When you get engaged, there will be lots of parties and events in your honor. The first of these is typically the engagement party. This fun bash is a party hosted by the bride’s parents to celebrate the news of the engagement.

The engagement party should take place fairly soon after he pops the question. Usually somewhere between one and four months. If you hold it fairly soon after the engagement becomes official, this gala can be when the announcement is officially made to your extended circle of family and friends. Keep in mind, though, that just as with a bridal shower, anyone invited to the engagement party should also be invited to the wedding.

Engagement parties will often be much larger events than a bridal shower. The idea of a shower is for the bride-to-be to have an afternoon spent in the company of her closest female relatives and friends. The engagement party, on the other hand, will involve a much broader spectrum of guests. Your good friends will be there, but so will your dad’s golfing buddy and your mom’s old collage roommate. Depending on the size of your parents’ social circle, it can really end up being more for their friends than yours.

It is customary that no gifts be brought to an engagement party, but this tradition is not always followed these days. Because an engagement party really is not the same as a shower, you might consider putting “no gifts, please” on the invitation. If you decide to leave it up to your guests, be sure to get your bridal registry done before the party. When people bring engagement gifts, they also know that they will be buying a wedding present down the road, so this gift is generally going to be from the less pricey end of your wish list.

The party itself can be any style that suits your family. Engagement parties are often done as cocktail parties with appetizers. The guest list is usually too large to lend itself to a seated dinner in a home, so a mix and mingle type of event makes more sense. Besides, it really is not the food that matters at an engagement party; it is the Champagne! Expect plenty of joyful toasts in your honor.

The bride-to-be will definitely want to get a pretty new dress for her engagement party, no matter how formal or informal it may be. Certainly keep it line with the general flavor of the party, but also feel free to indulge in a really gorgeous frock – you are the guest of honor, after all (well, you and your fiancé are). Get your hair done for the party as well, so it will look fantastic in the pictures – nothing too fancy is required, but at least have your hair blown out by a professional.

Although it is not always done, the bride’s parents might want to make a special gesture for the couple or at least the bride during the engagement party. Certainly, the father of the bride should make a toast welcoming his future son-in-law into the family. It would also be very thoughtful for the father of the bride to present his daughter with a beautiful necklace or other piece of bridal jewelry. By the time she wears the bridal jewelry on her wedding day, it will already have great sentimental meaning for the bride.

Beyond the basics, the rest of the engagement party is really about what suits the newly engaged couple and their families. If you love to dance, you can have a band. If you prefer to keep things more relaxed, you can have a barbecue in the backyard. The type of engagement party does not matter; what matters is the celebration of the upcoming marriage.

He finally asked you to marry him! Whether it was a long courtship or a short one, it is now an exciting part of your relationship – the engagement. Many people have an “engagement party”. It usually takes place within a couple of months of the proposal, closer to your engagement than your wedding date.

Anyone invited to your engagement party should also be invited to your wedding, but it makes sense to keep it to local friends and family, unless out of town guests want to fly or drive in. You can start by inviting your closest family and friends, and then expand from there as your budget and location allows.

You can send out handwritten or formal invitations, but they don’t have to be as fancy as the wedding invitations – those will come later. You can even invite guests on Evite.com or set up an account on Engagepage.com to give everyone ALL the details on the party and your planning for your wedding. If you are having an informal get-together at your place, you can make the invites less formal, as well as the engagement party ideas and theme for the party. If your parents are hosting it at a country club, then they would be more formal – it’s your choice! Just send the invites out 2-4 weeks in advance, unless you have out-of-towners coming in. Then give them a little more time to RSVP and make travel plans to see you!

Choose a style and a theme that is appropriate to your engagement party idea that you like the most…it can be a formal sit down dinner with tuxedos and gowns, or it can be a tropical theme with leis and grass skirts and Hawaiian music. Or remember back to your first date – if you ate at a Chinese restaurant, you can serve Chinese food with chopstick and create love notes in the fortune cookies! Just remember that you don’t want to upstage your wedding day, so make it the opposite…most like to have an informal engagement party and a more formal wedding day, but it is up to you! Even if you have a simple engagement party theme, you can spruce it up with some beautiful arrangements of flowers and some colorful fabric for the tablecloth and decorations. Don’t forget to have a nice engagement photo on display on a table near by. And don’t worry as much about having tacky decorations like heart-shaped balloons and plastic champagne glasses – this party you can have fun with since it is not as formal as the wedding!

Usually it is the bride’s parents that sponsor an engagement party, but the groom’s family might want to be a bigger part of it. The father of the bride traditionally gives the first toast to the couple, officially announcing the engagement. After the first toast, you and your fiancé may want to welcome everyone to the engagement party and thank them for coming before opening up the floor to the well wishes of the guests. Then you can eat a meal or cake, and maybe have a DJ and some dancing.

Just remember – you are at the height of your romance and planning a life together – let this be a stress free party and enjoy yourself!!