Our timeline:
Dated two years
Engaged for one year
Moved in a few months into the engagement
But we were pretty much best friends for 8 years before all of that, so that really changes things. If we hadn’t already known each other really well, I would have wanted to date for at least three or four years instead.
Long engagements suck though. I would HIGHLY recommend doing them in a year or less. Wedding planning is easier when you’re forced to just make decisions and you don’t have time to second guess or change your mind. If you have a long time to do something, it’s easy to get caught up in finding the perfect ______, and you’ll waste time, money, and sanity doing this. If I could redo it, I would want probably an 8 month engagement rather than a full year. Keep in mind though that if you’re waiting on a proposal and you have a certain month in mind for getting married, the length of your engagement might not be completely flexible.