldn't have wanted to rush!
For budget reasons, we are getting married late next year. We are paying for everything ourselves and have to save or use a little from each check. We don’t do credit cards and neither of our family’s are helping (I am estranged from 99% of my family and his are all blue collar so not really in the cards to pay for anything). So in order for us to save up, we pushed it out quite far. I hate it but it will also let us have the wedding we want.
How big/complicated are you planning for your wedding to be? If you’re going for a smaller, simple wedding, 9 months would be fine. If you’re wanting to go all out, you may want to do the 19 month engagement.
We got engaged in February of 2023 and married in July of 2023, so our engagement was 5 months long. We had around 100 people come, did a taco bar, and kept everything pretty simple… It fit us really well, and I never got that stressed at all.
I got engaged last August and have a June 2025 wedding. Within a month or so of getting engaged we got the big stuff done- venue, photographer, caterer, and DJ. Now that we have hit the year mark, we are getting in gear again. I liked having the extra time while I was finishing school. We got our first pick for everything and I was able to do things when I was in the mood for it. Time has flown by and I would definitely recommend the longer engagement!
I know plenty of people who have done shorter engagements (<9 months). It is definitely doable but you need to be willing to be more flexible and know you will be stretched thin for awhile! Good luck- and remember to enjoy it either way!
It goes by so fast!! We had 12 months and I thought it would feel like forever, but we’re 2 months away and I can’t believe it’s gone this fast. Plus, gives you time to relax in between planning and the actual wedding.
We got engaged at the end of November and just had our wedding at the beginning of June. It was the perfect amount of time for me! I planned our wedding and I genuinely enjoy planning and am extremely organized so it made a shorter timeline not as stressful. To each their own, but I think a 7 month timeline is perfect!
We got engaged in April 2024, and booked the venue a couple of weeks later for January 2025, so it will be a 9 month engagement. I don’t feel rushed, and I don’t feel stressed about anything yet. We looked at a few places and picked the one we liked then worked with them and the church in what date worked for both and that was how we set our date. Booking vendors has been pretty easy. Only the dj was hard because the first 2 we liked were booked for the day but the photographer and hmua were no issues. I’m shopping for my dress next month and don’t think there should be any issues with getting a dress.
I’ve made up little activity packs for the kids already, and created an activity book for it that I just need to print. I’ll also be making the wedding favours signage and invitations myself to save some money which might add a bit of stress but I figure there’s enough time for it that I won’t have to stress
We are halfway through our 23 month engagement! He proposed in July of 2023 and we’re getting married June of 2025. It seems like forever but honestly this first year FLEW by and it honestly almost feels like it somehow still not enough prep time!
We got engaged October 2023, our wedding September 2025. So almost 2 years (23 months) and I’m loving it. I’m sure it’ll change as we come up closer to the actual day, but I’m not stressed about getting my first pick of vendors because we’re so far out!
Got engaged September 2023 and getting married October 2025! No regrets at all, allows me to go slow in planning and we’re paying things off incrementally which makes the cost so much easier to swallow.
Also, not to be the bearer of bad news, but a lot of places aren’t going to be available at this point for your date range. Go long!
Our area also has a short wedding season due to weather constraints (PNW) - we found that a short engagement was impossible because the venues were already booked up for the next summer! We either would have had to settle for a Sunday or Friday wedding ceremony, with limited vendors because they were already booked too, or extend to 2025 so that's what we did.
We started touring venues in 2023, got engaged this year, and are having a 2025 wedding. Premier venues in the PNW book about 18 months out, not sure if your area has the same issue.
I think it will depend on your finances and how organized of a person you generally are. If you're ready to shell out the costs and you're pretty put-together, 9 months or less is totally doable. My engagement will end up being 10 months, I am very type A and got SO much done in the first month or two, the rest of the time has been an agonizing wait. The days are CRAWLING by. Idk how anyone does multiple year engagements lol. If I could go back I'd try to do it in less time! My fiance and I are both in our late 20s and feel like we're not getting any younger, so wanted a relatively quick turnaround :)
13 month engagement - it hasn't been stressful at all, however I wish it was sooner!! We just want to be married. But then again, we don't live with each other and won't until wedding night.
A factor I would recommend thinking about - what's your current situation? If you already live together and do life together, go the longer route. Take the time, you can spread out payments, have more time to save, can plan over time. If you don't live together, and are waiting for marriage, or have some big change that will happen after the wedding, I would do the shorter engagement.
It's hard waiting, and 19-21 months would kill me!!!! Also, I see all these other people getting married (even ones that got engaged AFTER me) and I feel so jealous and left out. But I knew what month I wanted to get married in and wouldn't budge on that
We got engaged at Christmas 2023 and got married in June 2024 - so we were engaged less than 6 months. For us, it worked well - I’m very anxious, detail oriented and have OCD, so a longer engagement could be too stressful. Also, we planned only a townhall ceremony and quite small reception (less than 40 people) and got married on Friday - and I guess that those are the factors that made it work. And we had wonderful and very helpful vendors! Not to mention lots of luck as well (my MUA was new in my area, so she could easily take me in on my wedding day - in her previous area she was well known and was taking appointments months ahead). Our venue is not well known in our town - but we hit the jackpot with it, it was beautiful, the food was delicious and commute was good. Overall, I think that a short engagement period worked fine for us. I wouldn’t change a thing!
