Engagement Announcements

KatieinBkln · May 2014

Did you all do engagement announcements in your local newspaper? If so, when, on the "timeline" of proposal-to-wedding did you have it published? Or did some of you do wedding announcements instead, after the fact? My hometown has a small local paper wherein the most-read sections are the police blotter and the engagements page (old school gossip, baby! "Did you see the Jones boy got arrested for DUI again?" "The Smith girl is marrying the Morton boy; who would've thought?").

My mother was planning to send something in, but then she said, "you're the writer, maybe you'd want to write your own announcement," which I agreed to without really considering logistical matters like timing. I'm thinking I'll wait a while (our date is 08/08/15), and probably till we shoot engagement photos. But after that, I'm drawing a blank. Are there rules for this stuff?

ElcaB · May 2014

Sorry, but personally, I think it's weird and AW-ish to post engagement announcements.

KPBM89 · May 2014

We never did one. FI's mom asked us over the holidays for a photo for her to send in one, but I think she forgot about it. Or she did it and didn't tell us. We've been engaged since April 2013 and our wedding is in about 2 months, so I don't think we will be doing one at this point.

We just had engagement photos done, so if we ever get those photos back maybe we'll send her one to still do it. It seemed to mean a lot to her, though FI and I never thought about doing one.

cupcait927 · May 2014

FI's mom really wanted to do this. We got engaged in October and she had it in the paper by mid-December. I wasn't really a fan of it but she was excited about it so I didn't press the issue.

AprilH81 · May 2014

DH's mom really wants us to do a wedding announcement in their local paper. I really don't care one way or the other, I just haven't had time to do it yet.

I'm not sure about the proper timing... It seems that our local paper prints them several months before the wedding but not as soon as the engagement is announced. I could be wrong, it has been forever since I paid attention to it.

LadyMillil · May 2014

My hometown paper does the engagement announcements and wedding announcements as well. Most people have engagement announcements that go in about a month before their stag and doe to promote their fundraiser. This would be about 5 months before the actual wedding. I've never seen an engagement announcement without a stag and doe also mentioned. If you didn't have a stag and doe, the wedding announcement is about 1-3 months after the wedding. I'm not sure if that helps.

KatieinBkln · May 2014

LadyMillil said:

My hometown paper does the engagement announcements and wedding announcements as well. Most people have engagement announcements that go in about a month before their stag and doe to promote their fundraiser. This would be about 5 months before the actual wedding. I've never seen an engagement announcement without a stag and doe also mentioned. If you didn't have a stag and doe, the wedding announcement is about 1-3 months after the wedding. I'm not sure if that helps.

Wow, that's interesting! Stag and does aren't really a thing in my area (I first heard of them on these boards) and I am decidedly NOT interested in "fundraising" for my wedding in any way...but this does raise the point that maybe a wedding announcement is more apropos than an engagement announcement anyway.

I wouldn't do it at all if it wasn't important to my mom, but oh well! This helps.

HisGirlFriday13 · May 2014

We did an engagement announcement in my/my parents' hometown paper and DH's hometown paper, and then a wedding announcement just in mine/my parents' hometown paper.

Our newspaper has an online form that you can fill out and they'll write it for you, or you can write it yourself. We got engaged in December and I think we ran it in April? I can't remember. My mom clipped them out and I put them in my 'wedding stuff to be scrapbooked' file.

Most papers will give you a guideline online about how much time they need to run them -- a lot of papers say that they'll run 'within XX days' of receipt, which could be 7 (shortest window I've seen) or 45 (longest window I've seen.)

JaxInBlue · May 2014

We had the same type of small town paper! Since my parents and DH's both wanted to include one, we had ours included once we'd settled on an approximate date. I think we were about nine months away at that point.

DH's sister just got engaged this spring and their announcement was in the local paper in less than a month, and more than a year ahead of their intended wedding.

In both cases, we kept it pretty simple and did not include a long retelling of how we met, the proposal, or anything like that.

KatieinBkln · May 2014

JaxInBlue said:

We had the same type of small town paper! Since my parents and DH's both wanted to include one, we had ours included once we'd settled on an approximate date. I think we were about nine months away at that point.

DH's sister just got engaged this spring and their announcement was in the local paper in less than a month, and more than a year ahead of their intended wedding.

In both cases, we kept it pretty simple and did not include a long retelling of how we met, the proposal, or anything like that.

Oh god, I can't imagine including that! I got sick of retelling the engagement story after the third time I rehashed it for someone (it's a lovely story, very romantic, but I hate repeating myself and felt really weird sharing something so personal, if that makes sense). Our paper's template is a small photo and a brief announcement naming the couple and their parents and mentioning the couples' professions.

pinkshorts27 · May 2014

KatieinBkln said:

JaxInBlue said:

We had the same type of small town paper! Since my parents and DH's both wanted to include one, we had ours included once we'd settled on an approximate date. I think we were about nine months away at that point.

