What happened to long engagements?

[PirateLover]

My boyfriend of 6 years proposed to me last December in Disney World. He is 25, I am 22. We thus far have not made a single serious wedding plan. The reason is, I JUST got my career job a month ago (teaching), but my pay is pretty paltry compared to what I could be making elsewhere. He is still looking to go back to school and find a new direction for his life. He is currently working as a butcher at a supermarket. He was going to the police academy but unfortunately hurt his back, had to have surgery, and was told he needed to find a new career path by his surgeon.
So what this all means is we don't have too much money, and still live at home with our parents. My parents just helped my brother move out and aren't sure when they'll be able to give me a number on how much they'll pay for. His parents aren't swimming in money either, so we are going to have to save up a lot on our own. Between the two of us, with our saved money and bonds in our names, we probably have enough money to swing a moderate wedding, but we wouldn't have much left over afterward for a house or even a decent apartment. Also we are currently living and working in separate states, so if we stay at our current jobs the cost of commuting (gas+tolls) will be pretty high. I have a number of unmarried couple friends who live together, paycheck to paycheck in dump apartments. I go over there from time to time and all that is in their house is cold pizza and ramen noodles. That is not how I want to live. I want to be comfortable.

This is OK with me... right now we are looking at a spring/summer 2010 wedding. Most adults applaud us for waiting, but my problem is more with friends my age. Almost everyone gets a look of shock on their face when I tell them what we're looking at. "WOW! That's a long time away! Why are you waiting???" I know they don't mean anything negative by it but I guess it kinda hurts sometimes...

Here is why it hurts: I would love to get married sooner. Sometimes I get a fleeting thought to elope and have a reception when we come back because I want nothing more than to come home to someone I love at the end of a long, stressful day. Also, the longer I have to wait the more unlikely it becomes that my soon to be 88 year old ailing grandfather will see my wedding. But at the heart of it, I understand that I have to approach this practically. I just wish others were more considerate sometimes.

In the past year a number of my friends have gotten engaged as well and are blessed enough to have their parents pay for everything right off the bat and they are already planned, dates set. I don't begrudge them that luxury but I wish they could understand how it makes me feel when they are shocked that I haven't begun planning yet. How can I plan when I even know what my budget will be yet? I even have one friend that isn't even engaged yet to a man she's been dating a year, but she has her whole wedding planned out (including the date, which would be before mine) because she knows he will propose to her this year and his parents will pay for it all. She actually said "Wouldn't that be sooo funny if I got married before you? Hah hah hah!" Um I guess?
Again, I am not jealous. I don't care if every single one of my friends got married before me, really. I just wish that they could understand my situation more.


Well, thanks for letting me vent.

[DizneyRox]

I can't help but think it's the "Hurry up and wait" mentality of today. Plus a lot of people are in a rush to get divorced, and you can't get divorced until you get married.

Got married when I was 31, knew my SO since high school, and been happily married for quite a few years now. Nothing wrong with waiting, I would argue it's the right thing to do.

[goofiecrazy]

Dont feel bad at all i was engaged for 2 yrs be fore we got married.I met him in 94 and and we got married in 2002!I would say just start getting price ideas on everything and go from there.Try looking into places where u wouldnt think of like a grocery store florist for ur flowers places like that.

[MissStyles]

When it comes to planning weddings....you're going to get more opinions than you ever thought you would.......you have to seriously just ignore it as much as possible. There is no appropriate length of time for engagement - it's what you're comfortable with and that's what counts. As far as the actual wedding....would eloping really be something you want to do or do you really want to have a ceremony/reception etc. etc. At the heart of everything you have to just do it how you want....this unfortunately is only the beginning of all the comments you're going to be getting (even though they aren't intending to hurt you). I'm in the midst of planning a wedding myself (The engagement will be 20 months)........and it's going to be extremely untraditional/simple/small to keep costs down. I can only imagine the comments I'm going to get about my dress (it's brightly colored, not white).....I hope they are all positive but I know the extreme "traditionalists" will have their opinions. But I just keep telling myself it's what we want....and that's all that counts. I'd rather save my money for the future rather than just that one day. I've heard it goes by extremely fast anyway. So just keep doing what you're doing, it sounds like you are approaching this in a very smart way. And feel free to vent to me anytime via pm!

[LauraF]

Oh dear - I totally understand. I have a lot of friends/coworkers like that. They can't understand why I'd wait to marry my BF when we've been dating for nearly 4 years now, and usually tell me so in no uncertain terms. Some of them will never understand so I just smile and ignore them. For the truly obnoxious ones who don't take the hint, I tell them if they'd like to pay for my wedding, I'd be happy to consider getting married at their convenience. That always shuts them up.

Unfortunately we all don't have the perfect fairytale princess story once we get engaged like our culture leads us to believe it should be if we're to be happy. (You notice how you never see Cinderella and Prince Charming fighting over wedding favors?) Sometimes we have to wait for money, or family, or jobs, or kids, or any of a hundred other things before we can have a big ceremony and/or wedding. That's called life. When the wedding ceremeony and hoopla is more important than who you're marrying . . . sigh . . . no wonder we have so many divorces.

Hang in there - some people will never understand, but can still be good friends anyway. Remember to trust in yourself and your choices.

[Tick-Tock]

I'd rather save my money for the future rather than just that one day. I've heard it goes by extremely fast anyway.

That's very true. Most of my wedding day is a blur. We were so busy talking to people that we never even got to see the buffet that we agonized over and I got to admire the flowers only briefly.

[Stitchahula]

I was asked" why so fast" when I got engaged. we were being married 11 months after we got engaged. I really liked my wedding but we didn't feel the need to impress anyone we did what we wanted to do. Needless to say we were paying for it ourselves. Still though I think about the amount of money we spent and I'm shocked we spent that for 1 day. That was 13 years ago and people are spending at least double if not more now. Try to remember that your wedding is 1 day.It's really the memories that count so if you can get by with less expensive memories but still nice even better. As for your friends saying something about how long of an engagement you have tell them you would be happy to move up the date if they would be so kind as to pick up the bill for the wedding. If they consider that you have to pay for it yourselves and are not having someone else do maybe they will instead help think of things to keep the cost down for you and still make it beautiful when the time comes.