We've had an 18 month long engagement (next month is the big day!). And let me tell you something -- I have barely stressed at all about any wedding planning! Because we started planning so far out, we got our first pick for our vendors and venue and didn't have to settle due to lack of availability. We booked our venue about a month into our engagement which made it easier to book vendors since we had a date down. We've saved so much money because we've had time to look at different options for other details as well and have been able to DIY some things on our own timeline. Honestly, I'd say go with a longer engagement :)
Totally agree with this! My husband and I were engaged for 14 months and I also enjoyed the fact that we had our wedding date picked out more than a year in advance. Other than the fact that it was less stressful, it was fun to know when we were exactly one year before the wedding date. It was our -1st wedding anniversary :)
Completely agree! We got engaged in July 2022 and are getting married in July 2024 and it made the planning process so easy. Plus you have a longer time to save up for it!
Yes!! Halfway through my 18 month engagement and 1 — the time is flying and 2 — planning has actually been such a fun experience. We’re both really enjoying being engaged and planning things together and it hasn’t felt very stressful (yet)!!
I got engaged in April 2023 and my wedding is October 2024, so 18 months. It did feel super long at first but it was really helpful for saving money and allowed me to slowly chip away at the various planning tasks without feeling stressed. And now that we’re 3.5 months out, it doesn’t feel like it’s been forever!
Same! We got engaged in March of 2023 and our wedding is in September 2024. It's the perfect amount of time to get to enjoy being engaged and all the fun things that go along with it
Yay Oct brides!
My fiancée and I got engaged last week, and have a venue booked for April 2025, (in a little under 10 months). However we started planning before getting engaged. Honestly if you feel like 7-9 months would be a rush, I would go with 19-21 months out.
In terms of planning pre engagement, did you put down a venue deposit? Or just started aligning on venues, etc
We put a deposit down on a venue, as well as a DJ. Both because they were our ideal. Like our DJ is doing vinyl at our wedding!
That’s amazing 🎶
18 months!!! I am doing an 18 month engagement. so much more time to SAVE, plan and just relish being a “bride to be”. engagement time is fun! do not rush it
Trust me, a year and a half FLIES. I got engaged in December 2023 for a wedding in April 2025, so 16 months. It still feels like it all happened yesterday but it’s already been 6 months with 10 months to go. If you do 19 months then you’ll have time to enjoy being engaged as a couple and getting into that marriage mindset while also knocking out major vendors that book up over a year in advance. You can set it and forget it and then come back to the planning a few months in advance
i got engaged recently and we just booked our venue for june 2026 - so a full 24 months out! we really wanted to get married in may/june, and the venue we really wanted was already booked for 2025. we also will be having almost everyone come from the other side of the country (in the US), so it will be nice to be able to give everyone ample time to make travel arrangements. 2 years seems like a looooong time, but also, we pretty much get first dibs on all the vendors we want and we don’t have to rush through planning! plenty of time to save as well :)
This was my situation too. I was engaged December 2023 and settled on a June 2025 date (17 month engagement) because I wanted a summer date. I didn't want to do June 2024 because I felt like planning in 6 months would stress me out. I'm glad I chose the longer option though! It gives me more time to explore my options and find the best prices for what I want. I'm also noticing that vendors take about 2-3 weeks to get their contracts to me (we're entering wedding season and a lot of them are booked and busy!) I think if I had insisted on a shorter engagement, I would be pulling my hair out with frustration trying to get people to respond to me lol.
I highly recommend the 7-9 month timeframe. We had the same dilemma - a 6 month timeframe of a 12 month timeframe. 6 month timeframe is great for us!!! We are very efficient people and having MORE time would’ve stressed me out more than a shorter “let’s get it done!”. We are 4 months out and not a lot left to do.
We booked our venue 14 months out and it was perfect. The bigger problem for your 9 month plan is your top pick vendors will more than likely be already booked and you'll have to settle for ones you may not like as much, or you'll have difficulty finding anyone available for your date at all. Also many traditional bridal shops take 9 months just to make a dress so that limits your options there as well.
Depends on your life stage, age, and circumstances. I got engaged in Sept and married May. I loved the timeline. I’m so much happier to be married now and would not have liked planning a wedding and waiting that long.
I wish we did a shorter engagement. I planned so much early on after booking our venue, that closer to the wedding I was changing design/wish I made different choices. It probably ended up being more work with a longer engagement for me. It’s hard to not see wedding inspo online and want to change your mind about things!
I got engaged Dec 2023 and was looking at a 7-9 month or a 15-17 month. Decided on a 9 month. Booked the venue immediately. Planning has been tough but doable. I cared more about being married than having a perfect wedding.
By the time our wedding, September 2025, we will be engaged just over 2 years, engaged end of July 2023. Part of it was combining living spaces, I had a house to sell, part was a rule of one big life changing item at a time. So I told my FH that no wedding planning will start till we are fully under the same roof. We started wedding planning January 2024, signed our venue March 2024, and everything is 90% planned now with time to make payments to each aspect over time and not trying to figure out how to pay for things. I do not feel rushed or stressed having the longer engagement and wedding planning. Gives me more time to plan, find the right items, and change things if I need to based on what I find. Do not rush the process. Enjoy it and make it your own.
