How to Celebrate a Friend's Engagement

Hummingbird125 · July 2012

Hello! I usually post over on the NEY board, but I thought I'd go here for this question. I've been lurking for months and months, but just started posted a few weeks ago :-)

A very close friend of mine is probably getting engaged this month. Her boyfriend is getting his late grandmother's ring from his grandfather this week, and has told my friend that he wants to propose to her within a few weeks. My friend has had a rough few years - her father died suddenly about 2 years ago, she had to put grad school on hold for a while, struggled with an ED, and she owes a LOT in student loans, so I really want to do something soecial for her when/if she gets engaged. She isn't close to the rest of her family, and I know she'll be missing her dad even more than usual, so I guess I just want to do something for her and/or give her a special gift to show her how excited and happy for her I am.

She lives several hours away, but I'll probably plan a trip up there to go see them if the proposal happens. Any awesome gift suggestions? Like something really special and meaningful someone gave you to celebrate your engagement/wedding?

kaceymarie · July 2012

plan an engagement party. you can rent out a space to have the party like a restaurant.

shanding4787 · July 2012

I would maybe ask the fiance first for a for sure date that he's gonna propose. He may "want" to do it within a few weeks, but you never know, he could change his plan. Then plan some kind of engagement party for the day of/after and invite family/friends, whoever.

balletdawn · July 2012

I would be concerned about planning it for the day of/after unless you could plan a party without telling people why. I don't feel like it's right for lots of people to know what day she's getting proposed to and it might get leaked to her.

allychase · July 2012

If you were to throw an engagement party, you wouldn't need to do it the day of/after the engagement. You could start planning after the engagement, and offer to throw it for her so she doesn't start planning one herself. If throwing an entire engagement party is too costly, you could always offer to take the two of them out to a nice dinner to celebrate their engagement.

Hummingbird125 · July 2012

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I don't know her BF very well at all - so I definitely won't be asking him if/when he's planning on proposing in order to plan a party for that day. I think I'll wait until they're engaged, and then plan a weekend to go oup and see them and take them out for dinner to celebrate :-)