If you've recently gotten engaged, you may be looking for some engagement party ideas for the party you want to host to celebrate your engagement, starting with when to have the party, who usually hosts and/or pays for the event, where to have it and who to invite.
While engagement parties aren't mandatory and so not all couples decide to have one, it's a great way for the couple's respective families to meet and give the bridal party to get a chance to get acquainted before the rehearsal as well.
When Should a Couple Have the Party Typically and traditionally these types of parties are held when a couple is having a relatively long engagement, at least a year or more before the wedding date.
The parties are held about three months or so after the couple gets engaged and no later than six months before the wedding.
It would be a bit odd, not to mention nerve-wracking to try to come up with engagement party ideas at the same time as planning out a wedding.
Who Hosts the Event Traditionally the bride's parents plan and host the party, although today with a lot of couples getting married later in life or even having lived away from the parents for some time, the couple can always host the party themselves.
Who is Invited Since this isn't supposed to be a preview of the wedding itself or even the rehearsal, this is usually a more casual event inviting only close family and friends and maybe even the bridal party since they're an important part of the wedding day.
You obviously wouldn't invite anyone to the engagement party if you're not going to invite them to the wedding.
Invitations The type of invitations you use will depend mostly on the type of party you're having.
If it's going to be super casual like a pool party or backyard barbecue, you can send out simple invitations that you make yourself on your computer and greeting card paper.
You can have the guests simply send a phone call, text or email for the RSVP.
If you're planning a more formal get-together, you can send out more sophisticated invitations that require an RSVP be mailed back.
Engagement Party Ideas for Locations and Themes Engagement party ideas for where to have the event again depends on what type of theme you're having.
If you're having a simple and casual backyard barbecue or pool party and you have the room at your house or the parent's house, this is a really inexpensive way to go for a location.
Even if you want something casual but you don't have the room for the amount of guests you expect to invite, you can look into renting a covered pavilion at a local public park or even an amusement park.
The ideas are pretty much endless.
To come up with some more engagement party ideas, just think about what you would do for any other type of party and how formal or casual you want the party to be.
You also might have to take your budget into consideration and that might play a huge part in what the party will be planned out to be like.
Food for the Party You have a lot of options for how you're going to feed your guests from having the event catered to asking all your guests to bring either a main or side dish and you all feed yourselves.
Again, your menu will depend a lot on where you're having the party.
If you're planning a somewhat formal dinner party, you won't have to worry about the food because the restaurant will take of that or you'll be having it catered.
At the same time, if you're having the party at your house or you're leasing a park pavilion, you may be able to have a local caterer deliver and set up your food for you before the guests arrive.
Party Favors While some people may think that party favors aren't really necessary and your guests won't miss them, it's still nice to have unexpected little 'thank you's' to give your guests, especially for this type of party.
Favors for an engagement party should be fun and just a small token to share your excitement about getting engaged.
One of the best ways to give inexpensive favors is to look into custom laminated bookmarks.
They're useful, practical, inexpensive and fit right in to any of the engagement party ideas you come up with.
You can get really creative with bookmark party favors too by putting your engagement photo on them and if you've already set your wedding date, you can use these as Save the Date announcements as well for your guests to take home with them.