The time between when you got engaged and your wedding day should be some of the most exciting times of your life. You’ve got big news to share with your friends and family. You’ll be retelling the story of the proposal over and over. And your love story is really just beginning.
While there’s a lot of wedding planning stuff that couples work on during this period, you should also make sure that you take time for fun activities.
Hold an Engagement Party
Engagement parties are a traditional way to get your families together to celebrate your good news. You don’t have to stick to the traditional-style engagement party and can make this type of party whatever you want it to be by adding a fun theme.
Take Ring Pics
Get as much mileage out of your engagement ring as you can by taking lots of pictures. This special sparkly gift signifies a big moment in your life. Make the smiles and happy tears last by posing with your new bling.
Get Engagement Photos Taken
Schedule a photo session with a professional photographer to have your engagement photos taken. You’ll be able to relive this time in your life every time you look back at the images, and you may want to have them for engagement announcements or for wedding invitations.
Pick a Wedding Hashtag
Make sure that your friends, family and guests will all see what’s taking place online surrounding your special day by designating a wedding hashtag. Get creative and have some fun with it. Try a playful combination of your names, a play on your last name(s) or a nickname for you as a couple. Think along the lines of “Bennifer,” the moniker the Hollywood press have given to Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. Here are a few more fun ones we’ve seen couples use.
#FromThisDavisForward
#BandTAreSetForWife
#AmandasMatchMadeInEvan
Get more inspiration here.
Go Wild at Bachelor/Bachelorette Parties
This pre-wedding staple can be so much fun. Historically, a maid of honor and/or a best man would help plan this, but you can certainly take the lead if you want to. Get your besties together for a weekend at Disneyland. Book a few tee times for your foursome in Bandon. Go bar hopping in Nashville. Or come to Vegas and hold court in a Cabana or at the blackjack tables!
Plan Your Honeymoon
Nothing is more fun than a wedding…except a honeymoon. Once all the wedding stuff is over, you’ll finally get some peace and quiet for just the two of you. Whether you decide to take that once in a lifetime trip to Bora Bora or book a campsite in Yosemite, your honeymoon is a time for the two of you to escape, enjoy time together as newlyweds and get as many freebies as possible, thanks to your “Just Married” status. Start planning it now so you can check off all your honeymoon wishlist items later.
Do Double Dates with Couple Friends
Be sure to spend some time with your close couple friends. They’ll want to live vicariously through you as you embark on your new journey together. And if they’re already married, they’ll be able to share stories, tips and tricks for getting the most out of your wedding experience based on what they learned during their own weddings.
Go Out on Fun and Romantic Dates
Being engaged is exciting for couples, and you should harness some of that energy by having some fun and romantic date nights. While you’re out and about having some flirty fun, you can insert the term “my fiance” into conversations with people you run into and get “congratulations” bestowed upon you over and over. Dating, courtship and chivalry shouldn’t come to a halt just because you’re engaged. Making time to go on dates is important.
Do a Wedding-Free/Wedding-Detox Weekend Getaway
You’ll no doubt be spending a ton of time talking about, thinking about, planning for and worrying about anything and everything related to your wedding while you’re engaged. You might start feeling like it’s the only thing that ever happened in history, and basically everyone you talk to will want to talk about it. It can get very overwhelming, and you may just want to shut it all off for a few days. If that happens to you, then that’s a perfect time to have a wedding-free getaway where talking about it is off limits. It’s a good way to reset and come back refreshed and ready to tackle the next few things on your to-do list.
Take Dance Classes
Here’s another flirty and fun thing to do while engaged: dance lessons! Learning a few steps before the wedding can be a lot of fun and you’ll be able to show off your new moves at your wedding reception. Have you made it a habit to watch “Dancing With The Stars”? Now it’s your turn to take the floor.
Take Cooking Classes
If you aren’t already, once you’re married you’ll be eating basically every meal together for the rest of your lives. It pays huge dividends if you both know how to cook. Cooking at home is cheaper and healthier than eating out or ordering in. Plus, cooking can be a lot of fun. It’s a skill you can use every day and, as you get better at it, you’ll love doing it together.
Attend a Wedding Expo/Show
These usually happen in the late fall or early winter prior to the upcoming wedding season of spring and summer. Picture a convention haul or arena filled with vendors offering their services for florals, decorations, hair and makeup services and much more. You’ll usually get a gift bag full of freebies, and most wedding expos have been known to offer some pretty great door prizes and raffle items.
Create Your Wedding Registry
As soon as your friends and family know that you’re engaged, the gifts will start coming. They’ll come even if you don’t ask for them. So you might as well get what you want by creating a registry. Take a couple Saturdays early in your engagement and make appointments at a few of your favorite homegoods stores, hardware stores, big box retailers, furniture stores and any specialty stores you want to add. They’re all on the table for a wedding registry.
Go on Adventures
Get out and do fun things for yourselves. Take a relaxing hike somewhere near home that you keep saying you’ll do some day. Rent a canoe, bring a picnic lunch and paddle around a lake for a few hours. Get lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood while searching for a new pizza place. Volunteer for a local charity the two of you care about. The point of going on adventures is to keep things fresh, keep exploring the world, keep enjoying time together and of course to relieve some stress. When your body and soul feel energized from going on new adventures you’ll be happier and more at peace with the world. It;s a good head space to be in while the days tick by between your engagement and your wedding.
Start a Pinterest Board
Save all your wedding related ideas on a shared Pinterest Board. Find inspiration for decorations, dresses, tuxedos, florals, photography styles, centerpieces and everything else under the sun on Pinterest, and then save it all in a dedicated board. Daydreaming is part of the fun of planning a wedding, and there are endless daydreams to be had by scrolling and clicking your way through Pinterest.
Getting Practical
Check out this blog on more practical list of things to do after getting engaged.