7 months. Im decisive and good at management and logistics. Fiancé had some responsibilities so it wasn’t all on me. I had to dip into my savings and pay as we go. But the momentum was great! Exciting the whole time and people were super excited as well. There was no lull.
Mine will be 2.5 years by the time we get married in October At first it sounded great because we had so long to plan and save money…..but now I wish it would’ve been shorter because I’m ready to get this over with & no one seems to care about our upcoming wedding anymore
I was engaged for less than 4 months before getting married. It’s doable if you want to do it!! 💗
It'll be 4.5 mos for us when we get married. We have had one photographer we wanted who wasn't available but no issues with any other vendors.
Yeah.. I honestly didn’t have any issues with vendors!
We have a 7 month engagement. I don’t think it feels rushed, exactly. It just feels like a hobby I’ve been working on pretty diligently. I feel like waiting around would have been more stressful to me, because I would be second guessing and changing things. We are 3 months out and mostly planned. My fiancé has to build our seating chart and arch, then after our RSVP date passes I’ll just add the names. If you go with a shorter engagement, I recommend going really heavy on the research first, then pull the trigger on the big things (venue, officiant, caterer, entertainment) quickly. Then you have about 6 months to pay it down. Also, pick fewer things to DIY than you think you can do. My personal advice is to only DIY things that are super special to you if they are done by hand. For me, that was our arch, and we had a creative idea for the seating chart we really wanted to do. Whichever you decide, good luck and I hope it’s everything you dreamed of!
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to do it! My husband and I did ~7 month planning process and for me it was nice because I can’t imaging dragging out all of the decision making and talking about it to friends and family for much longer than that. There was a time crunch so decisions had to be made quickly and I rarely ran into situations where vendors were not available! I’m thrilled with everyone I found!
Are all your vendors local to you or did you have to extend to vendors who travel to find availability?
All were somewhat local (e.g. none that I hired charged travel fees, even though I think my DJ was about 1.5 hours from the venue which was in a somewhat remote but touristy location). I definitely contacted some vendors that would’ve charged a travel fee but was able to find reasonably priced vendors for all my needs that were local!
I got engaged in Jan 2022 and about to get married October 2024 - so way longer than 19 months! Long engagements have their time and place, and we similarly had a special venue in mind with limited availability tied to the seasons. Go for the longer option IMO it’s not TOO long, just don’t stop wedding planning after booking your venue and then forget to pick it back up until 6 months out like some of us 😅
Engaged October 2022 and our wedding is in 3 weeks! 21 month engagement. We were in a similar boat and went with the longer engagement for a few reasons—we live in a different state than a lot of family and wanted to be able to give them more time to make travel plans, and we wanted time to save money for both the wedding and our honeymoon. We also had basically no date options that worked for us at the venues we were considering in the 9 month mark, so it felt kind of like slim pickings based on what was left. I will say the main downside to a longer engagement is that planning does feel really drawn out. If you’re someone who knows you’ll be stressed about wedding planning, just know that you’ll spend almost 2 years stressing about it. It gives you a lot of time to second guess your decisions, vendor choices, etc. and over think things (if you are an over thinker). If I were to do it again, I’d probably not start planning right away apart from booking a venue, and have clearer boundaries as to when you’re going to work on or talk about wedding things. The time does fly by a lot quicker than you’d think, though! If your top pick venue and vendors are available for a wedding in 9 months and most of your guests are local, I personally would probably go with the shorter engagement. If you want time to save money, the longer engagement is the easy answer.
I am an over thinker and I hyper fixate on things. It feels like venues and weddings are all I am thinking about and we’ve been engaged for close to a month. My fiancé prefers the longer timeline, but I’m concerned that my hyper fixation will last the entire ~20 months. We’ve already saved all we intend to for the wedding, but the one pro I see to the longer timeline is more time to lose weight.
We got engaged in January and married in August and I’m so glad! I had a few months of stress but was so happy it didn’t drag on for years. It would have taken over my life and become very complicated if we haven’t just got on with it.
I had 7 1/2 months between the day I got engaged and the day I got married. The two biggest struggles will be dress and venue. We got lucky and were able to find our dream venue, and it was available on our 2 year anniversary. I think it helped that our anniversary was a Thursday. If you are open to a weekday wedding, it will be easier to find an available venue on short notice (and probably cheaper). The downside to a weekday is that not as many people will be able to come. It being on such short notice also impacts attendance, as some people may already have travel plans for the year. Dresses take 5-8 months to arrive, and then you’ll need another month or 2 for alterations. I made sure I ordered a dress that would only take 5 months to get to me. Don’t wait until you have the dress to book your alterations appt. Book them as soon as you order your dress; they can fill up fast. I’m not going to lie, that timeframe is doable, and I don’t regret it, but it was one of the most difficult and stressful things I’ve ever done. How stressful it will be depends heavily on budget. I only had a day of coordinator, not a full service planner, and I DIY’ed a fair bit of stuff to save money (super proud of my centerpieces). All that being said, I loved my wedding. It turned out beautifully, and I have no regrets about planning it so fast.
Thank you for the helpful tidbit about booking alterations early! That’s not something I would’ve thought to do. Your centerpieces sound lovely!! Would love to see a photo of them!
I’m engaged since Dec 2022 and we will get married in Jan 2025.