DH's sister just got engaged this spring and their announcement was in the local paper in less than a month, and more than a year ahead of their intended wedding.

In both cases, we kept it pretty simple and did not include a long retelling of how we met, the proposal, or anything like that.

Oh god, I can't imagine including that! I got sick of retelling the engagement story after the third time I rehashed it for someone (it's a lovely story, very romantic, but I hate repeating myself and felt really weird sharing something so personal, if that makes sense). Our paper's template is a small photo and a brief announcement naming the couple and their parents and mentioning the couples' professions.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I hate telling the story and half of it is stuff only I would understand why he did it.

Inkdancer · May 2014

Some places actually won't print engagement announcements (as engagements are considered "non-permanent arrangements by them). Until the paperwork goes through, they don't want to print anything.

NYCMercedes · May 2014

Two to three months before the wedding is traditional. Don't know why then, but maybe back whenever, that was the standard engagement length. Of course, the other reason could be that's when parties were pretty sure it would go forward.

CMGragain · May 2014

The practice of having engagement announcements printed in the newspaper has diminished due to the outrageous fees demanded by city newspapers. The Washington Post wants $300 to print a minimal announcement, and not even the society dragon-mama do it.
Small town papers are a very nice opportunity for your parents to bask in the glow of having a daughter who is engaged to be married.

Mr. and Mrs. John Bridesparents announce the engagement of their daughter, Jane Ann, to Mr. James Doe of City, State. The bride is a graduate of City College, and is employed by Big Bucks Corporation. The groom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Doe of Othertown, State. He is a graduate of the University of Student Debt, and is employed by Important Law Firm. The couple are planning a June wedding.

amakayeb · May 2014

Our parents both live in small towns where everybody knows everybody. Engagement announcements in this case I think are neat. I always enjoy looking at them when I go home. Our moms both put one in this spring, so about 3 months ahead. We followed the basic pattern above (but included high schools, since those were local). For our small papers, they were free.

LadyMillil · May 2014

amakayeb said:

Our parents both live in small towns where everybody knows everybody. Engagement announcements in this case I think are neat. I always enjoy looking at them when I go home. Our moms both put one in this spring, so about 3 months ahead. We followed the basic pattern above (but included high schools, since those were local). For our small papers, they were free.

I don't go back often, so my mom used to save the papers for me and mail them every couple of months. She complained that it was too much paper to save so I told her to just send the engagement, wedding, graduation and birth announcements page. Now I've discovered that my hometown tiny newspaper puts them online.

mysticl · May 2014

KatieinBkln said:

Did you all do engagement announcements in your local newspaper? If so, when, on the "timeline" of proposal-to-wedding did you have it published? Or did some of you do wedding announcements instead, after the fact? My hometown has a small local paper wherein the most-read sections are the police blotter and the engagements page (old school gossip, baby! "Did you see the Jones boy got arrested for DUI again?" "The Smith girl is marrying the Morton boy; who would've thought?").

My mother was planning to send something in, but then she said, "you're the writer, maybe you'd want to write your own announcement," which I agreed to without really considering logistical matters like timing. I'm thinking I'll wait a while (our date is 08/08/15), and probably till we shoot engagement photos. But after that, I'm drawing a blank. Are there rules for this stuff?

Are you from my home town?

Ours also publishes the marriage licenses (and people actually read them) so even if you don't post a wedding announcement you will still get congratulated if you applied for your license in town

I didn't do the engagement or wedding announcement. I left it up to my mom if she wanted to since she still lives there. I know people who have put the engagement notice in as soon as they got engaged. Before they set a date, while the bride was still in high school.

HisGirlFriday13 · May 2014

NYCMercedes said:
Two to three months before the wedding is traditional. Don't know why then, but maybe back whenever, that was the standard engagement length. Of course, the other reason could be that's when parties were pretty sure it would go forward.

I worked at a small-town Southern newspaper in my 20s. The kind of paper where engagement announcements included no photos and the wedding announcement was supposed to run the day after the wedding, so the photo was always just of the Bride, from her bridal portrait session.

So we always laid out that section the Wednesday before the Sunday paper. Since all the information was there and had been vetted by the parties (or usually the MOB), it was an easy section to pre-lay-out and pre-print.

One Sunday, I got a call at like 8.30 a.m. from an irate MOB who had seen her daughter's wedding announcement in the paper that morning.

I was like, OK, what's the problem?

Turns out daughter and her FI had called off the wedding last-minute so they had NOT gotten married after all.

I felt so bad for the bride and groom and MOB, but since no one had told us, we didn't know not to run it.

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