Why the Long Engagement?

I talked about how we met here and then our history and official engagement story here and here. And in the engagement story I briefly touched upon how we had a long engagement, it'll be 4 years and some change by the time we tie the knot in August 2011. But that timeline isn't for everyone and at first it wasn't for me either.

I was so excited to be newly engaged, I started to read all the wedding sites and buy up as many wedding mags as possible, researching venues and oohing and ahhing at all the lovely photos and thinking about what our date should be. Maybe May 2008 or August 2009. But for some reason, even though we were engaged, for him, the timing was just never right to actually plan a wedding and get married. So I started to really wonder...why didn't he just wait to propose when he was really ready to get married. But I didn't push the issue, I knew it would happen at some point, I just had to be patient. So with patience in mind, I just forgot all about a wedding and just continued to cultivate our relationship. And that's what I like to think we did over the course of the past 7.5 years of being together.

Really thinking about our timeline, here's why it wasn't practical for us until now:

• 2007: We were freshly engaged and just about to graduate college and headed into a major transition in our lives and tackling wedding planning just wasn't fitting into that transition. Not to mention we were dead.broke, college loan debt anyone, I know you can relate.
• 2008: We were getting into the swing of things being working people and all. Then he found a new job and moved to Philly, I was on my way shortly after. So again no time or money for a wedding.
• 2009: This just wasn't the year, nothing major going on it just wasn't top of mind, we were happy being together and exploring our new city.
• 2010: This year just seemed like it was our year we both agreed that we were ready to take the plunge into married life and finally set a date.

And throughout all those years, we always got questions from family, coworkers and friends - when's the date?, have you decided yet?, what's taking so long?. etc. etc. but none of those questions ever made us feel the pressure. At a certain point we just realized that when we were ready to take on the full commitment of  marriage we would make it happen. Everyone has their timeline and regardless of whether it's exactly one year after you get engaged or 10 it doesn't matter because every couple is different and what works for one doesn't always for another.

What timeline worked best for your relationship?