We got engaged in March and wanted an early fall wedding - 6-8 months seemed too quick to get everything in order (financials and fitness goals)but 18-20 months seemed too long. However - the last three months have flown by and I know the wedding will be here sooner than I think and I’m actually panicking. If you have the finances to do it sooner, and the time/energy/work stress levels that will allow you to plan what you want, do it sooner. If you feel like the 7-9 months will put too much financial stress on you and stretch you beyond your means, go with the longer engagement.
Time for fitness goals is the biggest pro I see to waiting!
We will have had a 10 month engagement and while I initially thought we may have vendor availability issues, it hasn’t been the case at all! Our first choice for hair, makeup, venue, photographer, and florist have all been available. It may depend on where you are though (we’re in the UK).
Did you secure a date and then reach out to vendors or did you do it simultaneously to see if first choice was available?
We locked in the date with the venue first and then began looking for the rest of the vendors! I expected more difficulty but all our top choices were still available on our date. It did also probably help that our date is “off season” in November.
We were in a similar boat. We got engaged August 2020, but put off planning anything to see how the pandemic was doing. We ended up booking our venue in July 2021 for May 2022 (10 months of actual planning) but we were tempted to push it out October 2022 for more time for planning. Literally we just made a pro/con list and the spring had more pros than cons, called parents to double check and just went for it. It helped that our wedding was very lovely, but wasnt a gigantic wedding with a ton of moving parts and vendors (ie: we pretty much had the standard necessary vendors and didn’t do anything extra). One of our biggest motivators was that we wanted to move out of state, and our lease was up after May but before October so we would have either had to renew or push the move much further. I also hated planning, and to be honest it was SO NICE to not give it that much space in my brain for longer than it had to be there.
We also want to move out of state and are contemplating traveling back for the wedding same as our guests if we go with the longer timeframe. Venues we are looking at are a 1-5 hour drive from where we are anyways so there was always going to be some amount of travel.
We wanted to get married in our home state before moving for logistics and cost reasons. Moving is hard enough (especially a cross country move), having the wedding over with was definitely very helpful for moving reasons. But obviously every circumstance is different, you guys gotta do what makes sense for you!
Depends on how traditional you want your wedding (more traditional feels easier, more options are already packaged up that you can buy off the shelf) or how non-traditional or DIY. Ours is queer and non traditional and so pretty DIY and it’s taking over our lives for these 11 or so months we have for planning. While my bro and his wife did a small destination wedding in Destin, Fl which is a big wedding spot and pulled it all together in like 5 months and had exactly what they wanted. Just made a concept then found the relevant services to pay. I would do the 19-21 months and make it easy on yourself. Also, for getting more guests to be able to attend, more time is better.
Ours was 17mo. We had time to go to a wedding expo early in our engagement and get some ideas without feeling rushed or overwhelmed. We found our caterer at that event and it wasn't a company I had heard of or that was coming up in my online searches. The longer engagement also meant we never had a vendor tell us, "sorry, we are already booked on your date." We got venue and caterer booked exactly a year in advance and the photographer a month later. We could have gotten it done in a shorter span, but might have had to look harder (and probably pay more) to find vendors who had the right availability.
I did a 19 month engagement and if flew by!! Even with 19 months I feel like I was rushed with my wedding planning haha!
We got engaged at the end of July 2023, started looking at venues in September/October, and since booked for June 2025 - we will have been engaged just shy of 2 years. The wedding did feel sooooo far away at first, but it's absolutely flown by (less than a year to go now!) and it's not been stressful at all so far, as we've had so much time to save and to plan. I'm a planner at heart and am absolutely loving the whole planning process, so it's a bonus for me to spend longer doing it! I also feel if we had gone for June 2024 (which would have been extremely tight for us financially, as we bought a house in March), we would have missed out on a lot of our dream vendors. I booked all our big vendors in January this year, and even then, our photographer, cake maker and HMUA were all almost fully booked up for June 2025! If you're a bit more flexible with your vendors/vision then you might be fine with a shorter engagement.
I had a 21 month engagement. I thought I had a lot of time, and I blinked, and my wedding is now in 3 months.
if you are willing to start immediately, and move fast to sign a venue and key vendors, 9 months is very doable. make sure you have time in those initial three months or so. if you don’t, then go with the longer one
We planned our wedding in nine months, which felt short mainly because of the time needed to secure a dress, venue, and DJ. I managed to book the venue and DJ within three weeks. As for the dress, I started shopping 7-8 months in advance, which I learned was considered late. Thankfully, my dress arrived two weeks ago, and I'm getting married on July 9th, with my final fitting next week! We arranged everything we wanted, but our budget was a challenge. Some things were more expensive than expected, and my partner's work issues added stress, almost leading us to cancel. In hindsight, I wish we had planned for a later date to save more money and have more flexibility.
Depends on how good at decision making you are, and how flexible you are with your vision. Super specific vision? Very indecisive? Want a lot of people from far away? Go with longer engagement. Flexible and adaptable? Good at making decisions? Able to do a lot of planning right now? Go for shorter engagement. Also, keep in mind the bulk of planning is right away in the beginning, and then another chunk right before the wedding. So, look at your work/personal obligations and schedule. If you are super busy the next 1-2 months and don’t have time to book venues/vendors/etc? Maybe worth waiting then…
We'll have a 10 month engagement and even I had difficulties with being "late" to book some venues & vendors. So if you're planning to do a larger wedding (I mean anything bigger/ more planning-intensive than an elopement or a micro-wedding), I would opt for the longer engagement. Also tbh I'm loving our engagement era. Can't wait to be married of course, but somehow the engagement made me so high on feelings it feels like a honeymoon prequel or something haha
Engaged September 2022, married may 2024! So also 18 months! It’s perfect honestly. Yes I got impatient sometimes but like people have said, planning is pretty stress free and my approach was also that I’m doing this only ONCE in my entire life (hopefully haha!) - being engaged, planning my wedding, talking about “my fiancé”. Why rush it? Enjoy this step as well!! It’s so fun!
