Your engagement is a new milestone. But just because the “dating phase” is over doesn’t mean the romance should be too. Your fiancé will be your spouse forever, so now is actually the time to intentionally step up the romance!
However, an engagement season is often coupled with an extra busy schedule and an extra tight budget. So we’ve compiled a list of our favorite ideas to help you keep the love lively within these parameters.
📷 Boyette Design
📷 Moira Grace Photography
Cake Tasting Date
You’re likely going to have a cake at your wedding. Make this a date and check an item off your wedding planning to-do list without having to spend extra money.
Spend the night in after picking up cake sample boxes, or spend it at the bakery. Regardless of where - savor the cake and the date with your soon-to-be spouse.
📷 Raegan Alyssa Photograhy
Purposeful Reading Dates
Spend time with your future forever by curling up to a good book with one another. Pick something you both want to read or choose individual books and read silently together. This is a great way to preschedule purposeful and fulfilling times together.
Need a book suggestion? Try Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts: 7 Questions to Ask Before — And After — You Marry.
📷 Boyette Design
Take Virtual Dance Lessons
Tackle a wedding to-do list item and emphasize the romance, all while saving a few dollars. Take a free virtual dance lesson. Focus on each other, learn the dance you will do on your big day, and enjoy the comfort and privacy of being in your own space.
Bonus Idea: Even though it’s just the two of you, you can up the romance by getting all dolled up. Put on your favorite dress (besides your wedding gown of course) put your hair in an updo, add a favorite piece of jewelry, and finish with perfume. It’s even more special that we take the time to do this even when no one else will see us.
📷 Cameron Thompson Photography
House Hunting Date
You and your significant other will need a home to live in once you’re married. Figure it all out over popcorn. Make a list of must-haves, nice-to-haves, and dream-haves. Then “virtual house hunt” together. Connect the phone or laptop you’re using to a bigger screen or TV so you both can truly look together.
If at this point you already know where you are going to live, make a date night out of walking around the home and envision where to hang future wedding pictures. Chat about what kind of picture would look best and where.
Example: “I envision an intimate black and white photo of us kissing at our ceremony to hang over our bed in our bedroom.”
Pro Tip: Write this down and send it to your photographer before the wedding.
📷 Skyler Brown Photography
Location Love Date
Don’t shy away from a previous experience. Nostalgia can be super romantic. Take a drive to revisit where you first met, where you had your first date, or where your proposal happened. If your special locations are all physically close together, speed up time by visiting all the spots in one night, in chronological order.
Standing hand in hand where it all started can bring back floods of happy memories. While you’re visiting old spots, ask your fiancé…
What their favorite memory of that location is?
What future locations they think will bring the two of you more happy memories in years to come?
📷 Montana Burkett Photography