Engagement Party

beckyboo27

Last night, my fiance and I were discussing having an engagement party. I've always heard it's bad etiquette to throw yourself one, but we aren't really sure what the point of one is.  My mom says it's a good way to get the wedding party and families together to meet, but most of our WP and families know each other. (We've been together six years, they had better know each other by now!!) I'm just curious if any of you had an engagement party and what you think of them.  Thanks for any advice.

Snippylynn

You can have a party, but not an engagement party.

achiduck

Ditto Milkduds. No one offered to throw us one, so we didn't have one.

If you want to have a "Bridal party meet and greet" party - then do that. But it's not an engagement party.

daveANDkristen

None of my family and friends have had one, to my knowledge, but FMIL was insistent that we had to.  His parents hosted and we invited only our closest friends and family.  It was ok, we just had an at home barbeque because I felt awkward about having one at all and didn't want to make a big deal out of it.

rebarobert2012

Generally, I don't think that couples host their own engagement parties.  Someone else offers to host it for you.  My fiance and I haven't had one because no one offered to host one.

Kate61487

We kinda sorta had one.  My parents had a Labor Day BBQ and we were newly engaged so we celebrated.  But it wasn't put on the invitations or anything; it was just the 'hot news' of the party, KWIM?

Definitely don't throw one yourselves.  If you want the BP and parents to get together then have a dinner party.

H and I did recently attend an actual engagement party.  It was for his coworker who is Hindu so there was all sorts of ceremony and tradition involved, it was pretty cool.  It was hosted by their parents and there were around 300 guests.  I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and say this isn't the kind of party you'd be having anyway :-)

mari0225

One of my BM's is hosting mine, she is only inviting close friends that i'm comfortable with.

cpm1223

My parents hosted an engagement party for us. They wanted a chance to meet FI's family before the wedding and they also thought it would be good to get all of the people in the wedding party together to meet.
 
It was a great time, we had all of our grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and immediate family members there as well as wedding party ppl & their SOs, so it was a large party (about 75 people)

It was a summer bbq-type of party, nice and casual!

goobersinlove

We didn't have one either because no one offered us one. We did go out to a celebratory dinner with family/super close friends (8 people total) a few days after we were engaged though.

Ciardasully

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_engagement-party-28?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:169cc748-2742-490e-9b0d-072e8634829fPost:3d85ea29-3510-45e9-b61a-9714a8800f0f">Re: Engagement Party</a>:
[QUOTE]You can have a party, but not an engagement party. :)
Posted by Snippylynn[/QUOTE]

That's what we did We called it a Wedding Party Party.  We live in NY and my parents live in Maine. We have a big wedding party. My Bridesmaids were split up between Maine, Chicago, Florida and one was local.   The groomsmen are local.  But we hosted a party for our parents, our wedding party and significant others so they could get to know each other.  It served as more of a meet and greet.

HeatherMKR

We did throw our own engagement party, BUT it was tied in with our housewarming party. We bought a house and a few months later, we got engaged so we just decided to do it all in one. We did more a potluck thing so it wasn't just us preparing everything. 

ngkr

We had 2 engagement parties - one thrown by friends, for friends (from HS, college, work, neighbors). It was on the roof of an apartment building, with home-made food and coolers full of beer and lemonade. Very tasty and fun; casual atmosphere.

FI's grandparents hosted a family engagement party for us, since we have many family members who live in the same region of the country but haven't had an opportunity to get together yet. It was in the private room of a resturaunt in which they have hosted parties in the past. We provided the guest list and info on dietary restrictions, but the rest was all up to the hosts. There were 50 people total, with a buffet lunch and cake. It happened to be the same weekend our save the dates were printed, so we were able to hand-deliver them to people at the party. It was so fun being able to introduce cousins and aunts & uncles from different families to each other - a lot of them grew up in NYC in the same era, and some have similar jobs or children the same age, so they had a fun time chatting. The little kids had a ball playing with each other.

We spent a lot of time afterwards writing thank you notes to everyone who sent or brought a gift, and also to people who attended. In addition to a thank-you note, we sent flowers to the hosts of each party (except for one of the male friend hosts, who we thought would enjoy a nice bottle of scotch instead).

Since everyone was so generous with hosting and with gifts, we've decided to gently spread the word that we would prefer not to have any showers, since we already have more than enough stuff, and the engagement parties served very well to introduce people from all sides to each other. Also, everyone at both parties has been invited to the wedding, so we had to put a lot of thought into the guest lists we provided to our hosts.