Planning but not engaged

Have anyone ever done this? Please tell me your experience.

Me and SO are planning our wedding even though we are not officially engaged yet. It is exciting yet feels a little weird since I can't really tell anyone that we're planning our wedding. And the fact that I'm not officially his fiance is a bit of a downer... but we'll see how that goes.

so he gets a free pass? He doesn't have to buy you a pretty ring and think of some special way to ask you?

Lucky guy...or you're selling yourself short

Well I made it crystal clear that I need a ring before I actually do all the bookings and stuff, but I know he's not going to give me a ring before our parents met (according to our culture his parents have to come over and officially come to my parents to ask my hand in marriage). Our parents will meet this December, and with the fact that he will want the proposal to be a surprise I don't think I'll get the ring until later than December. So it's all a waiting game now. :/ But he wants to get married by October next year, so I thought I'll just have all the blueprints for the wedding and as soon as we're officially engaged we'll just get rolling and book everything then. If we wait for January next year to start doing all the research we won't book anything till March or so, and by then all the good places have been booked. :/

Sounds like your focus is on the thrill of a wedding ... and not the marriage.



My suggestion to you would be not to get close to any sharp objects.

Posted by P-Angel
Sounds like your focus is on the thrill of a wedding ... and not the marriage.

Could you elaborate your sentence there, as to WHY you said it? What makes you think that my focus is on the thrill of a wedding? I'd be interested to see the logic behind that statement.

Posted by 69virgo
I brought the ring,had a meeting with my wife's dad..a pisces"he grilled me on all the stuff I should and shouldn't do to his "only child"lmao because its funny now...he said I could...then I came home,got down on one knee,said all these lovely words from the heart,she looked at me all crazy 'aqua" cried then said yes...I don't know if she was crying because she was losing her freedom lmao..or because the ring was so nice.😉

Lol both probably? 😄 Wow that's pretty unusual for guys to come to the parents first before proposing (in western culture, which I'm assuming you're from), still I think it is very nice of you. 🙂

Posted by moneyliciouss
Well I made it crystal clear that I need a ring before I actually do all the bookings and stuff, but I know he's not going to give me a ring before our parents met (according to our culture his parents have to come over and officially come to my parents to ask my hand in marriage). Our parents will meet this December, and with the fact that he will want the proposal to be a surprise I don't think I'll get the ring until later than December. So it's all a waiting game now. :/ But he wants to get married by October next year, so I thought I'll just have all the blueprints for the wedding and as soon as we're officially engaged we'll just get rolling and book everything then. If we wait for January next year to start doing all the research we won't book anything till March or so, and by then all the good places have been booked. :/

well it's not about the ring.
That's not what I meant.

I think I misunderstood what you meant.
You don't consider yourself "engaged" until your parents meet according to culture.
I'm American, you're engaged if he/she proposes and you agree.


I don't see anything wrong with you planning before your parents meet since you have already made your decision anyways

Posted by LoveBucket

Posted by moneyliciouss
Have anyone ever done this? Please tell me your experience.

Me and SO are planning our wedding even though we are not officially engaged yet. It is exciting yet feels a little weird since I can't really tell anyone that we're planning our wedding. And the fact that I'm not officially his fiance is a bit of a downer... but we'll see how that goes.

Why can't you announce it to the world that you're getting married, especially when you're so excited about it? You're not waiting for him to end a current relationship because you're lined of to be his next are you?? Ring or no ring, if you feel strong about your decision to marry him, why keep it a secret?

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Lol of course not. My SO is one of those gentlemen left in the world, otherwise he'd have a hard time convincing me that he's the one. 😛

This might sound silly but I don't want people to think that I'm a weirdo for planning a wedding before he even proposed (with a ring). :/ I do tell some of my best friends but I haven't really made any formal announcement yet. I don't want people to ask me since when I've been engaged (which already happened with the lady who I scheduled the appointment to look at the wedding venue) and then not knowing the answer. Know what I mean??

Posted by Norcalman67
Yes, there are a few gentleman left in the world. We occasionally listen to you girls.

Was told by my GF (before the proposal), "Do Not get me an engagement ring!" That really made coming up with a proper substitute difficult. The internet was not help in finding a proper substitute. Finally it dawned on me to write a letter, from the heart. I read that letter to her after the proposal answer was yes. The funny thing was, in not getting a diamond ring I had to really think outside of the box.

The funny thing is, after the proposal my mother gave me her diamond ring as a 'welcome to the family' gesture. So, in the end all worked out very well.

Just curious, why didn't she want an engagement ring? I thought jewelry are girls best friend lol.

Posted by brianafay


well it's not about the ring.
That's not what I meant.

I think I misunderstood what you meant.
You don't consider yourself "engaged" until your parents meet according to culture.
I'm American, you're engaged if he/she proposes and you agree.


I don't see anything wrong with you planning before your parents meet since you have already made your decision anyways

Ok, so here is the thing, we're one of those couples that know that we'll get married someday few months after our relationship started. We've been talking about getting married and kids since I can't remember when. SO has been asking me when his parents could come over to see mine since few months ago. I've been having family issues though so it's just now that we can set a date for our parents to meet. But no bend-on-one-knee proposal thing, no diamond ring yet. Hence it's hard for me to consider it official.

I've done some research so I'll know what to book as soon as we are officially engaged, but as I mentioned I haven't put any deposit or actually booked anything yet.

