The 2 Year Engagement

I am on the same situation as yours.. I was going to get marry next fall decided to wait till 2017 I already saw the venue that I would love to do my wedding..

I was. We got engaged in 2013 and are getting married in 11 days! Time really flies. Take your time with planning, that's my only advice.

10/8/2017 here!!! We just booked our venue last week! I'm looking at photographers and videographer next. I want to have all the main vendors booked within the next 6 months. To me, I'll be able to see how much money I need to have by my wedding. I may still go into a bit of debt but I'll be able to budget a bit more once I have may main vendors out of they way. Also, it just seems most places will up their prices as years pass. So if you book now you'll be paying 2015 or 2016 prices. That's one of the main reason I want to book early.

Sooo happy to hear from others in the same boat! Thank you! And you make a great point about paying current rates.. I didn't even think about that!

Welcome to WeddingWire! Congrats on your engagement, be sure to read the welcome sticky and change your avatar as the rings/default are favoured by trolls and spam accounts.

There's a fair few of us with 2 year (and longer) engagements.

2017 Brides

There was also this 2 year timeline posted:

2 year wedding planning timeline

We're 3 yrs 5 months into a nearly five year engagement and I've found that a lot of things book up quick so there's definitely no harm in hitting the ground running and starting to book vendors now. Also, now is a good time to get things into a calendar so you can spread out the planning (there are ample check lists online to help with this depending on what you want out your day)

With regards to dates, tell them what you told us - May or September 2017. See what dates they have available for those months then go from there.

I had a 2 year engagement! I've been engaged since June 2014 and I will be married in May 2016. I basically spent the first 6-8 months looking into vendors and planning out my budget. I booked my venue about a year and a half out and I booked my photographer a few months after that. I basically prioritized my most important vendors and did a TON of research!! As soon as I hit the year mark- time started flying by! But I am so thankful for the longer engagement because I was able to plan soooo much stuff with out feeling rushed.

I've been engaged since 2013 once you start planning it goes sooo fast I still can't believe how fast it's flown by for me

Welcome if you find venue you're sold on go ahead in do the deposit if they allow it. Also save. You'll add to your dream over time and end up spspending here & there. But you dont want to be on a super strict budget for two years.

Start with a budget. Then get a guest count. Then pick a date. *Then* email the venues.

Oh, and here's my Generic Advice-- all you Really Need is an officiant, a license, two people who want to get married, and *maybe* two witnesses-- once you have all that, the rest is just icing on the cake. If you can hold that thought firmly in mind, you will save yourself a ton of money and stress and be just as married at the end!

^ ^ Zoe... A lot of people will say "I can't set a budget till I know how many people I want". Wrong answer! I've never spoken to a bride who when pressed didn't know how much she wanted to spend max on the whole thing.

If the number is $15k, then put some numbers on a napkin that reflect what you *think* you will / want to spend on major items, and then you have something to work from when you start looking, and can adjust your headcount or venue selection or catering to adapt. Once you have a budget, and a date chosen, make up your guest list and then you can start pricing out venues as Zoe says.

I set a budget of $12k, and came in at $13k. When I put down the numbers, I was coming in at $15k, so I adapted. Since the dress was not that important to me - I wanted to look beautiful, but I didn't plan to put it in a box in the attic for fifty years, or ever wear it again, so i set a limit of $500 for the dress, plus $150 for alterations. (i bought a bridesmaid's dress in white for $230 plus $160 in alterations to add sleeves, hem, etc.)

One mistake I've seen brides make and regret here is they have a long engagement, and they end up accidentally asking too many friends to be bridesmaids. So the other thing you should do ASAP is decide how many you will have - but don't ask them just yet! Two years is a long time to go, and you may feel differently when you're a year out than you do now. I'd try to hold off a bit on this one, if you can.... and make sure you don't ask anyone just because you think they *expect* to be asked. Ask the fewest number possible of those you truly want standing with you on the day of. It will save you a lot of drama later.

We got engaged December of 2013 and will be married October of 2016! Almost 3 years! A couple people kept telling us we had so much time, but our venue was booked for October dates 2 years in advance! Everyone seems to book up starting two years in advance. Book the big stuff first, venue, photographer, etc and just do the little things as you see fit time will fly! Seems like just yesterday we got engaged and we are just over a year away now!

We have a 3.5 year engagement. Keep doing research and reaching out to vendors. We have everything booked already because things book a lot faster than you think.

