8 Stages You Go Through After Getting Engaged

1. Who do I tell first?

As soon as you get engaged, the first thing you want to do is share the news! But it’s not as easy as it sounds. There has to be an order to who you tell, right? You obviously have to tell your family first. But what happens when your sister or brother aren’t available. Can you call your best friend before them? And how do you tell everyone? Who do you tell in person, who do you call, who do you FaceTime, text? All of a sudden you realize that you spent the entire day you got engaged trying to get in contact with all your family and friends instead of actually celebrating the milestone.

2. Gotta make it ‘Facebook Official’

Once you’ve finally told the news to your friends and family – or at least left everyone 3 voicemails, 10 texts, and a few emails (why does no one pick up their phone anymore?) – you can now make your engagement (Facebook) official.  But how are you going to share the news post it? Your engagement announcement to the world (I mean, your Facebook friends) will probably be the most liked and commented updates you will ever post to Facebook, so it has to be right. You don’t want to make people gag, but you want it to be cute. Once you decide what you will say, you take a few dozen pictures of the ring until you find one you are satisfied with. You then post it on Instagram, followed by Facebook, and then sit and watch the notifications pour in. Because this is what getting engaged has come to.

3. So… about this ring…

If you are like me and have never worn a ring before, you will probably over-worry about your engagement ring. Do I sleep with it? Should I take it off when I shower? What about when I clean? And wash my hands? If I was to take it off to wash my hands, I would probably lose it. So… I’ll just put it in my pocket while I wash my hands. But wait — some outfits don’t have pockets. And the dilema continues…

4. Pinterest time!

So you know that secret wedding board you’ve been adding pictures to for months (or years)? You now have a reason to make it public! Sure it might consist of things you pinned when helping your sister or friend plan their wedding. But now it’s your wedding, so all the pictures you pin are going to be for you! You get really excited about all the possibilities out there, but then you remember ‘this is going to cost money‘ and you get kind of anxious. Oh well. Continue the pinning!

5. Is my ring still there?

The days after you get engaged consist of mini freak outs. When you start to get used to your ring and not feel it as much, you freak out. You constantly think it’s fallen off, but then you relax when you see its still there. This continues until you can get your ring insured, and until you go through this, you don’t realize how long that takes. You get engaged on a weekend, so no one at the insurance office is working. So you call on Monday to add it, but then you find out you need to get it appraised. So you call the jeweler where your fiancé got the ring, but they aren’t open on Monday and Tuesdays because they ARE open on weekends. Pretty soon a week has gone by and you are still freaking out that you lost your ring every second because its STILL not insured.

6. So. many. manicures.

You start noticing that your nail polish seems to be chipping… again! And everyone keeps asking to see your hand! I have always been obsessed with painting my nails, but you get sick of it really quickly in the first week of your engagement until you can get to the nail salon and get a gel manicure so you can stop the craziness. But you can’t keep getting manicures every week. That would maybe cost as much as your wedding. So what are you supposed to do?!

7. Fielding all the questions.

When’s the big day? Who’s in your wedding party? Where is it going to be? Do you know what type of dress you want? What flowers do you like? Will you get a wedding planner or are you going to handle it yourself? Where are you registered? All of these questions will give you constant mini heart attacks. Am I really supposed to have all of this figured out within the first week of being engaged? I have always thought about it and I have ideas, but final decisions?!? We just got engaged. Calm down everyone.

8. Goodbye free time.

After the first week of celebrations and excitement, (if you’re anything like me) your type-A personality won’t be able to handle it anymore — it’s time to get down to business! And so, the wedding planning begins. Looking up venues, deciding what time of the year works best for you and your families, thinking of colors and themes, trying to decide who to have in your wedding party (which after doing so I realize may be the hardest decision you have to make for the entire wedding). You have a million things to do. All for one day. And… you can’t wait!