Lol wait. So he never actually asked you to marry him...you've just had discussions about it?
I'm confused. I discuss getting married with my Libra sometimes but I don't consider us engaged simply because we agree that we'd like to get married one day.
I'm not gonna just go out and start planning it when I'm ready...I'm gonna wait for him to proper propose to me so I know he is ready too

Ok it's kind of hard to explain, I hide my post because it just sounded even more confusing with it. But bottomline is we agreed to get married next year. About how the heck that we come to that agreement, honestly I don't remember. I don't remember him asking me with poem or anything, so it must be a casual conversation that leads to mutual agreement.

Anyway, as I said I'm not going to book anything but we are checking out the venues and I want to at least have some ideas on the decorations and all that. I don't want to still have to juggle between options when the time comes since most likely things will booked up very quickly. Plus, I want to get all the financials mapped out so we know what our actual options are (this is the most important I think).

So I guess I'm the only one who's ever done this? Ladies??

You thinking of & sort of planning the wedding beforehand is not so weird as it sounds. Hell, some people plan their weddings (even if it's just in their heads) before they're even in a relationship with someone period!

If I were you, I def. wouldn't be investing any finances towards the wedding just yet (booking places, buying dresses, flowers, etc.) but saving money for your big day is a good idea

That way if you guys don't work out, how could saving money ever hurt ya? And if things do work out, great, now you have all the money you need for your wedding

It'd be different if he didn't have a legit reason for why he hasn't gotten you the ring yet, but he does so don't listen to everyone else whose telling you that your love is somehow less real all b/c of the ironic circumstances

And I agree with what someone said above. Don't be so enticed with the actual wedding that you forget to continue focusing on the quality of your relationship & potential marriage.

Posted by moneyliciouss

Posted by P-Angel
Sounds like your focus is on the thrill of a wedding ... and not the marriage.

Could you elaborate your sentence there, as to WHY you said it? What makes you think that my focus is on the thrill of a wedding? I'd be interested to see the logic behind that statement.

click to expand

I think she's saying that it seems you're bit too concerned about how your marriage should transpire rather than actually being with the man.

Posted by krysrenee7
You thinking of & sort of planning the wedding beforehand is not so weird as it sounds. Hell, some people plan their weddings (even if it's just in their heads) before they're even in a relationship with someone period!

If I were you, I def. wouldn't be investing any finances towards the wedding just yet (booking places, buying dresses, flowers, etc.) but saving money for your big day is a good idea

That way if you guys don't work out, how could saving money ever hurt ya? And if things do work out, great, now you have all the money you need for your wedding

It'd be different if he didn't have a legit reason for why he hasn't gotten you the ring yet, but he does so don't listen to everyone else whose telling you that your love is somehow less real all b/c of the ironic circumstances

And I agree with what someone said above. Don't be so enticed with the actual wedding that you forget to continue focusing on the quality of your relationship & potential marriage.

Yes, I totally agree with you about the finance thing. I'm not going to put a down payment on anything, at this stage it will just be research and to get a better idea about what we want.

And I'll take yours and everyone else's suggestion about not losing focus in the relationship. Reason why I'm so excited is because we've been waiting for this moment for a long time, we've been wanting to take the our relationship to the next stage but couldn't because of various reasons. And now it's finally coming... and I just want everything to be right on our big day.

Posted by Amandus

Posted by moneyliciouss

Posted by P-Angel
Sounds like your focus is on the thrill of a wedding ... and not the marriage.

Could you elaborate your sentence there, as to WHY you said it? What makes you think that my focus is on the thrill of a wedding? I'd be interested to see the logic behind that statement.

I think she's saying that it seems you're bit too concerned about how your marriage should transpire rather than actually being with the man.

click to expand

Oh no worries I know what she meant. My question was why she made those claims. I'd be interested to see how her thinking process was to get into that conclusion.

Posted by Norcalman67

Posted by moneyliciouss

Posted by Norcalman67
Yes, there are a few gentleman left in the world. We occasionally listen to you girls.

Was told by my GF (before the proposal), "Do Not get me an engagement ring!" That really made coming up with a proper substitute difficult. The internet was not help in finding a proper substitute. Finally it dawned on me to write a letter, from the heart. I read that letter to her after the proposal answer was yes. The funny thing was, in not getting a diamond ring I had to really think outside of the box.

The funny thing is, after the proposal my mother gave me her diamond ring as a 'welcome to the family' gesture. So, in the end all worked out very well.

Just curious, why didn't she want an engagement ring? I thought jewelry are girls best friend lol.

1. Waste of Money in this economy
&
2. She did not want the standard diamond ring (any other stone but if it had to be a ring).

That's what makes the story so funny. She got a welcome to the family endorsement from the dreaded Mother-in-Law.

click to expand

Lol, I guess she is right in a sense, diamond isn't really a good investment. Regardless, I still want my ring lol. 😄

Are you a Gem btw, Norcalman?

I get it. There's nothing wrong with planning. In fact, that's how alot of marriages either never get off the ground at all or end up in divorce.

Wanting your big day to be a special 1 is not the same as only caring about the actual wedding itself. It's possible to actually care about the person you're marrying, the marriage AND the actual wedding all at the same time.

The key is in not focusing on only 1 of those aspects & instead investing in all 3

Posted by krysrenee7
I get it. There's nothing wrong with planning. In fact, that's how alot of marriages either never get off the ground at all or end up in divorce.

Wanting your big day to be a special 1 is not the same as only caring about the actual wedding itself. It's possible to actually care about the person you're marrying, the marriage AND the actual wedding all at the same time.

The key is in not focusing on only 1 of those aspects & instead investing in all 3

I got you. I appreciate your input (including your prev post), you provide a very well rounded and logical view regarding this whole thing. Thank you. 🙂