My fiance and I have been engaged since 2009 but we were college students starting a long distance relationship and were unsure a. if our relationship would last and b. if we would ever have the kind of relationship people consider "typical" where you see each other all the time. To us, getting engaged was proof we were looking forward to a future with each other even though we knew we would be going 6 months or longer without seeing each other.

Pick your dream date and stick with it. I changed mine several time trying to accommodate everyone instead of realizing my fiance and I were finally in the same state now and I wanted to get married sooner than later.

Also, if you believe in stats the longer you are engaged and live together the longer you have to get to know the person and you get to know their quirks. But for some, that statement doesn't apply.

Congrats and welcome, Elia! I always wanted a long engagement (ie: more than a year), but because of a whole bunch of factors, ours ended up being just 11 months and MAN do I wish we had managed to make it longer. I've spent our entire engagement wedding planning, and don't feel like we ever got a chance to just enjoy being engaged. I'm sure it'll feel agonizing at times, but a long engagement will definitely serve you well, in so many ways! I'm 100% serious when I say that I am jealous.

I had a 2 year engagement, and now I am finally 11 days away! The first year I did the big things; venue, photographer, dj. You want to get these first because, trust me, you are not the only one planning things this far in advance. Also, you can lock in the current rates and save money I did the things that didn't need contracts and such in the second year; dress shopping, picking decor, hair/makeup, etc... Enjoy having the 2 years to make payments too, having time to make payments helps a lot. I also had the shower and bach party spread out so that I had things to look forward to in the months before the wedding. I had my shower in July, bach party in August, and wedding in September.

I knew I wanted September when we got engaged in October of 2013, but we went with 2015 to give ourselves plenty of time to plan and make payments. It made planning low stress (until this last month anyway, but there is no avoiding that). It actually turned out to be a really good thing that we decided on 2 years instead of 1, as my FH ended up in a motorcycle accident in the Summer of 2014 and needed surgery on his left wrist and was all bandaged up and in therapy for 3 months. Had we gone with one year, that really would have been bad timing (he is all better now, but his ring size went up 1.5 sizes, so I'm also glad we waited to buy his wedding ring until recently).

I know it feels like forever, and you are excited and just want the time to be closer. It was hard to be patient at some times, but overall it was the best decision for our situation. Enjoy planning and this time with your fiance. Your day will come!

We're waiting because I'm finishing my degree and he didn't want me to worry about having to go back to school after the wedding and honeymoon. We're getting married a week after my graduation ceremony, so that final semester is also the 6 months leading up to the wedding. It'll be crazy, but I know we can do it. Especially if I take a couple extra classes for the Spring and next Fall. I would like to avoid any classes over the summer so I can focus on the DIYs. It just made sense for us to wait that long.

We've been engaged since June 2013, but kept putting it off because same sex marriages weren't legal in Florida, we finally set a date in March for next June. So a three year engagement. Once I hit a year though it's been going by pretty quick!

We got engaged June 2014 and are getting married September 2016. I would recommend starting to look at venues. We booked ours two years out and the first date I wanted was already taken.

1st off.. Congratulations & Welcome!

We got engaged April 2014 and by the time we get married well have had a 2 year & 1 Month engagement.

At first I was really sad about it; I just wanted to be married. But now I am sooo Thankful; we have been able to save and plan with plenty of time and I have had such a stress free planning experience. My advice to you would be to start planning now, a lot of people will say you have plenty of time, but I booked ALL of our vendors last year (and they were already booking into 2017!) AND now I have time to get all of the little things done and just relax in planning until we get into the RSVP crunch time.

Take your time and really research stuff, you have time to decide on what you really want. Also starting planning so early meant I got ALL of my #1 choices AND I got them for 2014 prices.

There are times where now that I have most stuff done when I'm just SO ready for the wedding to be here, and it totally felt like forever last year, but now that we're in the one year mark time is FLYING! Don't let it steal your engagement Glow! You'll be married for the rest of your life (god willing) you'll only be engaged for such a short period of time, Enjoy Every Second of it.

Definitely look at venues! If a venue does things like catering, etc. it's your biggest expense and will help line up your budget. But speaking of budget, another major thing to start looking into as well as guestlist to kind of figure out what you want, what you can afford, what you need to save/line up to make that happen. I'm having a 1.5 year engagement and while i haven't done much in the past few months, I have all of that hammered down pretty well by February of this year.