Short engagement vs. long engagement?

[NaNi]

I don't care really. I wouldn't mind either. It just depends on your situation, I guess. I also think that you should only get engaged if you seriously want to get married. I wouldn't just get engaged for the fun of it.

[lucybelle]

Never really thought about it. But I do think we'd need a good year to make sure everything gets in order.

Also, I do think that being engaged is a new step. If being together was always the same, why get married at all? Moving from boyfriend-girlfriend to fiances to husband-wife all brings new meaning to the realtionship. It shouldn't change who you are, but I do think it creates a new... 'feel' perhaps.

[kiara_silver]

If in engaged I would want to be married within a year of being asked to marry. I wouldn't want my engagement to just be said and then be engaged for years and years. Might as well have just waited. That being said, with the whole LDR it might be hard to plan anything in a specific time frame. It possibly could take longer..... But thats just my own time frame. Within a year, so is a short i guess?

[Sora1101]

I never really thought about it but when my SO proposed to me it was to say "hey I want you in my life, I want you to be mine and no one else's" with that said we don't consider ourselves to be engaged, I still call him my boyfriend and whatnot I think he just wanted to ask to let me know he was planning to someday so I wouldn't feel so insecure with the distance.

He said he wasn't going to "officially" propose until we were ready to actually take that next step and start planning the wedding.

[elina]

I feel like getting engaged is a step up in the relationship, more so than just a pre-wedding stage. Sure, it's a promise that you will eventually get married, but I don't think you have to get married straight after.
Sometimes you hear stories about some teenagers getting engaged without any real intentions of getting married, they do it because they want to be cool and act like they're adults. I think that's ridiculous. If you get engaged, it should lead somewhere, unless something unexpected happens.

I don't know if it's because of our culture, but I wouldn't mind a longer engagement. In Finland you don't necessarily start planning the wedding straight after the engagement, I reckon. It's normal to stay engaged 1-3 years instead. I don't see anything wrong with it anyway, especially if you're still LD and it won't make sense/you can't get married soon or even a few years after.
I think a year or so would be something I'd aim for. I guess my SO thinks we shouldn't wait that long though, at least the last time we talked about it We'll see what happens!

[Sharon Q]

I feel getting engaged is a step up in the relationship.
I'm one for long term engagement being 6 months or longer
However I think being engaged for two years would be a little long.

Depending on the situation I would use the time to plan the wedding but it depends on the situation.

[Karringtyn]

Definitely depends on situation. We have been engaged 19 months...and we are now living together...but no marriage date set yet ....each couple is different...

[Riyko]

I want a longer engagement between 1-2 years that way there is a chance to plan the wedding and it'll be more relaxed with the planning instead of rushed and stressed.

[Kerry]

it depends on what you're definition is of short and long engagement are. I consider short 6 months and under and long is 6 months and over. I think being engaged is both the next level of a relationship and time to start planning a wedding, especially if you both have a time frame in mind. for instance, I know I'm going to marry my bf but he hasn't proposed to me yet. once he does I will start trying on dresses (I'm kinda excited about this)! I hope once we're engaged we'll then talk about approximately when we'll marry. I wouldn't mind being married by this time next year but I don't know what he thinks.

[iloveacarpenter]

For my SO and I, we are already committed to marrying each other after I graduate, so getting engaged doesn't up our committment level, it just lets everyone else know our plans and allows us to start officially planning the wedding. But, we have decided not to be engaged yet for a few different reasons. First, a lot of expectations come along with being engaged. We are long-distance for now while I fnished up college, so planning a wedding and doing all the 'engaged couple' stuff is really difficult. Honestly, we don't want to deal with it until we have to. Secondly, we are saving sex until after we get married. And yes, it is probably one of the more difficult things we've done. Adding the element of being engaged, thus getting married soon, makes it so much more difficult. We are really set on not compromising and not being officially engaged really helps us keep to our committment. When we do get engaged, it will be about 6 months before I graduate, and we plan on getting married soon after that if everything goes according the plan. Sometimes I get worried that I won't be able to plan my wedding that fast especially since I'll be 700 miles away, but it is the best decision for us.

[princessmeg1328]

My SO and I talk about getting married a lot, but we aren't engaged as of right now. We're planning on having a longer engagement (probably 2 years minimum), but that's because we have other things that we both need to accomplish separately before we make the big move, especially as we're an international couple. He wants to buy a house and "have somewhere to take his bride home to." I need to work and have some sort of experience before moving to England. During this time, we want to have be engaged because we are going to make that committment together. Just because you can't start your life together yet doesn't mean that you can't start preparing for it. For me personally if we were still boyfriend/girlfriend, I would not watch the money I make as carefully as I would if we were engaged because it's still for me. When we're engaged, it's more for us to start preparing for our lives together. That's just my opinion though.

[CanadianGirl]

OP here and really interesting answers from everyone

My theory so far: I'm thinking every couple really gets engaged twice. First, when you both let each other know that you fully intend to commit and once more, when you let the rest of the world in on it (give/get a ring, propose, dance in the streets, etc.). The first engagement can be as long as possible really. The second one is like starting the clock, because everyone is waiting on you now. People seem to get sick of the term "fiance" pretty fast (..and I feel another question thread coming on..). And still, that "second" engagement can last for years if you're not too fussed about what other people think.

I'm leaning towards a long engagement (party for the time we need to close the distance and partly because I want wedding planning to be fun). Probably 2 1/2 years for an official engagement. I'd say engagement is another step in the relationship. Not something you do for the hell of it, or to brag about, but it's a pretty definite turning point

[elizabethjp2010]

I like the idea of longer engagements, it gives family and friends plenty of time to save up, and it gives you and your SO plenty of time to save up and not depend on parents to pay for everything

[Zephii]

Somepeople get engaged for the sake of being engaged, and I personally don't agree with that. I think it's time to actively plan a wedding. Why be engaged if you're not ready -in every way- to get married?
My faith requires I live with my SO for a year and a day before I should legally marry him, so I think a year is a good amount of time to be engaged. I can't imagine planning a wedding in under six months, and neither of us would want to be engaged for a year and a half or more. (Our engagement will be a year and a month, and Obi thought that was a bit too long.)

[folclor]

well, if I were to get engaged I'd like to get married at some point between six months and a year, depending on when the engagement happens. If the engagement happened in winter we'd have to wait until summer since my family and friends would not be able to stand the cold and I would not put them through winter weather here just for a wedding. ^^;; if we got engaged in summer, however, I would take advantage of the complete year to plan it since that'd be best.