What is being engaged to you?

Ahah I used to say it as I am unofficially engaged ahan

To me I gotta wasn’t officially engaged until the ring was on my finger. But a month or two before that I told people that we picked out the ring and I was just waiting on him!

Not til he asked. We were in an argument about engagements. And he told me that even though we weren't engaged yet to start planning. So I BOMBARDED him with ideas.

Option A: no official proposal but start planning a wedding with a date
Option B: A formal proposal with or without a ring and have plans to get married or will start making plans in the near distant future.

I cannot tell you how many women have referred to their SO's as fiance that either have no ring and no plans to marry or have a ring and still no plan of marriage in the future! Sorry to break the news but they are not your fiances. They are boyfriends or boyfriends that bought you a nice gift.

I think that definitely depends on the couple. For us, I 100% knew it was coming and we had made it pretty clear to each other a couple years ago that we were in this for life, but I didn't say we were engaged until the formal proposal. For my parents, though, they were making plans for their future (saving up for a better place, when they want kids, etc) and they sort of looked at each other and went "oh... I guess we should plan a wedding, then, huh?"

I’ve seen a lot of heartbreak when people make assumptions or their partner doesn’t make things official. I think the ring and the question is really important, even if it is a cheap one.

I’m not understanding... why wait to ask? Why not just ask and THEN start the planning? Seems silly to do all that planning and THEN pop the question afterward. It’s like agreeing to buy 2 tix to go to Disneyland together and then a few months down the line he says, “SURPRISE.... we’re going to Disneyland!!!!” 🤔 🤷🏽‍♀️ Well... DUH!!!! 😂

It’s just kind of useless and anticlimactic doing it in that order. After all the planning, there’s no need to ask because it’s already understood at that point.

I think it depends on how you define engaged. For example my fiance and I agreed to get married but wanted to be engaged on a certain date and start telling people about it then. Some people would consider us engaged once we agreed to it, we didn't.
Overall if there's no agreement to being married you shouldn't be planning a wedding at all. You can call your agreement whatever you want, engaged, betrothed, courtship.