7 Ways to Rock Your Instagram Engagement Announcement

Long ago, during a much simpler time, after a couple got engaged, all they had was word of mouth to make sure all their friends and family found out, and maybe a newspaper announcement. Today, it’s all about the Instagram engagement announcement—which can be a lot more complicated than a simple, “Guess what? We’re engaged!” Thinking about your own Instagram engagement announcement, and want to make sure it’s the very best it can be?

From snapping the perfect photo to composing the perfect caption, check out these tips for acing one of the most important uploads of your life—your Instagram engagement announcement. Here come the likes!

Photograph the proposal.

The ultimate Instagram engagement announcement invites friends, family and followers into the room (or park, or restaurant, or wherever) where it happened. Who can scroll past a pic of someone down on one knee and their dearly beloved standing across from them with their hands clasped over their face? If you’re doing the proposal, hire a professional photog (or a friend with a good cell phone cam!) to stealthily camp out in the location of your proposal, then start snapping after the question has been popped to grab some emotional portraits. If you’re the one getting proposed to, tell your partner you’ll really want photos of the moment, so that they have someone at the ready. With so many photos of the big moment, choosing a pic to post is a no-brainer.

Edit your photo thoughtfully.

If you scroll back far enough in your Instagram feed, you’ll see that the colors in some of your earliest posts using the app’s original filters look completely ridiculous. That’s because we’ve officially evolved as a society as far as filters are concerned (thankfully), and these days, a too-filtered photo just looks weird to us. Instead of slapping Valencia on your engagement pic and calling it a day, try this no-fail and much-more-natural technique given to me by a wedding photographer to let the beauty of your big moment shine through: Using any photo editing app, increase the exposure, contrast, and sharpness a little bit each. If your photo is looking washed out, crank up the saturation a bit, too. Voila! Worried you’ll mess it up? Ask a professional photog friend to edit it for you.

Make it about you two, not the bling.

Your first instinct may be to post a close-up of your new sparkler as your Instagram engagement announcement, but hold up. You’re not engaged to your diamond! And yes, your followers will want to see the ring, but even more than that, they really want to see you and your partner grinning ear-to-ear in recently engaged bliss. So, keep this rule of thumb (er, ring finger…) in mind: If the pic has the two of you in it, feel free to include the ring. Just don’t post a ring selfie as your sole announcement—save it for a few days later, or for your IG Stories. 

Keep your caption brief.

It may be tempting to share a 2,500-character rundown of how your partner popped the question, complete with an emoji after every sentence, but slow your role—IG is not the time or place. Keep your Instagram engagement announcement caption short and sweet and remember what you’re here for: To announce your engagement! You’ll have tons of opportunities to tell your engagement story to all your friends and family in the coming weeks, and in this world of overly verbose influencers, your followers will respect you getting to the point (anyway, they’re really just here for the pics!).

And make sure you proofread.

You’re engaged, not enraged! (Hopefully.) This is one of the most important announcements in the history of your social media accounts—it’s no place for a typo! Take the extra moment to proof your caption, hashtags, and even your photo (to make sure there’s no creepy red-eye or bad cropping) before you post, so that your followers can focus on your amazing news, not a little mistake.

Post at the right time.

If you said yes at 9:00 PM, called your fam at 10:00 and want to post at 10:30… you might want to rethink that. Instagram’s latest algorithm favors posts that catch fire ASAP in the likes department, meaning posting at a time when everyone is scrolling through the ‘gram will give your announcement a better chance at staying top-of-feed. Stay away from late nights and early mornings, when people are sleeping or busy, and shoot for times like late mornings or lunch hours, when productivity dips and people are looking for distraction (and good news from their beloved lovebird friends!). Check through your own feed to find posts with the highest like counts—and then post your announcement on the same weekday those were posted. That’s a surefire way for your announcement to get maximum exposure. 

Say thanks for all the love.

Even if you don’t follow all of the above steps, but especially if you do, your Instagram engagement announcement is going to garner a ton of likes and a lot of love. News flash: People love a happy, soon-to-be-married couple! Get ready for an onslaught of likes and comments, and in return, set some time aside to post a thank-you to all of your well-wishers. My suggestion is to thank every commenter personally in a comment back, or post a separate post entirely with an overall thank-you message. It’ll be the first of many thank-you’s you’ll be sending out to your friends and family now that you’re engaged, so it’s wise to get used to it now. Trust me: Your graciousness won’t go unnoticed!