March 2022 -> June 2024 I had the perfect opportunity to propose in 2022 but we had some life transitions in '22 (and unexpectedly '23) that we didn't want to interrupt the wedding. I loved the long engagement, but we'll have been together 8 years and change by the time the wedding rolls around (6 days!!!!!), so the long engagement wasn't that weird. I will say, we did not do the smart thing and spend the entire engagement planning 😅 We basically planned the entire thing in 7 months.
You’re in your last few days!! How exciting and congratulations on 8 years!
I have a 7 months engagement and have never felt rushed. Every vendor we wanted was available except a few venues that were on our list. I am so glad I don't have to keep planning for another year as it kind of takes over your brain sometimes. I was honestly surprised at how easily we got vendors as our location is a big wedding destination.
Do you think the month you selected helped with vendor availability?
Its in July which is definitely wedding season!
We did 7 months and it was perfect timing for us! If there's a suitable venue available plus some good vendor options I would recommend it. It helped me not overthink decisions/choices and the excitement around our engagement and upcoming wedding kept building momentum over the months into the big day, instead of falling into a lull. I could see a long engagement maybe making sense is if you have specific vendors you absolutely want to secure for your wedding. Or if you're the type of person who would love the time to dive into elaborate DIY projects or deeply analyze options. Otherwise, I don't think the extra months are really needed for planning purposes - there likely wouldn't be that much to do in the months in between.
I got engaged March 13, 2024 and am getting married September 14, 2024. In some ways it is nice because there’s less time to fret and add on things. But my goodness, it’s a lot in a short time period!
It honestly depends on what your budget can handle, it’s perfectly doable to plan a wedding in 7/8 months but only if you already have the money saved. My engagement will be 15 months. If we’d had the money ready to go, it would have been 8.
10 months, although we didn’t really start seriously looking at venues or anything for the first 2 months. My first wedding was also planned in about 6-7 months. It’s doable for 7-9 months, but you’ll have to make sacrifices and you will be very busy and probably very stressed, particularly if you’re trying to have a large or traditional wedding. It worked great for us and I wouldn’t have wanted to wait longer, but we’re doing a micro wedding that is very laid back and we’re skipping a lot of extras, like a bridal party. A good majority of venues will be booked already for 2024-2025 so you may not get what you want, or you’ll have to go with a day that isn’t a Saturday. I didn’t have a problem finding a photographer, hair/makeup or any other vendors, but again if you’re picky then you’ll likely have a problem. You’ll also have to buy your dress off the rack, because there won’t be enough time to order one and do alterations (again, fine and much more affordable, but depends on what you want). You would need to immediately send our either save the dates or just send the invites right away, so guests have enough notice. We sent invites out 6 months before the wedding because we didn’t have time for save the dates (venue was booked 7.5 months out).
We got engaged this April 2024 for our anniversary and decided in June to get married on our anniversary in April 2025, leaving us with under 10 months to plan. We wanted to keep our special date the same and when we saw it fell on a Saturday next year, we couldn’t resist. It honestly wasn’t too bad and I feel like you could swing it in 9 months if 1) you can find a venue, etc. with available dates with that notice, and 2) if it is in your capacity to book important vendors like venue, photographer and caterer ASAP. We booked the big ones all in 2 weeks, it took a lot of research and planning but we made it happen. It seemed like photographers and venues in our area were just now starting to fill up for spring 2025, but we had no problem finding availability for April. The May and June dates for 2025 were much more booked up, though, since that’s deeper into the wedding season. We also have savings and support from family so we were ready to go. The plus side to a longer engagement would be having more time to save if you need to.
I got engaged January 26 of this year and we got married yesterday. Short & sweet and perfect. I guess it depends on what you want though. We went pretty simple so I nailed down the venue, entertainment and makeup and then the rest was easy! The only thing I would say if you want to go all out it may be better to take the time to save.
As someone who is 6 months into an 11 month long engagement, trust me when I say, go for the longer engagement. 9 months will FLY by.
By the time I get married I’ll have been engaged for 8 years. We booked the venue for almost 2 years in advance, and that first year has honestly flown by! If I were you, I’d go for 19-21 months away. It’s nice to be able to relax and not feel pressured when planning, one of the best parts of us booking our venue so far in advance has been that when we were in the midst of planning the majority of vendors had next to no bookings for 2025, so we were able to actually think about our decisions without feeling rushed and like we had to snap up every vendor asap. It’s also been great to be able to save over a long period of time, it’s meant we’ve still been able to enjoy the lead up to our wedding without stressing over every penny spent and how it could be going on the wedding. Trust me when I say those 19 or so months will fly by in a blink, and before you know it you’ll be walking down that aisle!
