Engagement party

The purpose of the engagement party is for the couple to celebrate their recent engagement with their friends and family. Anyone invited to the engagement party should also be invited to the wedding. This is a totally optional party - if you don't feel that you want an engagement party, it can absolutely be skipped.

They’re a chance to celebrate the engagement, especially when the couple is planning a long engagement before the wedding. They’re not necessary at all if you don’t want one. We never bothered with one, but we were only engaged just under eight months.

We are using ours to introduce the wedding party to each other, officially do wedding party proposals (even though most know), and all of our major announcements such as date etc. Our engagement was done privately so this is a way to show out a little bit.

I believe it was traditionally an event for the bride and groom’s families to get to know each other.

Also second marriage. We are opting to not do engagement parties, showers, etc. Just a big, fun wedding day!

Where we live and where we are from, people do not have engagement parties of any kind. A engagement announcement in the local newspaper sure, and even that is falling out of style. Prior to the internet in recent years pushing them as standard in every region, we didn’t know what they were outside of a setting in a NYC based Law and Order episode. In that case, they are always presented as mini weddings with registries and black tie nine yards. That doesn’t mean that it applies to real life elsewhere in the same or similar way. We didn’t have one but were told by friends from the NYC area that’s basically a public party where you announce your engagement to everyone local, but people who do not live within daily commute driving distance are not invited.

In my mind engagement parties are similar to gender-reveal parties. Another opportunity to party and get gifts before the actual shower!


Personally I did not have one at my first wedding and will not at my second. I've actually never been to one either. It's really just not something that's done in my circles. I just see pictures of it from celebrities.

I didn't have an engagement party for this or my last marriage. My fiance didn't even know such a thing existed so he & his ex wife didn't have one either. Traditionally, they were a way for both sides of each family to get to know each other before the wedding. It doesn't seem like that is as high on the priority list these days as it apparently used to be. On Reddit, a lot of the younger people are forgoing that with some even unconcerned with bridal parties.

View Quoted Comment I think a lot of times now, the families have been interacting already. We were together nearly five years before we got engaged, and that’s not uncommon. Our families had been meeting for years already.