I've never actually posted to the forums before, but first time for everything. I've been trying and failing to figure out an answer to my conundrum so ultimately I've decided this might be the place to reach out to ask about the customs of getting and being engaged.
My girlfriend and I have been together for a couple days short of five months. We were best friends for nearly a year before admitting romantic feelings for each other (I was still working on growing out of an abusive previous relationship, and she was with someone for a good portion of that year). In the time we've been together, we've been and continued to be very serious. We talk about the future, we share custody of pets, cook and clean together (we don't officially live together - she has a roommate and I have my own place about a mile away, but we do often sleep together at one place or the other), grocery shop together, and after my cousin's recent engagement (and even more recent marriage, but that was just this past week) have discussed in detail our own thoughts about getting married, like coming to the consensus of getting married after college, God willing (and we do believe He is). We got a couple inexpensive rings as 'promise' rings but have discussed Claddagh rings, especially as my primary heritage is Irish.
My thoughts recently (as of the past couple of weeks) are that I want to get us Claddagh rings for our 6mo anniversary, possibly as engagement rings. As we're still quite young (19+21) and still in college, we know that an actual wedding would not be soon, pretty definitively not for years, which complicates my attempt at figuring out if that's too much of a 'rush', since most of the articles about 'how long you should/can be engaged' and 'how long to date before proposing' conflate when people get engaged and when they get married. I know we both want to be able to have an official show of our commitment to each other (especially since she is going away to art school in the fall) and also that we have no plans on rushing into actually getting married. How appropriate would it be to get Claddagh rings this coming month for our 6mo? Or should I just wait? How long do you recommend?
I'm not sure how effectively I've explained anything here, but I really feel that I need other opinions.
Thanks!