At the end of the first semester of college I began seeing a plethora of older guys pursuing friendship with me. Little did I know it was solely because they wanted me to join their fraternity. About the same time a different group of guys from my church started hanging around me, but their intention wasn't to get me to join their group, because they were all independents. In fact, they just wanted to invest in me as a person, which was refreshing. Since then I have hung out with them in multiple occasions watching movies, playing games, going hiking, etc. A week ago, the little sister of one of these guys was being really secretive and wouldn't tell us what was going on, so we all just assumed she was going on a date with a guy we wouldn't have approved of. But, that night I got a text saying her older brother had just gotten engaged and she had been a part of it. Evidently he had taken his girlfriend to the Biltmore, and his two best friends were at Bald Rock and had set up a table and a nice dinner. The only problem was that they had only taken 45 min to go through the Biltmore instead of the 2 hours they thought it would be. Therefore, my friend Joe, had to stall. He pulled over at a local Hardy's and stayed in the bathroom for 20 minutes and stopped for ten minutes to put gas in his car that was full. After canceling his card a few times he was on his way, and luckily she said yes.
Well, I just got back from their engagement party where they had friends and family there and food. The cookies and cream cupcakes were off the chain. At the party they told the story of their engagement and just enjoyed being in the company of their loved ones. I think engagement parties are a new trend, and I like them. It gives people a chance to step back and actually enjoy the couple in a less intense and stressful setting as a wedding.
I agree, when my sister got married 3 years ago she had been living in Atlanta for most of my middle and high school career. We were close, but not in the traditional brother/sister sense as she was away at college and working full time, also 9 years older than me. Anyway when she got engaged she and her husband decided to have an engagement party in Charleston (my home) and I was able to meet a lot of her friends and her future husband. This low key environment was a great way to be introduced to my brother in laws family for the first time. I had met him a couple times before, but we really became close friends after the engagement party
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear that so many people are having positive experiences with this. I wonder what people think might be the reason behind this trend? Is it a feature of changing expectations about marriage, gender roles, or family?
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