Dress before ring… advice needed.

I feel like if you are planning a wedding, you are engaged. Are you waiting for a ring? Are you referring to one another as your fiance?

You don't need a ring to be engaged, just the mutual commitment that you are going to get married. So if you've both decided that and started planning your wedding, I think you can be engaged even if a formal proposal with a ring hasn't happened.

I think its worth a conversation with your FH about what your actual status is. If you just feel you aren't engaged because he's waiting for a ring to come and hasn't formally proposed yet because he's waiting on said ring, well whatever. But if there is some other reason you have started planning a wedding a year out but want to wait months to be "formally engaged" that just makes me wonder what the hold up is and I would be a little concerned something else is bubbling.

Also you can be engaged without announcing it to everyone! If you want to wait for a ring and hold off telling people until closer to the holidays, by all means you do you. But doing all the wedding stuff without considering yourself engaged (even secretly) just strikes me as odd and outside of what I understand those words to mean.

Engagement aside, if you are planning to order a dress from a bridal shop and have alterations done, I would not wait until 7-8 months out to do that, as you might limit your options. It can take several months for a dress to come in and another few months to complete alterations, depending on how extensive they are. You can absolutely find a dress in less than 6 months, you just won't have as many options to choose from because some simply won't be available and ready for you in that short of a time. So if you truly plan to be married next June and have other vendors booked, I would start shopping soon regardless of whatever you label you apply to your relationship status.

If you've set a date, booked vendors, and both consciously agreed you are going to be married - congratulations, you're engaged! Rings don't define an engagement, the commitment of two people in love does, and if your family can't understand that, then I wouldn't invite them to join you dress shopping.

Oh that sounds so special!

I really don't feel like you need to wait for the ring to be engaged, but its mostly semantics, so if you feel comfortable with whatever label you are placing on your relationship and where its going, so be it. I'd just say you're engaged but he hasn't proposed with a ring yet.

I would say you don't need to wait for the ring to choose your dress. You're engaged, you're planning your wedding, and you already have the venue and date booked (those two things should absolutely come before you pick your dress). Go ahead and find a dress if you want!

I feel like if your family wants to wait for a ring to be on your finger before they are willing to celebrate with you and joyfully support you in doing your pre-wedding bridal things, then that's their issue! Sounds like you are by all means engaged, you just don't happen to have an engagement ring on your finger, and maybe there hasn't been some [completely unnecessary] social media post announcing it to the world.

Some couples never do an engagement ring. My mom never had one, and when my husband proposed and I called to tell her, she was so excited and happy for me. I then tried to describe my ring to her and she was like "oh you got a ring!" because she never got one and forgot that they were even a thing.

Congrats on your engagement. Go find yourself a dress! And feel free to sweep your family in!