Announcing Your Engagement

You may like to do things your own way, and that's fine - but where your wedding is concerned, it's fairly likely that ignoring too many wedding traditions will irritate or upset someone in your families.  Put your own style to work in other areas; when you announce your wedding, follow some basic rules of thumb to make sure you don't accidentally upset anyone you care about.

Family and Friends

If you can, tell your parents when both of you are present.  Since you're going to be a permanent couple, you should make major announcements as a couple.  If parents live too far away, call them first but try to arrange a trip in the near future to visit them.  Many couples enjoy getting all the future in-laws together at some point before the wedding; that way it's more casual and natural than having everyone meet each other for the first time the day of your wedding.

If one of you has children, make sure you let them know immediately.  Few things are more painful than hearing one of your parents is getting re-married from someone else.  If you can't get to all the children, hold off making the announcement to anyone until you're sure you can. 

Wedding Announcements

Newspaper announcements are less common than they used to be, if for no other reason than fewer people get their news from printed sources.  If you're publishing an announcement in the newspaper, here are a few conventions you should follow:

• The announcement is normally made by the parents of the bride.  If you plan to be engaged for several years, wait to publish the announcement until about a year before your wedding date.  Most papers include a wedding photo; not to be biased, but wedding announcements without photos look a little odd.
• Some papers charge a fee for announcements, and others don't.  Check to see if there's a fee and whether the expense is worth it.
• If the groom's family lives outside the geographic reach of the newspaper, you can publish a separate announcement in that paper.  Many people do; others send a copy of the announcement to the groom's parents and leave it at that.  Tradition only "requires" the announcement appear in the newspaper where the bride's parents live, but you can theoretically publish an announcement anywhere you like.  Some papers will charge a fee if you don't have a pretty solid connection to the area, though - if you publish in a particular newspaper because that's where your uncle lives, you're likely to incur a charge.
• If the bride's parents are divorced, the wedding announcement is generally made by the person the bride lives with.  Some parents choose to make the announcement together.  An example would be, "Mrs. Joan Smith of Richmond and Mr. John Doe of Harrisonburg announce the engagement of their daughter, Barbara Doe..."

A last word on engagement photos; many brides choose to appear in the engagement photo alone.  That was a more common practice years ago.  Most couples appear together in the engagement photo, but if the bride wants to appear alone, feel free.  We often take individual photos of the bride during an engagement photo shoot just in case the couple decides later to have just the bride appear.