If you’ve been following, you know Robert and I recently had an engagement party. Â Now that I’ve gone through it, here are my tips!
- Host the party as close to when you got engaged as makes sense. Robert and I threw our party three weeks after we got engaged. We still had that just-engaged flush, and many of our friends hadn’t seen us yet. It sets a nice vibe for a party.
- We had an open house, and I’m so glad we did it that way. It made it so people could stop by without feeling obligated to stay for any length of time. And because there was this ebb and flow of people coming and going throughout the day, it gave me more of an opportunity to talk to people because you weren’t attending to one giant crowd at once.
- Consider specifying no gifts at your engagement party. Technically, gifts aren’t necessary at engagement parties, but a lot of people aren’t familiar with this rule and may feel obligated. Because being a wedding guest can end up being expensive, sometimes requiring multiple parties and gifts, I think it’s nice to make it clear your that attendees are off the hook for this event. That said, we specified “no gifts” and were surprised what nice items we ended up with at the end of the night. If a good friend really wants to get you a gift, they’ll do it anyways.
- Now, if you’re an engagement party guest and you’d like to bring something (I myself always show up with something in hand — it’s generally not a wrapped gift), we received all sorts of nice bottles of wine, champagne and liquor. That’s always a great option because it doubles as a party offering as well. I’d step up your alcohol offering a notch for an engagement party. Bring a slightly better wine than you normally would, a bottle of champagne or a favorite liquor of the couple. You can always ask for help at your local liquor store — they should know what will double as a good gift. One couple brought us these amazing tiny tarts that were so beautiful, you hardly wanted to eat them. Everyone kept commenting on them, and the consensus was they were the perfect item to bring to an engagement party. Next time I go to an engagement party, I may very well go to my favorite local bakery and get an array of tiny pretty items to present to the newly betrothed couple.
- Instead of tablecloths, I draped our tables in brown shipping paper and wrote the names of the dishes right on the paper (pictured above). It was a fun, casual tablecloth alternative.
- I’m always a fan of a signature drink and this is no exception. I opted for a cranberry, apple, vodka and ginger ale beverage that was pretty and different but not complicated. I premixed it beforehand, except for the ginger ale, and posted a little sign with instructions to pour 2 parts of the mix and 1 part of the ginger ale over ice.
Feel free to add your own tips!
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