Finding a venue, but not yet engaged!

All this is making me laugh a little too bc when people announce engagements the FIRST question is always “do you have a date!!!!”
for us it was like “lol no, take a relax” but y’all can actually answer! 🤣

If you’re okay with a wedding on an another day that’s less popular... like get married on a Thursday, Friday, Sunday or Monday.

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Lol yes, true! We are both really excited about it. Thanks ladies

We toured our venue before we were engaged! We, actually, even had them put a non-guaranteed hold on the date for us in case other people were interested in it. We got engaged the next month, and a day after our engagement, I put our deposit down on the venue!

You've gotten a lot of great responses but I'll throw mine in as well. As long as you're both on the same page, which it seems like you are, then I don't think there's anything wrong with getting some planning done ahead of a formal proposal. We are not formally engaged yet because my SO has a plan he wants to follow through with. But he's in the military and will be leaving for a year in May and when he comes back we'll be moving to a new duty station within 1-2 months so we're planning and booking while he's here with me. The goal is to have almost everything done and planned before he leaves so that he can be apart of it all too. We both wanted him to see everything in person and taste everything and be as involved as possible.

So far we have our venue which includes catering and our photographer. I don't mention that we're not engaged unless asked. Truthfully, if you indicate that you're serious about planning and paying, they don't really care if you have a proposal story or not. We also saw several venues we chose not to go with simply because they didn't check all our boxes and they'll never know if we went with another venue or if we were just looking for fun. They will work with you with or without a ring. Do what's best for you both!

It's fine as long as you communicate with your boyfriend, but YOU also need to be comfortable with it. Adding my own story since I was in a similar situation.

Last summer my (then) boyfriend and I talked several times and agreed that we both wanted to get married in the near future. We tentatively decided on summer 2020 (we knew we wanted a small wedding and weren't too worried about having a long time to plan). There was no formal proposal, but once the topic was breached, we found ourselves making wedding plans: all of a sudden we were suggesting dates and venues. The venue we really wanted was a pavilion that could not be rented sooner than 11 months in advance.

We wound up booking the venue together before he proposed, exactly 11 months before the date we wanted (I really did not want to miss out). To be completely honest, it was a bit awkward. I was really excited but it just didn't feel "official" to me and I didn't say anything to my family. You envision calling your parents to say "He proposed!" not "We booked a venue!" so just be prepared for that feeling. He proposed a few weeks later; apparently he had asked my parents for "permission" 10 months before the actual proposal! Who knew?! When I told people the automatic response was "Do you have a date?" and it was nifty that I already had something to tell them.

However, I ultimately felt uncomfortable planning before the proposal, and I only did so because I was afraid to miss out on the one venue that we really wanted. I also feel like I missed being engaged without the stress of planning; we just jumped right into it. BUT if you feel like you can get over both of those things, go for it!