Bride-to-be Blogger Leslie: Bringing Back the Engagement Party

I am a big fan of engagement parties. I am an even bigger fan of my own engagement party, which my parents just threw for us down in Virginia.

I don’t think people have engagement parties as often as they should these days. I feel like they aren’t as popular as they used to be, and I don’t know why. My parents wanted to throw my fiance and I a party with all of our family and friends to celebrate our recent Engagement. If that’s not a reason to celebrate, then I don’t know what is!

Having an engagement party for us was one of the first things my mom said to me after we announced our future marriage. She had big plans to invite everyone she wanted to invite to the wedding, cater the event and have a big evening of celebrating!

I always wanted a sister, but being able to bask in the ‘I’m your only daughter getting married’ glory has seriously been working for me!

With the party being in Virginia and me living in Philadelphia it was a little crazy few months leading up to the actual event. Lots of emails and phone calls over colors, invitations, food options, signature drinks and what to wear! It was pretty much like planning a mini-wedding. We invited over 100 family and friends that were in the area and we knew would be able to come and there was also a handful of people who traveled down for the event to celebrate with us.

Before I knew it, the day of the party had arrived! I had been looking forward to it for so long, and it was finally here. The guests arrived in what felt like a complete whirlwind of time. When I opened the door for one person and began to catch up, it was time to greet another and before I knew it, everyone was there and I had barely spent more than a moment with each person! I was so happy to see everyone and so glad everyone came, but I felt cheated in that I didn’t get to spend enough time with our guests.

After everyone settled in, enjoyed some food and our signature drink (I created a signature drink for all our guests, perfectly titled a ‘Marry Me Mojito’), my father gave a lovely speech about me being his ‘little girl’ (another perk of being the only daughter!). He thanked everyone for coming and then welcomed Charles into the family. A key detail of this toast was that my parents used their champagne flutes for their wedding 30 years ago, and Charles and I used our bright shiny and new toasting flutes my parents had given us right before the party started.

In the end, the party was a huge success! Like the past 6 months of our engagement, the night flew by and before I knew it, it was time to say goodbye. After this party, I can’t even imagine how crazy the actual wedding will be. I am going to have to figure a serious game plan as to how I am going to spend more time with everyone who attends.

If you have any words of wisdom for how to handle spending more time with family and friends at your wedding, please share! I need all the help I can get!

Also, did you have an Engagement Party? How do you feel about them?

(And psst: Check out Leslie’s other blog, And Her Little Dog Too, to hear about her healthy lifestyle while wedding planning!)

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