TJ asked me to be his wife three years ago today! I honestly can’t believe how quickly these three years have gone by, but I also can hardly remember what it was like to just be his girlfriend. Time is funny like that. I’ve written an engagement post on every November 6th, so I’m excited to keep that tradition going. (You can find 2012 here and 2013 here)

Today I want to talk about short engagements. TJ and I got married on April 20, 2012 – 5 months and two weeks after getting engaged, which is pretty short compared to most engagements. I wouldn’t go back and change a thing, so I thought it’d be fun to talk about some of the pros and cons of short engagements.

Pros:
1. Get right to the fun part. I think that being married is WAY more fun than being engaged, so by keeping the engagement short, you can get to the fun part, and skip over the stressful planning stuff.

2. It’s less annoying for your friends and family. What I mean is that when you have a long engagement, you usually have an engagement party, tons of showers, and other pre-wedding events that your friends and families are supposed to attend. This can get expensive and time-consuming, and can be a bit of a pain. When you have a short engagement, there’s not enough time for so many events! I had one regular shower and one lingerie shower, and it was plenty.

3. It can be cheaper. When your wedding date is only a few months after you get engaged, you don’t need save the dates – you can just send out invitations about two months out and you’re done. Also, as I mentioned above, you won’t have as many pre-wedding events to attend, which means you won’t need as many new outfits to wear to them.

4. There’s less time to stress. It might seem like having a short engagement period would be more stressful, since you’re on a tight timeline, but I think that it gave me less time to stress. I had to make decisions more quickly because of the time crunch, which gave me less time to stress about whether or not I was making the right choices. It eliminated a lot of the back and forth on decision-making for me, and as a result, I was less stressed out overall.

Cons:
1. It can be more expensive. This kind of goes against one of the pros, but it just kind of depends on your venue and where you get your dress. Some venues charge a fee for last minute bookings (I think?!), and some dress shops require a certain time period for ordering your dress. I didn’t run into these issues, but I imagine some people with a short engagement have.

2. It can feel rushed. You’re (usually) only engaged once, so the idea that it’s over so quickly can feel kind of sad and rushed. It is a special time, and when there’s a lot of planning going on in a short time, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that it’s going by so quickly.

3. People can be judge-y about it. We didn’t really deal with this too much, but you will likely run into people who like to question why you’re rushing so much. I can imagine that this would get annoying after a while.

4. Your options may be limited. If you have very specific ideas of what you want for your wedding, you may not being able to get them in a short time frame. I wasn’t too picky about things, but if you know you absolutely want something specific, get on it quickly!

Did you have a long or short engagement? Would you do anything differently? If you’re not married or engaged yet, do you think you’d rather have a short or long engagement?

TJ: thanks again for asking me to be your wife three years ago today – it was the start of the best days of our lives, and I’ve loved every single minute of it! xoxo