Fashion
Booking the Venue Before Popping the Question
Many couples consider proposals a mere formality, and they’re eager to get on with planning a major life event before there’s even a ring.
Christine Parascandola and Aditya Seeramreddi started planning their wedding in February 2024, four months before Mr. Seeramreddi proposed to Ms. Parascandola. They hired a wedding planner, picked a wedding date and even booked their venue in Windham, N.Y.
After securing a place, Ms. Parascandola informed her friends to save the date: May 10, 2025.
“You don’t have a ring on your finger, what are you doing?,” she recalled her friends asking.
“I was like, ‘You guys think I’m crazy, but we’re getting married,’” said Ms. Parascandola, 28, a veterinary medical school student.
For many couples, proposals are becoming more of a formality. Getting married is a major life decision that people are discussing before an engagement, and for practical reasons, many couples are getting a head start on planning.
According to a 2024 study by the wedding planning website Zola, 89 percent of couples began the wedding-planning process before formally getting engaged. Zola surveyed about 7,000 couples nationwide.
Seventeen percent took “a very concrete step” in the wedding-planning process before any question was popped, including booking the wedding venue, creating a wedding website, shopping for wedding attire or sending out a save-the-date card.