Congrats—you’re engaged! An exciting time for sure!
Scrolling through endless Pinterest posts for inspiration, compiling guest lists, and stressing about the wedding venue—sound familiar?
Is your growing checklist feeling like a second job?
If you're losing touch with the thrill and exhilaration of getting engaged, it’s time to hit the pause button. Your engagement isn’t just a countdown to the wedding—it’s your first lesson in building a marriage worth savoring.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Stop Stressing, Start Savoring Your Marriage Engagement
Too often, couples get caught up in the logistics of wedding planning and they forget to enjoy the most meaningful part: the engagement itself.
Embracing this monumental stepping stone can actually strengthen your relationship and lay the foundation for a lasting marriage—and more ease in wedding planning.
Don't let your joy and dreamy-eyed feelings get drowned out by hectic decision-making, deposits for place settings, venue site visits, and wedding dress selections.
Instead, slow down and savor this special time.
Think of your engagement as a rehearsal for married life.
Engagement is like a mini bootcamp for marriage. You’re figuring out how to communicate, see your partner's perspective, discover what's important to each other, and celebrate life as a team.
During this time, you're learning how to navigate disagreements, make joint decisions, and celebrate milestones together. Each conversation, decision, and shared laugh is like a training session for the partnership you’re about to enter.
You can get demanding, frazzled and frantic, or this time as a couple can be a meaningful testing ground for your love. (Why do you think the TV series Bridezillas is so popular!?)
When you focus on savoring your marriage engagement, it helps you:
- Strengthen communication
- Build shared values
- Nurture your dreams as a couple
- Deepen emotional connection
- Relish your love
Engagement IS the practice for a relationship filled with excitement, challenges, and discoveries.
Couples who focus on THEIR RELATIONSHIP during their marriage engagement enter marriage happier and more connected.
Commit to a few months of intentional love that just might train you for a lifetime!
Make Your Wedding Planning Easy by Savoring the Engagement!
This is your moment.
The time when you get to be “just engaged” before life officially shifts into married mode.
It’s when you can laugh at inside jokes, have late-night heart-to-hearts, and dream about the future. Engagement can be a magical time to learn about each other and gain skills that are foundational to build a strong and healthy marriage.
The way you spend these months—or even longer—sets the tone for your partnership. By slowing down, savoring small moments, and investing in your connection, you’re doing more for your marriage than any color scheme or cake tasting ever could.
So, before you stress over guest lists and timelines, let’s focus on what really matters.
Make the engagement a meaningful chapter in your love story.
Related reading: "Taming the Flood of Contradictions in a Wedding."
Tips to Savor Your Love and Engagement
Here’s how to slow down, savor your love, and make this season count.
Decide to Make “Us Time” Non-Negotiable
Before—and during—while life is spinning with wedding plans, work, and family obligations, it’s easy to forget the most important part of your engagement: being together.
Making intentional time for just the two of you isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity and a recipe for a more harmonious planning cycle.
Here’s what non-negotiable “us time” looks like in real life:
- Daily mini-moments: Even thirty minutes of uninterrupted conversation over a morning latte or before dinner prep counts. Ask about each other’s day, share a small victory, or just hold hands and breathe. These micro-connections add up faster than you think.
- Weekly date nights: Set aside a night EVERY week to step away from phones, chores, and wedding tasks. Go for a walk, cook a meal together, or watch a movie with no distractions. Treat it like sacred time that can’t be canceled. And take a break from wedding talk.
- Unplugged adventures: Plan activities that encourage connection—day trips, hikes, or try a new hobby together. Shared experiences strengthen your bond and create stories you’ll enjoy for years.
The point is: your engagement is not just about preparing for a wedding—it’s about preparing for marriage.
By protecting your “us time,” you’re practicing communication, teamwork, and emotional intimacy now, so you’ll be ready for the bigger challenges and joys ahead.
Pro tip: Block your calendars and protect this time like you would an important meeting. No matter how busy life gets, your relationship deserves to be the priority. Over time, these moments will become your secret weapon for a happy, resilient marriage.
Celebrate Your Couple Milestones
Engagement can quickly become a blur in the rearview mirror when you start preparing for the wedding. Remember, getting engaged is an important milestone—and it’s about your story.
Celebrate the steps along the way: the night you got engaged, paying off your first shared bill, a delightful evening together, your favorite day as a couple, or surviving a tough camping weekend in the rain.
Remember and share the things that attracted you to each other and how you can employ these qualities for a happy marriage.
You're charting a course for a profound commitment so don't get caught up in wedding planning and forget about what really matters.
Make each other and your love the real priority!
Talk About the Future (Without Stressing Out)
You may feel like you should make big decisions quickly. The pressure of scheduling and reserving wedding venues before they're lost might tempt you to pounce on planning right away.
Don’t.
Spend time discussing what is important to you as a couple. Being intentional and clear on what is most important to you. Clarity can organically guide you and create ease in decisions for your wedding.
Engagement is perfect for honest conversations about kids, finances, values, even your secret “dealbreakers.” This communication sets up a strong foundation for marriage.
Laugh, Goof Off, and Make Memories
Remember why you fell in love in the first place.
Take silly photos, have dance parties in the living room, and enjoy the little things.
Plan a weekend with just the two of you and treat it like a honeymoon! This reserved time will allow you to decompress and focus on yourself as a couple. It can also allow space for greater clarity and creativity around wedding ideas. You'll discover the perfect wedding venue for your special day.
Engagement time is so much more than a feverish planning time with the stresses of decisions. It is an opportunity to celebrate a key juncture in your relationship.
The memories you create will outshine any Pinterest-perfect wedding moment.
Feeling grounded as a couple with a united front creates immunity to stress.
Move into your marriage with ease so the small things (and even the big problems) feel less stressful. You will look back on your engagement as a time where your love for each other flourished.
Your wedding and marriage will be that much sweeter!
It's a time to savor each other, a time to map out how you want to set the tone for your next steps together—marriage.
Related Reading: Keys to Healthy Love and a Happy Relationship
Heartmanity specializes in helping couples create amazing relationships. We offer resources and services from premarital coaching to intention sessions to marriage advice. We can help you through all seasons of your relationship!
Check out our Drama-Free Marriage resources.
Or reach out to us at support@heartmanity.com to learn how we can assist you to create the relationship and marriage you have only dreamt about!