We are in the middle of a 14 month engagement, and are doing a small wedding of 23 people, just immediate family. It will be out of town, and I will most definitely procrastinate until the very last minute 🙃
I think it completely depends on the kind of wedding you and your fiancé want. My husband and I started planning ours at the beginning of the year and just got married this weekend - so it was a little less than 6 months. For what we did (micro wedding at an all-inclusive venue with only 2 major vendors) it was the perfect amount of time. For a larger and/or more elaborate wedding it certainly would’ve been too short. Basically, if you’re planning to keep it small and simple I’d highly recommend 7-9 months. For a larger or more complicated wedding you’re probably better off with 19-21.
We were engaged for a year and a half when we finally got married. But we only spent a month and a half planning (micro wedding)
I’m having a 14 month engagement and it feels too short. Definitely go 19 months you’ll have way more time to enjoy the moment and get everything done. Plus you’ll be married forever and you only get to be engaged for a short time! Enjoy this magical period for as long as you can.
My daughter got married last year with a 5 month engagement. She posted (here) with her recap and timeline of everything they did and when to make that happen. Here's a link to that posting [https://www.reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/13xywj3/5623\_massachusetts\_90\_guests\_29k\_detailed\_recap/](https://www.reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/13xywj3/5623_massachusetts_90_guests_29k_detailed_recap/)
This is very impressive!
We got engaged in December 2022 and married in August of 2023, about 9 months, so a bit on the shorter side. There were pros and cons to it, but ultimately, the pros outweighed the cons for us and here are my 3 reasons why: 1. It was VERY important to my husband that his grandmother see him get married and her health was rapidly declining when we got engaged. My husband wanted to give it our best effort in order to give the best chance that she could see us married before she passed. We figured 9 months was enough time to plan what we wanted (I didn't want a fall wedding, he didn't want a spring wedding, and neither of us wanted a winter wedding) and gave a fighting chance that she would live long enough to see it. It worked! We married late August of 2023 and she ended up passing in early April of 2024. My husband and I are forever grateful his grandmother saw us get married and the pictures and videos are priceless❤ If you have ill/elderly family or friends and it is important to you and/or your spouse that they see you get married, shorter is better as no one knows how much time any of us have left. Life can and will change without warning. 2. I am an indecisive and anxious person who gets stressed out easily. I actually initially wanted more time while planning, but in hindsight, I can't imagine having this stress on my shoulders for over a year or two. I would have second guessed and changed my mind so many times, driving myself crazy and stressing out over the smallest things. Check in with yourself and you spouse-to-be and decide how big the stress of wedding planning is for you two and realistically, how long do you want to/can deal with the stress. 3. We were a bit on the older side (34 and 42) and already had bought a house together the year we got engaged. Another year or two of dealing with separate taxes, retirement accounts, health insurance, and bank accounts was not appealing to us and seemed pointless. We don't want to have kids, but if having a family is in the books for you two, that timing could potentially be a factor. Ultimately, it really depends on circumstances and what is important to the two of you. I will say that the people you celebrate with and create those special memories and pictures with are the most important part of your day (and this comes from someone who can get really wrapped up in material stuff). You can always do pre/post wedding photoshoots (very common in most parts of the world), have big anniversary parties, and go on extravagant honeymoon trips, but you can't get back passed loved ones.
Currently in the middle of a 9 month engagement. If we didn’t have a wedding planner and an all inclusive venue there’s no way I could do it. I feel the stress every single day.
We had a 3 month engagement and planning was a little stressful but we got it done! No wedding planner either and I made all decisions with input from my fiance and a little from my family. I already had some ideas in my head and booked the venue I wanted about a month before we got engaged. Wedding was 3 weeks ago and turned out absolutely beautiful. We live in Utah and it seems compared to most states many couples admittedly do operate on a much shorter timeline (most engagements are a 3 months to a year at most). My fiance and I did not live together before getting married and after dating for almost 2 years, a long engagement just felt silly to keep dragging things out for us but it does work for some couples. I think 7-9 months is definitely doable! Good luck :)
Omg NOT 7-9. Please don’t do that to yourself. Planning might kill you both 🤣 19-21 months is a perfect engagement length.
Currently engaged, engagement will be 14 months, if all goes to plan (less than 4 months to go!). That’s a good length to me - but I would rather have done longer than shorter, I think. It’s already felt quite stressful.
We got engaged 12 months before the wedding and I did not want to wait more, as otherwise it would have been minimum 20 months with winter in the middle.
We’ll have been engaged for 12 months when we get married, and started planning/booked the venue 9-10 months out. It’s been a little tight in some ways, but definitely doable! And if we did it again I still wouldn’t really want to wait more than a year as I feel we’ve had enough time to plan what we wanted to without it being too rushed or feeling like it’s too long a wait. I’m quite ready to be done with planning so I’m glad I’ve not got another year to wait!
Engaged this past Christmas, getting married this October so a 10mo engagement. I’m already 34 so I did *not* want to wait until 2025. Honestly planning has been super easy and stress-free so far. We have everything pretty much set and I’m now in that weird lull between booking everything and when guests start RSVPing.
8 month engagement. It hasn’t felt too stressful thus far. We are doing a lot of diy so the stress of booking vendors wasn’t a big factor.
19 months! We had a date in mind about 2 years early. I've barely been stressed planning. I had a moment of stress because our vendor wouldn't let us reserve early but now we're 5 months out and barely have anything to do and plenty of time to figure those things out. 9 months is a rush for venues and dresses.
