I hate the word "should." That being said, women hear more than our fair share of them. Like, should you still be in your relationship? Should you move in with your significant other? Should you love him more? Should you love him less? Should you be getting engaged soon? And, of course, when you do get engaged, how long should you be engaged for? And these can all fall from the mouths of total strangers!
In a recent Reddit AskWomen thread, ladies shared how long they were engaged to their now-spouses before tying the knot and, let me tell you, there really is no right answer here.
Maybe a month. One night he just said, “I want to spend my life with you.” We were watching tv and i just turned over and said, “aww, samesies.” Smh 🤦🏽♀️ He bought me a ring a couple weeks later. Once we tried to plan out our wedding we though it was too much and just went to city hall the following week.
Over two years. We got engaged in August of 2014 and married in May of 2017. My husband was in grad school so we wanted to wait until he was done.
4 years, we got engaged as students and waited until we could afford it.
i think there wasn't a lot of pressure to hurry up and do it because here, both partners wear a ring. so people see it as more of a solid commitment and treat you as all-but married. breaking engagements is pretty rare; every time i've seen it happen, there were no rings involved, just promises.
1 year. Engaged in the fall, married the following fall. Rationale = preferred weather, preferred venue availability, and work schedules.
6 months. We basically got engaged to notify everyone that wedding planning was beginning.
5 days. He proposed at the end of the year and then mentioned we'd save a lot of money on taxes if we got married before the new year. We saved a lot of money on taxes. We've been married going on 11 years.
Depends on how you look at it, but less than a year regardless:
Booked the wedding in February. Got officially engaged in March. Got legally married in August. Had our wedding in January.
14 months. He proposed right around Christmas and we got married the following February. It wasn't too long or too short. It felt perfect!
3 months
Knew we wanted to get married, didn’t want to wait.
It was creative but we did a wedding for about 250 people for around $5k. This was 15 years ago in the midwest.
Our Hawaiian honeymoon cost more which we put on credit cards. Dumb dumb dumb but fun. Paid that off a long time ago.
9 years. Vows are hard man.
5 months. Got engaged in May. Wedding is in September. We are paying for it all ourselves including the outfits for best man and maid of honor. It's a small wedding. We're cooking and bringing the food for everyone ourselves too. It's all been planned and booked. Took us maybe a few weeks and that was it. Neither of us see much point in a long engagement. Only get engaged when you're ready to be married, so we did.
My wedding is in 10 days, which will make a total engagement length of 78 days! It's been absolute insanity planning our wedding, but I don't think more time would've helped with that! It's forced us to really prioritize and not spend more than is necessary.
About 3 months. We spent about $500 on the wedding, and had a fabulous honeymoon.
5 years...truthfully, I didn't really care if we never got married...I would have been with him forever anyway. It was just a formality.
See? I told you! There's no right answer here, people. Be engaged for however long you want to be. Life's too short to be worried about what you "should" do.
Check out the entire Gen Why series and other videos on Facebook and the Bustle app across Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.
Check out the “Best of Elite Daily” stream in the Bustle App for more stories just like this!
