Congratulations on your engagement! After saying that big “yes” and sharing your engagement news with the world – courtesy of a well-timed ring selfie, it can be all too easy to think the next step in your journey to the altar is to plan your wedding as fast as you can.
Many engaged, newlywed, and married couples share one regret – that they may not have enjoyed their engagement as much as they should have. Being just engaged is a milestone that should be cherished without the worry of planning a wedding. Here’s why the best advice we can give to any engaged couple is not to rush…
Because engagement is as special as marriage
Becoming engaged is often just seen as a stepping stone to getting married, but it’s a momentous occasion in its own right. Your relationship may feel different as a result, even if you’ve been together for a while.
Here The Knot explains how your newly engaged status could affect your relationship:
“A marriage proposal is exciting, but it’s also serious. You’ve just agreed to commit to one another—for forever. Our Advice: Work out the nitty-gritty details you may have only touched upon when you were dating. Decide what you’ll do for holidays every year, whether you want kids and where you want to live long term. Even if plans change, it’s good to know where you both stand now.”
Because it’s perfect practice for married life
Many couples see the period between engagement and marriage as a great time to test the waters of their relationship.
Enjoying a long engagement and treating it as a practice run can unlock many benefits in the short and long term. It’ll give you more time to prepare yourself and your relationship for married life.
Because it’s all about the bigger picture
As well as getting to know your partner more deeply, not rushing wedding planning can provide more time to get to know the special people in your fiancé’s life.
Whether it’s living away from home or simply time that’s got in the way of getting to know the friends and family of your partner properly, you can dedicate more time to developing these relationships whilst enjoying your engagement.
Because it’ll make wedding planning less stressful
Newly engaged couples in less of a rush to tie the knot tend to experience less stress. If your wedding date isn’t too far away and there’s limited time to get organised, you’ll be more inclined to let wedding planning take over and this can cause fractures in the relationship.
A particularly stressful part of wedding planning is devising and sticking to a budget. By not rushing things, you’ll be giving yourself more time to get your financial ducks in a row and eventually have more money available to organise the wedding day you’ve always dreamed of.
Because there are so many ways to celebrate
Every newly engaged couple should make the most of being engaged! Engagement celebrations shouldn’t be bogged down by how tight your wedding budget is and how many tasks you’ve got on your never-ending planning to-do list.
Don’t rush into wedding planning, instead spend some time enjoying that just engaged feeling. You can do this together and with the friends and family that will be there with you when your wedding day finally arrives.
Plan a romantic break, book an engagement shoot, throw an engagement party, enjoy a few date nights, or take a trip down memory lane by getting those old photo albums out to make it the special occasion it should be
Not rushing into wedding planning is just one thing to avoid in those early days of engagement, here are more don’ts for newly engaged couples.
