Engagement Party Ideas!

How many people? If a small group, what about dinner out at a restaurant? If it's a larger group, can someone host a party in their home?

If you're looking for creative...you really have to know the couple. E.g., if they're big baseball fans, get a block of tix to a game, maybe have something put up on the scoreboard.

It'll be a large group because they have big families. I know the couple extremely well, but a game wouldn't really be a place to socialize since you'd be in a row of seats only able to talk to the people you're sitting next to. I'm thinking something at someones house will probably be what it's going to be.

What types of "things" do you do for the party - serve some beer and wine/food... make a few toasts and let people talk... ?

We went to a really nice engagement party over the summer at the groom's parents' house. I'm guessing that they had about 50-60 guests at the party. They rented tables and chairs and put them in the backyard. They bought all their own beer and wine, but they had their food catered in. There were 2 servers that passed hors d'oeurves before they had their buffet-style dinner. When everyone sat down to eat, the groom's parents gave a toast to the couple. Then, the groom gave a toast to his bride, and then the couple thanked everyone for coming out to celebrate their engagement with them. Also, they had their photographer come out to the property to take their engagement pictures on the day of their engagement party. They paid the photographer a bit more for him to stick around to take a few pics of the party.

We did a house party at my parents house and my mom did a lot of decorating and had a chef (my cousin works at a restaurant) come and cook us custom stir-fry on their grill, it was awesome.

We had a low key cookout at my parents house because they have a huge backyard. My family made all the food and one of my bridesmaids brought homemade individual cheesecakes. Our theme is "carnival," so it was a lot of fun to decorate and the whole outside cookout worked out perfectly. We had a bar area set up and let people serve themselves. We didn't do anything formal though, like toasts or anything like that.

Outside sounds great, the only problem here is the weather - We're on the west cost so we can't count on anything this time of year..

I had mine in August at my home - had approx 40 ppl attend. We played a game that was similar to bingo. Everyone was given a sheet w/ various question (e.g., do you play golf, did you attend private school, were you born in CA, etc.). The object of this game was to mingle w/ other guess b/c my FH family and my family doesn't know each other. Instead of one person calling out the questions, the guests had to go around and ask other ppl the questions. The had to blackout the board and the winner won a Starbuck gift card. We also, gave raffle tickets. We also had our engagement pictures made into a book and we passed it around and everyone signed it. Lastly, I had a posted board titled, "Advice from Men and Advice from Women" It was really nice.

We did a bbq and it was great.

A good ice breaker was a game we played, "who am I".

Our topic was famous couples...couples could be alive, dead, real, cartoon, from tv.....I put couples on a name tag and put a tag on everybody's back. They had to guess who their couple was by going around and asking questions..all the answers had to be either yes or no only!

Everyone loved it. Once all my tags were gone. They started making up their own.

We used couples like...

Adam & eve, brad & angelina, the Obama's, Fred & wilma flintstone, Rachel & Ross, Kermit & miss piggy, ect...

Tara - Love the ideas! What were your raffle tickets for?

Well if you know someone with a really nice big house, maybe you could do it indoors there Or even at a state park under a pavilion in case it rains.

I was thinking of offering to host it - My house isn't huge, but it could be big enough - depends on her guest list. I'll have to ask her...

State park would be pretty!

It'd be really nice of you to offer, I'm sure she'd appreciate it. I like the state park idea too. My fiancé can't make up his mind where he wants our reception to be, but his original idea was the nearby state park because they have a lot of different picnic areas with big pavilions. I thought that'd be a good option for your friend if she doesn't want it to be anything fancy.

Mines was 4th of july weekend family & few friends i would say about 60 people.

I also had a theme which was Luau party everyone who came participated which was pretty cool and funny... We ate drank and played games.. turned out pretty good!

Nope, nothing fancy. I think all of our concerns is weather - It'll be cold if it's outside... especially the evening - I promise I'm not just shooting down your ideas. Trust me, we all love being outside when we can. They want to do it on November 5th - and we're pretty much looking at our last weeks of nice weather for the next 6 months here! (I sound so dramatic don't I?!?)

The only thing with my house - we moved in 8 months ago, haven't fully decorated, haven't painted - In my defense, I have 2 babies and just got married and work full time! Hahaha. It's a nice house, but not super fancy

Well yeah, outside in November may not be the best idea At least you still have good weather to look forward to out there! It's gotta be a lot nicer than upstate NY.

Ok so you understand what I mean... I was thinking maybe you were from California or Florida!

So indoors.. I'll have to start looking at facilities just in case she presents me with a massive guest list!

She could have a cocktail/ appetizer style party at their home. That's what we did and it was perfect!

Melissa, we didn't raffle off anything. When the guest arrived, they all received a ticket a few hours later, we just called off two number (1st and 2nd place) and they won a gift card. Oh and we made candy bar wrappers w/ the engagement date, our picture, and our website and they were the party favors. We also were going to do karoke, but ppl were too busy enjoying themselves, so we just let the party run it course.

We just had ours last sunday! My brother and his fiance threw it for us she made just snacky foods and desserts which were so yummy! we had it at my moms house because of the rain, my FSIL made a quiz for everyone like when we first dated, our engagement date, when we first met, how many karats my ring is, and the one with the most answers right won a box of chocolates