July 19, 2013

  • The 5 Year Engagement


    I wrote a while ago about how a lot of people from my high school class were getting engaged recently. I was chatting with a friend of mine over coffee the other day about how I couldn't imagine being proposed to right now at this point in my life. If my boyfriend proposed to me right this moment, I'd at least want to be engaged for a couple of years before taking the plunge. Actually if my boyfriend proposed to me right now, I'd pass out. But then I'd be excited after the initial surprise!

    The movie The 5 Year Engagement was on HBO not long ago and it was actually pretty interesting. The couple in the movie, Emily Blunt and Jason Segel, at first said they would postpone their wedding a couple of years so Emily Blunt's character could do post-doctorate research or something along those lines. But as Blunt's career progressed (and as the title suggests), the engagement got longer and longer, the wedding date being pushed farther and farther away.


    The two got so caught up in their careers and life outside of their relationship, that their relationship suffered. I won't spoil the ending for any of you who haven't seen the movie!

    For someone in my situation, a longer engagement would be ideal until I could finish my Masters and find a steady job at minimum. Obviously, marriage is nothing to rush into, and every couple's situation is different. But the movie really got me thinking. My parents were only engaged for a few months before they got married. My mom always said she wishes they had taken more time during their engagement to really enjoy single life before getting married. She said it may not seem like it, but marriage really does change things between two people. 

    Are long engagements the way to go, or are short engagements more preferable? Is there an ideal amount of time that a couple should be engaged before getting married?

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Comments (13)

  • I think it's whatever the couple needs. Some need more time to plan and go through premarital counseling, some need less. My husband and I got married before finishing our bachelor's, and it didn't really effect finishing our degrees. He is getting ready to start his Master's here in a bit. For some people, marriage would be too big of a distraction, and that's fine. It worked for us; it might not work for everyone.

  • I would want to be engaged for a year just for the sake of saying, "I'm engaged" and "this is my Fiancee".Other that that, after like, 3 years, I don't see a difference between boyfriend/girlfriend and engaged. Commitment is commitment. Why are you two together if you don't want to get married? "Enjoy the single life more?" instead of wasting time wishing you had a better relationship with someone else, you should focus on making that relationship better, or learn to appreciate what you have. Chances are, you'd be unhappy dating those people and wishing you were married.

  • I can't say that there is an ideal amount of time to get engaged, and be engaged before making it official.  It really depends on the couple--but I guess it would be hard to convince me that 2 people are ready to get married within 3 months of meeting for the first time, lol.My husband and I didn't get engaged until we had been together for 6 years and even then, we waited another 2 to tie the knot.  That worked for us, but I know people who've been with their significant others shorter amounts of time, and some longer before they got married.  Each couple is different, each couple have different goals and needs.  If a couple is meant to stay together, they will be happy with each other despite when or how they got married.

  • Never got the concept of an engagement. Who has time for a limbo waiting period? You either get married right after the proposal or don't.

  • Aw I really liked the Five Year Engagement! and I love me some Jason Segel :) .My boyfriend believes in a short engagement (less than a year) whereas I wouldn't mind a longer engagement (2+ yrs). But I only really want the long engagement because I want to be engaged to him now lol. But I'll wait because it's the logical thing to do. 

  • My husband and I didn't get engage at all.  We just, well, got married.  But if we did, I wouldn't want a long engagement.

  • 4 month engagement. 35 year marriage. Knew each other 8 months total before marriage. Each case is different. People change so fast between 19 and 25 y/o, I wouldn't suggest getting married then...Don't rush into something as serious as marriage because everyone else is doing it. 

  • @nepenthium@xanga - I think the original concept for time between engagement and wedding was to allowing time for wedding preparations- so for a big wedding, more time would be needed. 

  • The "engagement" should set the clock ticking for the actual wedding- meaning when you get engaged the actual wedding plans should be in the discussion  with a time set in the not so distant future.Extended engagements of years only make sense if the separation is forced such as a military person has to go off into service. Another good reason would be financial, but if one is too financially weak to marry someone, they shouldn't be proposing in the first place. 

  • So funny that I watched this movie with my fiance (boyfriend at the time) without knowing the details. It freaked him out because he's getting his PhD in Genetics and got so scared that the same thing could possibly happen to us when the time comes for him to post-doc. In reality, we only have a one year engagement lol and he was fretting over nothing. 

  • You get engaged when you are ready to get married. Not when you simply wish to make a commitment to someone for an undefined "sometime." If you aren't ready to get married, don't buy or accept a ring. It is only complicated if you create complication. Long engagements mean you were just bf/gf who played pretend for long enough that it either ended in reality or extra heartbreak and hassle. 

  • Hard to say. Like everyone says, it depends on the couple. Still, you shouldn't be engaged too long unless there is a good reason. Like the movie, what was the point in being engaged for 5 years when nothing different happened? In the end, the ring meant nothing. Besides, the longer the person is engaged, the  more it suggests there's trouble in the air and you might never be getting married.

  • I don't understand why people would get engaged to say, "we'll get married sometime, when we're ready, but not right now." If that's the case, don't propose! Don't get engaged. I agree with @SoullFire@xanga, when you get engaged, you start discussions of the marriage plans and take the time in between engagement and wedding to make the necessary arrangements, not to just... be engaged. That has never made sense to me and if someone ever proposed to me before I wanted to get married, I'd say no, or I'd tell them I want to wait, even if I saw myself spending the rest of my life with them, instead of saying yes and still wanting to wait.

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