The Wedding Diaries #2: Our Engagement Party

I’m going to try to do monthly updates for ‘The Wedding Diaries’. So much has happened, and there is so much to catch you up on! I thought I would dedicate my second post in the series to our engagement party. As soon as we got engaged, I jumped into party planning mode, and decorations were bought immediately. Our engagement party took place at the end of August, actually on my birthday weekend. We held it at one of my friends’ gardens, and it was honestly the most wholesome day. The weather was a bit touch and go, but on the whole, we survived the wind and rain, and it didn’t dampen the festivities.

I’ll try and go through our decorations and what we bought for the party. I wanted a festival feel, so we had hay bales, wild flowers, a beer wheelbarrow, and garden games. The day before the party, we went wildflower picking, and I was so happy with how they looked. I picked up some super cheap plastic vases from Shein, and they did an excellent job. We had a few balloons, but with the wind, we kept most of them inside.

I’d bought a gorgeous welcome sign and photobooth sign from TheSmartPrintingCo on Etsy, who I couldn’t recommend enough. Excellent customer service and the boards looked mint. The photobooth got used quite a lot, which we loved. We also had an Instax Mini floating around, so we got some excellent photos to cherish from everyone as the camera was passed around.

We also had a few personalised items made from Shein and Temu and I ended up being really happy with the quality. Walter wasn’t at the main portion of the party but we did make sure he was involved. We got personalised napkins with his little face on. Also, we got a sign for our ‘Signature cocktail’, which was called the Apawerol Spritz. That’s definitely something we can use again! I also got some personalised stickers, which we used with some of the food items, and I was really happy with how they turned out too!

As I mentioned, we had a few garden games. These were bought from Sainsbury’s when they had their Summer stuff out, and I also picked up the Ginger Ray bean bag toss. I was buzzing as I’d be able to use these again for our wedding too! Other activities I had were little sheets for people to fill out with Wedding Predictions and Song Requests. It was so lovely to go through them after the party. I made the designs for the sheets on Canva and then just printed them out on card.

In terms of food, we had nibbles throughout the day. Of course, I saw on Pinterest the doughnuts turned engagement rings, so I had to recreate these! I also did the M&S biscuit hack where I used M&S biscuits with a personalised cutter and some cheap icing. We ended up making over 100 biscuits and I’d say it cost no more than £25! I packed them individually and added a personalised sticker so they looked pretty good!

The star of the show was that we ordered 20 pizzas from our favourite local takeaway. We personally thought we had over-ordered but we got the amount just right. I’d made a cute little pizza sign and pizza menu, which was framed on the food table to give it a more tailored touch. We had single slice pizza plates, which we stuck personalised stickers on, and they looked excellent! The pizzas truly went down a treat!

We also ordered a little cake from Patisserie Valerie which was in the vintage heart style. I loved the cake so much but it was a little on the small size so we kept it for later on in the night. I then ordered an engaged cake topper which fit the cake perfectly. The cake was delivered in the mail and was frozen so we just defrosted it in the fridge and it was good to go! I was really impressed as it wasn’t too expensive either!

Finally, lets take a moment for the engagement party dress! It’s from Hope & Ivy and they have some gorgeous dresses on there. I actually picked up mine half price on Vinted brand new! I absolutely loved the feathers! I need to buy a few more bridal/white items for my wardrobe, but I’m sure I’ll be showing more and more over the next year!

I *think* I’ve covered most things from our engagement party. I’m so happy with how the whole day turned out. We were super lucky to have some amazing people around us who just made the day incredible. It was just a day full of love, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way!

I can’t wait to share more about our wedding planning and what else we get up to! Let me know what else you would like to see too!