You think that when you get engaged that nothing really changes aside from the fact you've both agreed to get married. I didn't think I'd feel different, but I've noticed that interactions with friends and family have been different in a good way. I didn't realise how many people would congratulate us and ask questions. I didn't think my position in my fiancé's family would change or that our Christmas cards would have different writing on. Here are a few of the things I've noticed in the past month.

All The Questions

So many people who are even really close to us wanted to ask us loads of questions about how it happened, where it was, did we already have a date for the wedding. I know people would always love to find out about it but I think as it wasn't a huge leap for us as we already what we wanted, but it would have seemed like a big step for other people so they would obviously have more questions. I even have questions myself, and we still don't really know what the plan is yet.


Peoples Reactions

When we arrived back from the weekend away, we went on Facetime and spoke to our immediate families to let them know the good news. It was really nice to see peoples reactions and they differed to what we initially thought as some people were much more overwhelmed and animated than what we expected. Some of those who we thought may have seen it coming were actually caught by surprise and others gathered their thoughts and wished us well. We saw the most emotion from Andy's Dad and Brother, and it took us by surprise too. It was one of the happiest days sharing our news with others and it makes me so excited to be married.

Feel like we have to plan everything now

As we are currently saving for a house we knew that we wouldn't be getting married for at least two or three years. Even though there was no immediate need to start looking at things, I felt like I needed to start planning it all out and be able to know where it was going to be, what date and so on. This may have come with multiple people asking these type of questions which meant I started to think about this more and more. Once it's official that you're engaged you want to buy a planner and get to it, almost to get ahead. I must say it has been exciting, especially making Pinterest boards about weddings.

Having a party

We wanted to celebrate once we had got engaged and thought that we may have had our own house by this point so would have invited people around. As we haven't been able to get a house just yet, we ended up booking a function room and have invited friends and family so everyone could get to know each other as some of that had not yet had the chance to meet. I've loved picking up some cute decorations as I'd like to room to look nice and be a nice event to have to celebrate our engagement. It's an important event too, as we're actually introducing a lot of each other's families to one another. Having family with a 2-hour gap in between means only some people have had the chance to meet. Hopefully it all runs smoothly!

Looking at the ring

Whenever someone gets engaged, its kind of natural to have a little nosy at the ring but I wasn't quite expecting how much people would want to see it. After arriving at Andy's mum's when we went to visit and the first thing she did was to grab my hand and have a look at the ring. Whenever anyone else would come in who we hadn't yet seen, they'd ask for a little look to which was quite odd for me. I even met Andy's Aunt for the first time and she immediately wanted to have a look. I think because my ring is rose gold with little silver natural diamonds and a morganite stone, it's something quite different to what older generations have seen. It is so me though and I'm over the moon with it.


Being asked about wedding party

As with most weddings, there will be a wedding party to go with the bride and groom. We already know who the maid of honour and best man are but another thing we have realised is that we need to think about who else will be in the bridal party now so that we can start to plan out other things related to this. How many people will we have on each side? Will the numbers be even? Do they need to all be of a certain age or will we allow children? Who knows. There is definitely a huge pressure to include particular people in the wedding party but we've agreed that we're not going to choose before the engagement party purely just to relieve some of the weight on our shoulders about it.