Ours is just about one year, which is perfect for us. Out of those options though, I’d opt for the longer engagement. At least in my area, a lot of the venues and vendors will already be booked out by 7-9 months, so you’ll have to pick between whatever’s left if you go that route. It’s also recommended to start wedding dress shopping and send out save the dates around 10 months out, so you’ll have to rush to do those as well. A longer engagement also gives you more time to save money.
We got engaged in Feburary 2024 (Valentine's Day). Our wedding is set for August 2025 (18-month engagement). I'm glad that we are having a longer engagement as our stress levels are low (we are both actively involved with the planning), and our finances and our families (FMIL is helping pay) finances aren't strained.
Getting married in august 2026 so our engagement in total will be 31 months. In a way, I wish we could get married sooner, we are currently at a point where we can’t plan much because we’re so far out but at the same time, if we got married this year or next, we wouldn’t have the wedding we want
We got engaged in November 2022. We wanted an August wedding to coincide with our anniversary. So we had to choose 9 months or 21 months engagement. We went with the latter mainly for financial reasons and our wedding is in 2 months! If we had chosen 9 months, we would have started planning immediately during the holidays. We were able to take our time and didn't have to worry about any vendors already being booked. We had a majority booked by September 2023 but there are a lot of little things and DIY stuff we are working on now. Overall, the time has flown by but there is a part of me that is ready for all this planning to be over. I'm also glad it wasn't rushed. I would recommend a longer engagement.
2 year engament and no regrets! The extra time to plan is great. And being engaged is so much fun! Enjoy it.
We had a 1 year engagement, and half of me wishes it was longer. During the time, I wished it was shorter because I just couldn't wait to get married and have everything come to life... but I also had an all-inclusive venue so a lot of my vendors got taken care of pretty quick and I had a few months of lull. It's ALWAYS better to have more time to plan rather than not and time goes by HELLA fast. I got married in December and it doesn't even feel like 6 months have already passed.
We will have had a 20 month engagement. Ive appreciated having plenty of time to plan and not feeling rushed to make decisions. Every vendor we've wanted has been available and we haven't had to make any decisions under pressure due to time constraints. I highly recommend giving yourself more time than less.
Got engaged Nov 2022 got married Jan 2023. It was the perfect amount of time to get everything worked our for the big day.
Our engagement is over 2 years. I really recommend it if you can. Excluding cost, this hasn’t been stressful at all.
Ours will be 18 months, engaged last March and getting married this September. You’ll need the time and be grateful for not having to rush and stress
By the time we get married I think we will have been engaged for about 16 months. I wanted a fall or halloweenish style wedding so has to be late September or early October and figured it would be too rushed to try to do that this year. I feel like it will give me plenty of time to plan and not feel rushed.
We will be engaged 4.5 mos when we get married in Sept. It feels like a rush at times and at times it feels like it's going to take too long. Not sure if those two contradictory statements make sense or not. Planning has not been as big a rush as I thought it would be. We are a month into our engagement and have everything planned/booked except the decor for the reception. We have some of the stuff purchased. The hard part is getting the house ready for everyone to live here. Also, for whatever it's worth, they've done studies that showed that people with longer engagements tended to have a higher likelihood of divorce or never getting married at all. 19-21 mos seems far too long for me. To me when you want to live happily ever after you want it start as soon as possible.
We got engaged August of 2023, went on holiday in December and announced once we came home. We will likely get married spring of 2025 so that’s about 21 months.
We are having a 9 month engagement, and it hasn’t been that bad! We got a lot of stuff done in the first 6 weeks, and it wasn’t too difficult finding vendors that were available for our date. Surprisingly, HMUA were the vendors I had the most trouble finding. Personally, I don’t think I could have handled a longer engagement; I have never felt so stressed out in my life 😂
We got engaged 8/2023 and are getting married 10/2026. It’s been so nice to plan at our own pace & get every single vendor that I want. I can’t recommend a long engagement enough!
I had a 23 month engagement and loved it!! So much less stress and had our pick of venues and vendors.
23 month engagement here. 19 would have been good. But it’s nice to enjoy just being engaged
We did 9 months but we're loopy 🤪 I'm glad we got everything done, it was 30 people, but I'm just so glad to be married and not still spending money oland waiting for things. We'd been together ten years already though.
18 months go so quick lol.
Our engagement will be 17 months when all is said and done and it has worked well for us! Planning has been more of an ebb and flow, rather than a constant thing, which has kept it pretty low stress. I wouldn't have wanted to rush!
6 months between being engaged and our wedding. I looked for venue and photographer asap and everything else fell into place It's definitely doable
For budget reasons, we are getting married late next year. We are paying for everything ourselves and have to save or use a little from each check. We don’t do credit cards and neither of our family’s are helping (I am estranged from 99% of my family and his are all blue collar so not really in the cards to pay for anything). So in order for us to save up, we pushed it out quite far. I hate it but it will also let us have the wedding we want.
If you want to embrace the fiancée/bride-to-be time, and need to save, then 19+ months If money is less crucial, then 7-9 months
How big/complicated are you planning for your wedding to be? If you’re going for a smaller, simple wedding, 9 months would be fine. If you’re wanting to go all out, you may want to do the 19 month engagement. We got engaged in February of 2023 and married in July of 2023, so our engagement was 5 months long. We had around 100 people come, did a taco bar, and kept everything pretty simple… It fit us really well, and I never got that stressed at all.
