How to Announce Your Engagement to Family and Friends

The moment you become engaged, you want to shout it from the rooftops. Well, here's a more effective and less dangerous way to do that!

Things You'll Need

• Thank-you Greeting Cards
• Telephones
• Champagne
• Champagne Flutes
• Postage Stamps
• Envelopes
• Pens
• Writing Papers

Instructions

1. Announce your engagement to the bride's parents first. Meet with them in person to ask for their blessing and talk about your plans.

2. Meet with the groom's parents next and discuss your future plans with them as well.

3. Tell the rest of the immediate family and close friends, including any children and former spouses if you've been married before.

4. If your parents, other family members or friends want to throw an engagement party for you, arrange the timing so that the party will occur just before any newspaper announcements you plan to make. You can also throw your own engagement party if you wish.

5. Be aware that it's traditional for the father of the bride-to-be to propose a toast to the couple during the engagement party; this serves as the formal announcement.

6. Write thank-you notes to the hosts of the party, and to anyone who has given you gifts, immediately after the party. (Even though gifts are not expected, some people may bring them.)

7. Make your newspaper announcement. Check with your local paper for the procedure. Also see "Submit a Wedding Announcement to a Newspaper," under Related eHows.

8. Announce your engagement on a wedding Web site, if you like. Follow their guidelines for submissions.

9. Be prepared for lots of direct mail from now on.

Tips & Warnings

• Here's one possible format for a newspaper announcement: "Mr. and Mrs. Amos Lindsey of Macon, Georgia, announce the engagement of their daughter Vanessa Veronica to William Reese, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Reese of Atlanta. The wedding will take place in September. Miss Lindsey is a graduate of the University of Georgia and is a meteorologist with Channel 13. Mr. Reese is a graduate of Emory University and is in his second year of medical school at the Medical College of Georgia."