Announcing your Wedding Engagement – From the New and Fun to the Traditional

Wow. You did it. You’re engaged. Mom and Dad know and you’ve told your brothers and sisters, and Grandma and Grandpa. How do you tell the rest?

Well, of course, there’s always email but your engagement is special and don’t you want your announcement to be just as special? Here are a few ideas – starting with new and fun ways and ending with the more traditional.

1. Think outside the box

The fortune-cookie announcement: Invite family and friends for Chinese or meet up at your favorite Chinese restaurant. When it comes time for the fortune cookie, instead of the restaurant serving their fortune cookie, ask the restaurant to serve a set of fortune cookies you had made in advance that include, instead of the fortune, your engagement announcement; e.g. Tracy and Sean are engaged!

Who-can-solve-the-puzzle announcement: Give friends and family a box of puzzle pieces. Once the puzzle is put together, people can read your engagement announcement. You can do this at a party or send it with an offer of a price for the first person who solves the puzzle.

A gift calendar with your important date: Make a gift calendar for family and friends you plan on inviting to the wedding and include your wedding date in the calendar but do not tell them. Instead, ask them to search their calendar for an important date. (This can also serve as a practical save-the-date announcement.)

Who-reads-the-label announcement:. For your next party, order bottles of wine with custom labels that include your engagement announcement. Serve the wine from the bottles and see who is the first to notice.

2. Use Amigram – a free website for engagement and wedding announcements.

Post your engagement announcement and photos on Amigram and send to family and friends. Amigram is a new site for people to share any happy announcements, in particular engagement and wedding. You can tell family and friends your happy news (there’s also an option to tell them where you are registered) without having to build a website, pay for a newspaper listing or let all your relatives and parents’ friends onto your Facebook account (although there are tools for sending your Amigram to Facebook and Twitter).

If you don’t want to post your engagement announcement on the site, you can choose to make it private by electing to have only family and friends see it.

3. Post your engagement announcement on Facebook and Twitter

Some couples are choosing to announce their engagement on Facebook and Twitter. This is a great way to spread the news quickly but there may be a few important people in your life you may want to include but are not on Facebook. If they are really special to you, you will want to ensure they hear the news from you and not your Facebook friends so you could either call them or sue some of the other ideas in this article.

4. Build a wedding website

This is probably the most thorough engagement announcement you can create and you can do it through a number of sites for little to no cost. Besides the time it takes to create the site, the disadvantage is that many times the only way people can get onto your website is through the link you send them. This is nice for the initial announcement but as the wedding date draws nearer and people want to revisit your site to see where you are registered, they may need to hunt through old emails to find your site.

5. Submit your announcement to your local newspaper

This is the engagement announcement most familiar to your parents and grandparents. If a lot of family and friends are still in your hometown, this may be a good option for you – and your parents will appreciate it. The disadvantage to newspaper announcements is that in many cities – check yours – you need to pay a fee – some as high as $150 – and you need to follow their guidelines. Chances are, however, many of your family and friends are no longer in your hometown or subscribe to the local paper. If this is the case, you will need to think about how you will let them know you’re engaged, possibly using some of the other ideas in this article.

Whatever way you choose, from a novel, interactive approach to Amigram and social networking sites or the traditional newspaper announcement, enjoy this special time in your life.

Pat Oaklief is a co-owner of Amigram. Her next story will be on favorite weddings from the guest perspective. If you’ve been to a great wedding you’d like to share, you can contact Pat through the contact us button at http://www.amigram.com/

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