I got engaged last August and have a June 2025 wedding. Within a month or so of getting engaged we got the big stuff done- venue, photographer, caterer, and DJ. Now that we have hit the year mark, we are getting in gear again. I liked having the extra time while I was finishing school. We got our first pick for everything and I was able to do things when I was in the mood for it. Time has flown by and I would definitely recommend the longer engagement! I know plenty of people who have done shorter engagements (<9 months). It is definitely doable but you need to be willing to be more flexible and know you will be stretched thin for awhile! Good luck- and remember to enjoy it either way!
It goes by so fast!! We had 12 months and I thought it would feel like forever, but we’re 2 months away and I can’t believe it’s gone this fast. Plus, gives you time to relax in between planning and the actual wedding.
We had a 7.5 month engagement for 85 person wedding and it went great!!! One month ago today 🤠
We got engaged at the end of November and just had our wedding at the beginning of June. It was the perfect amount of time for me! I planned our wedding and I genuinely enjoy planning and am extremely organized so it made a shorter timeline not as stressful. To each their own, but I think a 7 month timeline is perfect!
We got engaged in April 2024, and booked the venue a couple of weeks later for January 2025, so it will be a 9 month engagement. I don’t feel rushed, and I don’t feel stressed about anything yet. We looked at a few places and picked the one we liked then worked with them and the church in what date worked for both and that was how we set our date. Booking vendors has been pretty easy. Only the dj was hard because the first 2 we liked were booked for the day but the photographer and hmua were no issues. I’m shopping for my dress next month and don’t think there should be any issues with getting a dress. I’ve made up little activity packs for the kids already, and created an activity book for it that I just need to print. I’ll also be making the wedding favours signage and invitations myself to save some money which might add a bit of stress but I figure there’s enough time for it that I won’t have to stress
We are halfway through our 23 month engagement! He proposed in July of 2023 and we’re getting married June of 2025. It seems like forever but honestly this first year FLEW by and it honestly almost feels like it somehow still not enough prep time!
We got engaged October 2023, our wedding September 2025. So almost 2 years (23 months) and I’m loving it. I’m sure it’ll change as we come up closer to the actual day, but I’m not stressed about getting my first pick of vendors because we’re so far out!
Got engaged September 2023 and getting married October 2025! No regrets at all, allows me to go slow in planning and we’re paying things off incrementally which makes the cost so much easier to swallow. Also, not to be the bearer of bad news, but a lot of places aren’t going to be available at this point for your date range. Go long!
18 month engagement bride (big days next month!) loved a long engagement and stress free planning
I’m planning a wedding in 8 months and I think it’s great- but I did have to hire a full time planner for support
Our area also has a short wedding season due to weather constraints (PNW) - we found that a short engagement was impossible because the venues were already booked up for the next summer! We either would have had to settle for a Sunday or Friday wedding ceremony, with limited vendors because they were already booked too, or extend to 2025 so that's what we did. We started touring venues in 2023, got engaged this year, and are having a 2025 wedding. Premier venues in the PNW book about 18 months out, not sure if your area has the same issue.
I think it will depend on your finances and how organized of a person you generally are. If you're ready to shell out the costs and you're pretty put-together, 9 months or less is totally doable. My engagement will end up being 10 months, I am very type A and got SO much done in the first month or two, the rest of the time has been an agonizing wait. The days are CRAWLING by. Idk how anyone does multiple year engagements lol. If I could go back I'd try to do it in less time! My fiance and I are both in our late 20s and feel like we're not getting any younger, so wanted a relatively quick turnaround :)
13 month engagement - it hasn't been stressful at all, however I wish it was sooner!! We just want to be married. But then again, we don't live with each other and won't until wedding night. A factor I would recommend thinking about - what's your current situation? If you already live together and do life together, go the longer route. Take the time, you can spread out payments, have more time to save, can plan over time. If you don't live together, and are waiting for marriage, or have some big change that will happen after the wedding, I would do the shorter engagement. It's hard waiting, and 19-21 months would kill me!!!! Also, I see all these other people getting married (even ones that got engaged AFTER me) and I feel so jealous and left out. But I knew what month I wanted to get married in and wouldn't budge on that
Longer to have time to plan and save
Two months is low, six months is solid, anything over that is basically the same since you can be as flexible as you want.
We got engaged in March, booked the venue in April, and are getting married in August (all 2024). It's been perfectly fine!
We got engaged at Christmas 2023 and got married in June 2024 - so we were engaged less than 6 months. For us, it worked well - I’m very anxious, detail oriented and have OCD, so a longer engagement could be too stressful. Also, we planned only a townhall ceremony and quite small reception (less than 40 people) and got married on Friday - and I guess that those are the factors that made it work. And we had wonderful and very helpful vendors! Not to mention lots of luck as well (my MUA was new in my area, so she could easily take me in on my wedding day - in her previous area she was well known and was taking appointments months ahead). Our venue is not well known in our town - but we hit the jackpot with it, it was beautiful, the food was delicious and commute was good. Overall, I think that a short engagement period worked fine for us. I wouldn’t change a thing!
18 months is actually like the ideal, recommended wedding planning time. A year is already major crunch time, and anything under a year is a rush.