How long were you dating and how long were engaged?

[ChrisJ 1]

Married waiters, I need your answer to this. I've recently been thinking about the future and came up with the plan that if I were to find "her" then I would do 1-1.5 years of dating & 14-17 month long engagement. ^__^

Was wondering how actual married waiters did it.

[Blind&Broken 47]

I'm not married so my opinion doesn't matter but I never understood the point of a long engagement? If I met a girl and was certain enough she was to be my wife, hence asking for her hand/engagement, I wouldn't see a need for a long engagement. Maybe I am missing something. Given my propensity to be clueless, this is a real possibility.

I hate to use a car analogy because people are not cars, but say a person went car shopping. Finds a car they really like. Has everything they are looking for, it would make them happy, etc. But as much as they like the car, they're not going to buy it for a year or 2.

[sheris 64]

Well, I too am not married but don't see the need for long term relationship or engagement, unless there was some good enough reason why marriage should wait.

[Burento 66]

Yeah, if you're going to say "date for 1-1.5 years and be engaged for 14-17 months", you might as well just say "date for 2.5-3 years".

[DanceSingLove 154]

My husband and I dated a little over 5 years before becoming officially engaged (we had been talking about it after a year of dating, but I was only a senior in high school, him a freshman in college) and then we were engaged for about 13 months. We had also been long distance for a majority of the time we were dating (went to different colleges) so that and our age also contributed to why we waited so long to get married. We got married at 23/24 in June 2015 It was tough in the moment of all the waiting, distance etc but now being on the other side, I regret nothing

[Sally 2,363]

My husband and I dated for about a year and a half before getting engaged. Then we were only engaged six months before getting married. We will be celebrating our two year wedding anniversary this summer!

[Selina 151]

We dated for a year and were engaged for a year as well! If the question is about the right amount of time before getting married, I think it also depends on maturity and whether each of the couple knows what he/she wants, knows his/her own life priorities etc. For example, I knew that I wanted someone who would join me during prayer so that I didn't have to always choose between staying at home with my husband and practicing my faith regularly. I also wanted someone who wouldn't think twice before helping others, volunteering for a good cause etc, and I wanted someone who would respect my desire to always learn knowledge and apply it to helping people. I also knew that I wanted someone who would get along with my family, and whose family I could identify with. So I purposely found out all of that information within the first couple of months, before the strong feelings developed

[emily1030 270]

We had been dating 2.5 years when he proposed and our engagement will be just under 1.5 years. So just about 4 years total of dating. Its a pretty long time, considering we're waiters, but we also aren't rushing into it, which I think is good.