We love "engagement" season and all of the excitement in the air, the first thing brides do is tell their families and their prospective wedding party of course! Then it is time to consider possible wedding dates, start by reading The Knot's article on How to Choose Your Wedding Date, including considerations of the season, symbolic dates such as your anniversary etc, and dates to avoid. If you have your heart set on a local wedding venue or booking your fav' wedding professionals make sure to take that into consideration before announcing your wedding date.

We have put together some Do's and Don'ts for those who are planning on a longer engagement and need a little reassurance after setting the date:

Do Hire Professionals - You may have dear friends or family members who have volunteered for one thing or another, but we urge you to put the brakes on and use this time to start brainstorming on what is important to you as a couple including budget, the atmosphere, overall decor and guest count. Meet with local wedding planners who can guide you to vendors who may be a good fit for the aesthetic you have described.

Do Attend Wedding Shows - It comes with the territory and you'd be surprised how fun it is to attend the bridal shows, taste samples, view galleries and check out what your local vendors offer. There are great opportunities to save money when booking vendors at the bridal shows, not to mention the great raffles and prizes available.

Don't Impulse Buy - Small impulse purchases eventually add up, and before you know it you have a whole room full of random items that you pick up over the course of a few months. Talk with your wedding planner and decor or rental company about items that you are interested in and request a price comparison on items before purchasing. Often purchasing mason jars, burlap and votives end up being much more expensive than renting.

Do Share Your Pinterest Board - As a wedding planner we love to get an idea of the styles that appeal to you, so Pin away! Collect images of wedding bouquets, lighting, signage, linens and photography that speaks to you and make a note about what specifically in the image is appealing. Leaving these notes for yourself will be helpful down the road when discussing with the florist or other creatives.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff - Often the longer the engagement the more the small stuff seems to creep in and stress brides out. Throughout your planning process there will be some lulls, or times where you think nothing is happening. This is normal and you are allowed to enjoy the downtime and day to day life with your Fiance!

Do Schedule Your Engagement Session Early - By scheduling your engagement session early, you can get your photos back a little earlier which will give you time to use them for your wedding website, save the dates if you choose to do them, gifts, or displaying them at your bridal shower. You will also get a chance to interact with your photographer and get to know them better too! Read What You Kneed to Know for Your Engagement Shoot

Don't Second Guess Yourself - When you have a longer engagement you may be more prone to second guess some of the decisions and purchases you have made such as your gown, or color scheme. In times of doubt, don't hesitate to call your wedding planner or your bestie to calm your nerves!

Make sure to schedule time for yourself and set a routine to include working out and other activities with your partner that you find relaxing. There is life outside of wedding planning, and don't feel guilty if you need to take breaks from planning!

For more tips, stay tuned to our blog and visit us on Facebook & Instagram

I always said that I wanted to have a long engagement. I’d had enough friends get married over the years and tell me how quickly time flies when your busy planning and preparing for the day of your wedding (and all the events leading up to it) that they wish they would have stopped to enjoy the smaller moments, excitement of the experience, and the simple joy of being proposed to by the person you love most.

What I hadn’t thought about was what defines a long engagement. One year? 18 months? Two years? There are lots of books, online articles and wedding magazines that try to define it, but this is something I learned that every couple has to define for themselves.

When my long-time love proposed to me on our trip to Rome my first feeling was that of surprise, then elation, and if I’m to be honest, next came a little bit of selfishness. Here we were in Roma, Italia, a city that helps to compose the word ROMAnce, and all that mattered in the moments and days that followed his proposal were that we were engaged and in love. Not that our families wouldn’t have been ecstatic or jumping for joy had they been there, but there was something meaningful about sharing this moment alone without any outside influence – it was just the two of us.

I knew this wouldn’t last for long and so my fiancé and I came up with a term for this special time. We called it our EB; short for engagement bubble. We didn’t rush to post the news to Facebook or rack up international minutes calling family back home. Instead we chose to savor the remaining time we had alone, away from our everyday lives, simply enjoy being engaged, and staring a lot at the shiny new object on my left hand. (I really miss being in our Rome EB.)

It’s inevitable that after a period of time the high and glow that comes with being a newly engaged couple will fade as you return to your normal pre-proposal routines. And it doesn’t help that wedding planning is stressful and even those closest to you, who love and support you, can unintentionally push their opinions on the two of you or cause pressure on your relationship.

This is when it’s most important to stop, take a breath, turn to your partner and do something to get back into your EB. Remember that this special time in your lives really is about the two of you, your love for one another, and the commitment you’re going to make in … whatever time frame YOU CHOOSE.

These could be simple things that help remind you of the proposal, special moments when you were dating or just telling each other how much you love one another spontaneously. Here are some ways my fiancé and I remind ourselves that we are in our still in our EB even though we left Rome:

1. Send text messages to your partner while they’re at work that mentions something special from the proposal to get them thinking about your engagement. (We’ll randomly text something as simple as #EB or a photo from our trip in Rome to each other.)

2. Leave a note or card in your partner’s car for them to find on their way to work that tells them how much you’re looking forward to spending your life with them. (I’m planning to take my own advice a little further and plan a small scavenger hunt on my fiancé’s next day off that ends with a bottle of bubbly.)

3. Plan dates that are themed to take you two somewhere relative to where the proposal took place or that’s meaningful to your relationship. (We really didn’t need another excuse to go out for Italian!)

4. Plan fun activities together in the mix of all the wedding appointments to help make the planning phase more enjoyable. (We choose to meet with potential vendors at our favorite local coffee shop and make a point of walking our dog there and back. Ice cream tastings have also become one of our preferred vendor vetting experiences to do together!)

5. Discuss each of your wedding must-haves early on and make a point to celebrate with one another when you check one of them off of your list. (When we finally signed with a winery to be our venue, which was one of my favorite scouted locations, my fiancé and I went out for brunch and toasted with a glass of champagne.)

No matter how long you choose to be engaged, don’t forget that your engagement bubble exists wherever the two of you are and this really is a special time in your life, so soak it up.

Wedding wishes and celebratory cheers!
The 530 Bride-To-Be