At what point do you say you are engaged?

Lola92

Hi all,

There is something that I have been thinking about recently in light of a conversation with a friend of mine. My partner and I are together almost 3 years and we have an amazing daughter. The topic of marriage has come up several times, as you might expect, and we are in agreement that we would both like to get married in the future. We have discussed vague details - what kind of wedding we would like, dresses etc. - mostly after watching some type of wedding related show! No concrete date or even timeline in mind to be honest though.

According to my friend this makes us engaged. So I come to you, the great people of boards.ie to ask - At what point in your relationship do you say you are engaged? What makes an Engagement?

Is it when the ring goes on your finger? When they 'pop the question'? When you say it is what you both would like? When it is announced to family and friends? Should there be a specific proposal?

Another friend had gotten the ring in advance with her partner and was waiting for him to propose before they would be engaged... Is this the norm? I appreciate that different people things differently but what is the general concensus on this one?

This may be a little different to some of the threads currently on this board but I think it is relevant to the forum.

foxinsox

I would say when he gets down on one knee, has a ring box (with ring in it) in his hand and says to you "Will you marry me?"

When you say yes.
You are then engaged to be married.

Acoshla

foxinsox wrote: »

I would say when he gets down on one knee, has a ring box (with ring in it) in his hand and says to you "Will you marry me?"

When you say yes.
You are then engaged to be married.

So if that doesn't happen you're never engaged?? I hope that's a joking post

We talked about it, nobody asked anything we just talked about it, he didn't get down on one knee, and then we picked up my grandmothers ring after we'd told our families. So we consider ourselves engaged from the first of the conversations on the couch over the weekend it happened:p

Lola92

Two very different answers but that's what you get I suppose!

I think the first answer is probably the more 'acceptable' one - in that it is what most people would expect to happen. Whether that is down to the whole fairytale romance/disney/rom-com thing I don't know.

Acoshla I really like the idea of that - no huge gesture just two people deciding to spend their lives together, think that would make me engaged about 2 years tho - better let himself know

I don't think I would consider myself 'engaged' but yet if somebody asked me was I going to marry my OH I wouldn't hesitate to answer yes :rolleyes:

Dolbert

Our engagement was also the result of a conversation, like you we had agreed to get married 'someday' years before, so we always knew where we stood.

But I didn't consider us engaged until a couple of weeks ago, when we had another conversation that took us from 'someday' to 'let's go looking for rings'... We looked at rings all weekend, and count the engagement as happening on the day we bought one, and he 'proposed' back home in the kitchen, in the company of the two cats Wouldn't have had it any other way, plus we have a kick-ass engagement date - Hallowe'en!

John Mason

foxinsox wrote: »

I would say when he gets down on one knee, has a ring box (with ring in it) in his hand and says to you "Will you marry me?"

When you say yes.
You are then engaged to be married.

LOL, well i guess that means i am not engaged but have a marriage licence and a wedding booked.

for us, we didnt tell anyone until we got our Marriage Licence and everything was booked.

Moonbeam

I didn't count us as engaged until I had the ring so the wedding was well booked and everything:)

ted1

Legally a contract is made when their is an offer, the offer is accepted and a consideration is paid. So that means when he asks , you accept and a ring is exchanged.

caddy2

i too think that a gesture has to be made, one with true clarity, one of you should ask the question and the other should answer. the person asking the question will obviously have their mind made up that they want to get married and they are asking the other person if they will marry them.
this will make the situation clear and you wont be still there in 5 years time saying we did have a conversation at one time.....
Consolidate it and make everything crystal clear

guernica

foxinsox wrote: »

I would say when he gets down on one knee, has a ring box (with ring in it) in his hand and says to you "Will you marry me?"

ted1 wrote:

So that means when he asks , you accept and a ring is exchanged.

Why does "he" have to ask? Women are allowed to ask too you know. Also, there doesn't *have* to be a ring...

Monife

I don't think that you can reach a certain point in your relationship and just because you have discussed marriage, assume you are engaged. Even if he doesn't get down on one knee and give you a ring there and then, there would have to be a serious verbal discussion and agreement before you could be classed as "engaged".

BQQ

A discussion indicating you'd like to get married someday in general isn't enough IMO

Has to be: I'd like to get married to you. Not just i'd like to get married.
Then, if the other person is in agreement, you're engaged.
Ring not neccessary.

toadfly

We got engaged in September when my boyfriend proposed and I accepted. We have been together over 6 years and had spoken about married etc several times over the years but I didnt for a second think we were engaged any of those times. General conversations dont count as engagement IMO.

bazza1

Proposal + Acceptance = Engagement/ Contract.

Poker equivalent = "All-in"

Lola92

Just to clarify I don't think that we are engaged. And by discussing it I mean we have both said yes I will be getting married to you in the future
a
Thanks to you all for your input! I know what you mean about the 'contract' being the deciding factor, all sounds a bit too business like for me

dammitjanet

Funny to come across this article today!

Today himself did the whole proposal speach Said such sweet stuff that just had me in tears- just about our relationship. And we talked about getting engaged.

It was an amazing talk that left us all smooshy and romantic but when it came down to what we both wanted from our wedding/engagement we decided we can't afford it yet. But it's on the cards and it's something to be excited about.

So even though we've said we're getting married, I don't consider us engaged. There will be an official time for that in the future, it's something to look forward to

_blank_

irishbird wrote: »

LOL, well i guess that means i am not engaged but have a marriage licence and a wedding booked.

for us, we didnt tell anyone until we got our Marriage Licence and everything was booked.

Er, I did get down on one knee, with a ring :eek:

John Mason

Des wrote: »

Er, I did get down on one knee, with a ring :eek:

LOL, it doesnt count when you have had 5 bottles of wine first and younthen take the ring back:p:p:p

BeardySi

as far as I'm concerned its when you firmly decide to get mrried and tellfolks about it!

We were similar - talked about it for a couple of years and decided that we would like to get married at some time soonish. she was still bowled off her feet when I popped the question though, and it wasn't till then that we considered ourselved engaged...

Got married last month!:D

coffee_cake

discuss getting married with a time frame
then "hey do you think we should call ourselves engaged now so" "yes"
there you go