Elle’s Bridal Diary: To Engagement Party or Not to Engagement Party?

One of the many highlights of the day we got engaged happened long after my Bear drove me to my favourite beach, treated me to yummy lunch and went down on both knees making me by far the most elated little girl in the world.

The surprises kept coming. On our way home Bear had me wear a blindfold explaining that he had another small surprise waiting at his house. I expected to see my parents, I hoped to see my parents as all I really wanted to do was hug someone and share my joy. That said, I knew I would be happy with whatever he had up his sleeve knowing that nothing could pull me down from my cloud.

As I suspected, I recognized my father’s laughter as we entered. What exceeded my expectations was the sight of my entire family, siblings and their spouses, my mentor, my soon to be in-laws, a few close friends and food, so much food. There it was: a celebration of our engagement with our nearest and dearest and I didn’t have to plan a thing.

This may sound like a small affair but when I say close family and friends it includes more than 40 people, and when I say food I’m talking about savoury fish, meat and pastry platters, baked pudding and cupcakes decorated with our photos.

Engagement party √ (tick)

And yet, people wanted to know when we would have our official engagement party.

I spoke to some other engaged folk and share their reasons for having an engagement party:

“We could not have as many people at our wedding as we would’ve liked to include and had a party to share this time with them.”

“Honestly, our main motivation was gifts“

“We got engaged while on an overseas trip and wanted to officially announce our pending nuptials with our closest.”

While these are valid reasons to extend the celebrations my Bear and I decided against having an official engagement party. We are blessed with amazing families and friends who did a wonderful job at putting together a great evening enjoyed by everyone. AND they did so without me suspecting a thing! The time we got to share with them, freshly engaged and floating on clouds above was the best possible start to this journey.

I would love to hear from you. Do you think we missed out by not having a big celebration? What are some other reasons for having an engagement party?

Read more from Elle as she plans her wedding in our Bride to Be section.