Engaged Now What, Engagement Party Planning Advice, Engagement Party Planning Tips

Engaged Now What Engagement Party Planning (Part Two)

11. How Much Should it Cost?

The issue of cost is one the two of you will have to work out together. Truthfully, it depends on your budget. There are many ways to save money when throwing an engagement party. To save money, you will have to do more work yourself, though. So, it becomes a balance between costs and labor. How much do you want to spend? How much do you want to do?

12. What do You Need to Order or Make?

An engagement party usually requires some type of food and drink. You can splurge on decorations or party favors, if you wish, but most people are content with just the basics. The type of food and drink is up to you, and will largely depend on your budget. Also, you may want to send out printed invitations, perhaps as a method of both announcing your engagement and inviting guests, but a simple telephone invite will also work and will save time and money.

13. Ways of Lowering Costs

To lower costs hold your engagement party at a family member or friend’s house. Provide hors d’Oeuvres and champagne instead of full course meals and fancy cocktails. Invite guests via the telephone instead of paying postage to mail invitations. Having a smaller party is always a good idea, too. You can also ask guests to bring something small for a potluck dinner so you don’t have to provide everything.

14. Deciding Who to Invite

Deciding who to invite can be problematic. You don’t want to invite someone to your engagement party who you won’t want to invite to the wedding. Also, if you limit the attendance to your party, you run the risk of leaving someone out. It’s hard to invite one friend without the other. A simple way to restrict the guest list is to limit it to family only so no feelings are hurt. Or, you can limit it to friends and family who live near you.

15. When to Hold Your Engagement Party

The engagement party is traditionally held one to three months after the engagement. If you are going to wait a year or two before the wedding, you can throw your party later. If you are having a short engagement (less than six months), it is wise to skip the engagement party and just plan your wedding reception.

16. What About Gifts?

Gifts are not a part of your engagement party, and as such you shouldn’t expect them. The engagement party is meant for you to celebrate with friends and family, not to receive anything from them. However, some guests may ask you what you want. Be sure to tell them that gifts are not necessary, but you may want to register for a few small items in case someone insists on bringing something.

17. Registering for Gifts

Register for small items for your engagement party. Do not put anything overly expensive on the list. Make sure to alert any guests who mention that they want to bring gifts where you are registered. However, do not place your registration on invites, as it may make guests feel obligated to buy you something.

18. Alternative Gifts

Another nice way to handle the gift-giving problem is to not register at all, but to ask guests who insist on buying something to donate to a charity in your name. You can do this by informing any guests who inquire about gifts which charity you’d like to donate to. This way, you don’t have to handle gifts at your party and you’ve done something good for the community.

19. Handling Gifts at the Party

Place gifts in a separate room where guests won’t notice them. Gifts are not meant to be the focus of the engagement party. If guests notice a pile of gifts, they may feel guilty if they haven’t purchased one for you. On the same note, do not open the gifts at your party. You can thank those guests who did bring gifts privately by speaking to them individually and sending thank you cards.

20. Sending Thank You Notes

Thank you notes are an important part of any occasion. They show that you are a gracious host and are appreciative of the gifts and the guests who gave them. Purchase thank you cards printed on a high quality paper and hand write each one, individually tailoring it to each person. Put in a personal note, even if it’s just mentioning what gift they gave you, to show the recipient that the thank you was written specifically for them.

21. Simple Touches to Personalize Your Engagement Party

Some couples like to personalize their party. One easy way to do this is to get monogrammed napkins or serve M&M’s with your initials on them (you can purchase them custom made on the M&M’s website: www.m-ms.com). If you know the date of your wedding when you throw your engagement party, you might want to hand deliver the wedding invitations to your guests during the party. Using table cloths or other decorations with the wedding colors also adds a nice touch.

22. Time Management When Planning Your Engagement Party

Though you want to take some time and celebrate your engagement, you don’t want to focus entirely on planning your engagement party and completely forget to plan your wedding. Especially if your engagement party is a few months into your engagement. Time is precious, and you don’t want to leave the wedding planning to the last minute, so time management is key.

23. Balancing Your Planning Time

While planning your engagement party, you may want to think of big things, like where you want to hold your ceremony or what colors you want to use in your wedding decorations. If you figure these basics out, you can incorporate the ideas into your engagement party, too, as mentioned before. But, early on, you don’t need to plan the intricacies of your ceremony or pick out cakes. Take care of the basics first and enjoy your engagement party before you move on to the details.

24. One Unique Touch Every Engagement Party Should Have

When you get engaged, people always ask the same question: how did he propose? You should expect people to ask this at your engagement party if they haven’t already heard the story. So, it might be nice to write down your story and print it out so people can read. You can also save the story page to include in your wedding album.

25. Take Photos at Your Party

One thing couples often forget in all the excitement of the engagement party is to take pictures. An easy way to solve this problem is to ask a friend or family member to take the pictures for you. Give them a camera and let them know they are in charge of picture taking for the night, if they are willing. This way, you will have photos to commemorate your wonderful party.

Engaged Now What (Part One)

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Engaged Now What Engagement Party Planning (Part Two)

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