Wedding Wednesday: Engagement Party

After the initial engagement excitement wore off it was time to get down to business. It’s funny how the moment people find out your engaged you are greeted with a multitude of questions. Maybe a congrats here and there, but usually it’s just a bombardment of questions. Number one being “have you set a date?” “When are you getting married?” “Where?” Or more annoying still “What’s the date? I need to block off my calendar and I booked a cruise for all of next June? So definitely don’t pick next June.” At some point I will do a separate post on everything not to do/ say to the bride and groom. Actually that could be a novel.

Sean and I are both blessed with quite the “American family.” In that we have parents, step-parents, half relatives, twice removed, you get the gist. So a large portion of our families had never met. We decided it would be nice for our relatives to not meet for the first time at the wedding, if at all possible. We also didn't want to invite all of our extended relatives (cousins, aunts, uncles) to our engagement party. Maybe that’s weird or improper- but we wanted the engagement party to be just that. A party, with our friends and immediate family to celebrate and enjoy. Where we didn't have to worry about Sean’s cousin explaining her different tattoos to my straight laced, attorney uncle. We got that out of the way at the family party.

My Mother in Law was overjoyed to host the family party at her house (it kept her occupied in the very important first few months of planning), and Sean’s Dad and Step Mom (who are party people) offered to host our engagement party. I focused on the actual wedding planning and left the engagement parties up to our host.

Ok, that’s a lie. I am terrible at handing over control. I micromanaged bits of the engagement parties, but managed to let go of the rest. 

I only have a couple pictures from the family get together. I remember it felt very surreal to drink out of the "bride" glass.

For the engagement party, Sean's Dad and Step Mom went with a Mexican Fiesta theme. Margaritas, Mexican food and music. Sean's Dad toasted to our future with a tequila shot and the guests happily obliged. 

Our hosts with the lovely spread & one of many musical performances for the evening:

Party people:

Tequila shot toast:

More shots!

Bridezilla & bridesmaid picture:

As evidenced in the photos, we had a blast. It was a great jump start to our "wedding year." (I know how annoying and absurdly self indulgent that sounds. I own it.) We had a 16+ month engagement, so it was nice to have smaller festivities to look forward to throughout the process. Despite the ups and downs of wedding planning, the stress and differences of opinion, I can say without a doubt in my mind that we experienced an outpouring of love and support.