Don’t get me wrong, I love planning our wedding. I happily spend lunch breaks reading Wedding Wire, Smashing The Glass and The Knot for vendor reviews (and searching for the perfect flower girl dress!), but I can’t help but realize there is a huge difference between being engaged to your significant other and being engaged WITH your significant other, which many people (and internet search engines) seem to ignore.

When searching “being engaged with your partner,” one of the first articles that popped up was a lengthy list of things to do after getting engaged featuring steps like “tell your parents,” “get a manicure,” and “perfect your proposal story.” While I admit to fulfilling most of the suggestions on the list, I wish it included topics like know each other’s love language or schedule pre-marital counseling. Maybe this thought process is influenced by my counseling education/background or my fear of divorce, but I think emotional engagement is something that needs to be fostered and protected at all stages of a relationship to avoid taking each other for granted and focusing on the unimportant.

All that being said, here is my advice for being engaged WITH your significant other while planning your wedding:

Continue date nights and non-wedding related activities.

When we first got engaged, all I could talk about was getting married and how great our wedding is going to be. While I still believe it’s going to be the best day ever, it can’t be the only thing Harley and I talk about for 16-month engagement period.

I think it’s extremely important to remember what you love about each other and your relationship by continuing to enjoy one another’s company through date nights and shared hobbies even when your wedding is not the topic. For Harley and I, this means we still cheer for our hockey team at least once a week, tease each other over our Fantasy Hockey League standings, and take advantage of our Disney Annual Passes as often as possible. Even if it’s a busy time and we’re just chatting about our day while cooking dinner, the time we spend together is always important and a nice break from work and wedding planning activities.

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Question: How do you get a Canadian man in his 20’s excited about taking engagement photos?
Answer: Rent out a hockey rink, of course!!

Aside from solidifying our venue, my favorite wedding planning activity, by far, has been our engagement photo shoot. It was a day full of pampering, romancing, laughing, and even ice skating! Harley has never been a huge fan of the traditional engagement photo idea, so I had to get a little creative in order for him to be as excited about the ordeal as I was…that’s where hockey comes in!

Harley and I are in our fourth year as season ticket holders for the Florida Panthers. We froze our butts off at the outdoor Winter Classic in Boston this past January, we traveled to California on a whim to see his favorite team when they finally made it to the Stanley Cup Finals in May, and my fiancà©’s  closet looks like a cartoon’s wardrobe who wears multiple versions of the same outfit everyday…and yes, that outfit is a hockey jersey.

We’ve also been noticing the trend of infusing the couples’ personalities and hobbies into the big day (i.e. Harry Potter and Disney-themed weddings). While I wasn’t ready to give up my idea of a traditional, elegant wedding for a ceremony officiated by our team’s mascot or reception table names influenced by our favorite hockey players, I thought it would be a great idea to let this collective hobby of ours play out in our engagement photos.

Engagement Photo Shoot Planning

I’ve always loved seeing my friends’ engagement photos, but I can honestly say I didn’t realize how much work went into them! First came the most important part…choosing a date. I never put much thought into this before, thinking “you just pick a day and take some pictures,” but it’s not quite that easy. I had to make sure all the key players were available on the same day. For us, those key players were Lulu’s Hair and Make-up Studio, Jack Bates Photography, and the Palm Beach Skate Zone. We chose to take the pictures on Labor Day because it was a Monday I was off from work, and, as you can imagine, wedding vendors like a hair and make-up artist and a photographer tend to be booked on the weekends.

Once the date was set and everyone was on board for a Labor Day engagement photo shoot, the wardrobe decisions began! Because Harley and I planned to take pictures on ice at the Palm Beach Skate Zone, at the beach across from our wedding venue, and even some at our wedding venue, we knew we would need more than one outfit. We decided to divide and conquer with me being in charge of the hockey outfits and Harley being in charge of the wardrobe for the beach and venue. KIDDING!

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When you research what comes next after choosing your wedding venue, you often see suggestions like “book your officiant” or “find your photographer!” You might even find comments like “you’ll want to get your DJ right away” but “purchase your wedding dress?” That’s definitely not on the top of the standard Wedding To-Do list, but it somehow ended up being my next big wedding check mark.

With a sixteen-month wedding planning period and my sister Jill’s wedding two and half months after Harley and I got engaged, I was in no rush to book anything other than the venue. Even as someone who considers myself to be a serious Type A planner, I’m enjoying having a longer engagement so far because I don’t have to worry about deciding on vendors quickly. In fact, I took a one-month hiatus from searching for a florist when I found myself getting stressed over finding the perfect vendor who fit our style and budget. Somehow, “saying yes to the dress” has been one of the easiest decisions I’ve made related to our wedding and the one that I thought about the least!

Dawn’s friend, Shelley is wearing a wedding dress from Mariolka’s Bridal Boutique, which inspired her  to shop for her  dress there. Dawn is  also in this picture as one of Shelley’s  bridesmaids! (Image:  Jack Bates Photography)

It all started with my friend Shelley’s wedding (pictured above) in December 2016. Shelley has been one of my best friends and fashion gurus for over 10 years! She got her gorgeous wedding dress at Mariolka’s Bridal Boutique, so naturally I started following the store on social media when I got engaged.

One Sunday in May, Harley and I were relaxing at the pool, and I saw an advertisement on my Facebook newsfeed that Mariolka’s was having a huge sale to make room for the 2017 collections. I figured that I probably wouldn’t find anything because I wasn’t “ready” to look for a wedding dress. I hadn’t started “sweating for the wedding” yet like many brides do, my Wedding Dress Board on Pinterest only had about five pins on it, and I didn’t have wedding dress shopping on my planning timeline until at least August when I would be eleven months away from the big day. I also didn’t want to get too excited because Mariolka’s is a very high-end boutique, which I thought would be out of my price range. Regardless, I made plans to go to Mariolka’s that Tuesday after work with Shelley and my mom. It felt strange going without my sister because I was very much involved with her wedding dress shopping experience, but she lives four hours away and I didn’t want to miss out on the sale!

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