If you’re one of the many couples who got engaged during the COVID-19 shutdown, you’re not alone! It seems that not even a global pandemic can stop love. This year has certainly put things in perspective. We’ve all learned the importance of work-life balance, the tenuousness of job security, and the unsettling unpredictability of the future.
On the other side of the coin, we’ve all discovered who and what we treasure the most. While engagements tend to require extensive planning, researching, and of course, the purchase of an engagement ring, being locked inside with the person you love dearest may have spurred you (or your fiance) to pop the question a bit earlier than expected.
Now that restrictions are loosening up a bit, it’s the perfect time to plan an intimate engagement party to celebrate your love and the promise of a brighter future!
Put a Ring on It
Step one to making sure your engagement party is a roaring success? Make sure your fiancee has some bling on her left hand. After all, all of your guests will insist on hearing the engagement story and ogling the ring. Don’t you want to hear your fiancee brag that you did a good job in selecting her engagement ring? Of course, you do!
During the shutdown, many jewelry stores closed until further notice and for high-risk customers, it may still feel dicey going out in public to shop. Enter Agape Diamonds. All you have to do is read the Agape Reviews to see that Agape is an excellent choice for your sweetheart’s ring. Their lab-created diamonds are known for their clarity, stunning color, and amazing radiance, making them an infinitely better choice than a cubic zirconia ring or even a moissanite engagement ring.
The hardest thing was to find the woman of your dreams. By comparison, selecting her engagement ring will be a piece of cake. Once this important piece of jewelry has been acquired, the two of you can move forward with planning your perfect party.
Set Your Budget
Weddings are incredibly expensive. Depending on where you live, you could be looking at spending anywhere between fifteen and forty thousand dollars on just one night. With that in mind, the last thing you want to do is blow your budget on an engagement party. This is a great opportunity to practice budgeting for an event as a couple.
Set up a spreadsheet in a shared Google document. This can be used to plan everything from your budget to your guest list to your vendors. The most important thing to remember when planning this party is that it doesn’t have to be extravagant, it just has to be fun.
Choose the Perfect Location
While it’s traditional for the bride’s family to host an engagement party in the bride’s hometown, the etiquette of weddings and engagements as our parents and grandparents understood them is a bit out of date. You may decide, as a couple, to host your party at a location that means something to the both of you instead! Perhaps you both love a particular art gallery or maybe haunted factories tickle your fancy. Or maybe the idea of hosting your party at your own home is more appealing. Wherever your party is based, you want the guests to think, “Wow, this is so them.”
Bring on the Booze
Every party host’s worst nightmare? Running out of alcoholic beverages. If you’re going to flex your budget anywhere, it should be on adult libations. Even if you have leftovers at the end of the night, they’ll still be consumed one way or another! The best way to make sure you have plenty of red wine, beer, and white wine, is to work with a liquor store that offers a bulk purchasing discount and great customer service.
Remember the Night Forever
Just as the wedding night can go by in a flash, so can the engagement party. Make sure you remember the night forever! Provide several polaroid cameras for the evening. Your guests will love using the cameras and as a bonus, you’ll get plenty of fun snapshots from your friends’ point of view. You can then use these photos to kick start your wedding scrapbook! You may also want to figure out your wedding hashtag before the evening. This way, if your friends and family post on social media, you can download their photos to a virtual album!
Planning your engagement party is an excellent way to figure out your party-throwing style as a couple and celebrate your exciting decision to spend the rest of your life together. Using these tips, you’ll be sure to have an exceptional evening and kick start the wedding planning process, all at the same time!
