How to break off your engagement
After Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson’s split, here’s some advice on calling it all off
When Kristin Lubeck and her boyfriend were planning a seventh-anniversary trip to Las Vegas, she told him not to buy her a ring. But he didn’t listen. During the trip’s final hours, he proposed — and she said yes.
Months later, when Lubeck and her fiancé went to get her engagement ring sized to fit her finger, she couldn’t go through with the alterations.
“I wanted it to remain a generic size so it could be reused again. If it fits my finger, he might not get as much money for it,” Lubeck remembers thinking, the kind of reaction that screams: Do not go through with this.
Now she tells anyone who’s unsure about fulfilling their engagement: If you don’t think it’s right, don’t do it.
This week, Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson became the latest celebrities to break off an engagement. TMZ reported that Davidson would get the $93,000 custom-made engagement ring, and Grande would keep the pig they adopted together.
Lauren Kay, deputy editor of The Knot, likens a broken engagement to a miscarriage: There’s a lot of shame attached to it, and they are more common than you might think, she says — even if you don’t have millions of Instagram followers rooting for your relationship. “If you’re in the situation, you feel like you’ve failed in some way. But a lot people go through it,” Kay says.
In the wake of the “Grandson” split, we spoke to wedding experts and several people who have broken off their own engagements or cancelled weddings — and everyone said the dread about spreading the news was worse than the actual announcement. If you’re facing a big breakup, here are some tips they offered.
Getting the word out:
When Caitlin Reagan called off her wedding about six months before the big day, she remembers the hardest call she had to make was to the wedding coordinator at the church where she had planned to get married. She had written out what she needed to say before making the call and was worried about bursting into tears on the phone. Luckily, she got to leave a message, and the coordinator called her back and was very understanding.
Kay says that if invitations haven’t been mailed, the wedding’s would-be hosts (such as the parents) can send a card saying they’re no longer hosting the wedding of so-and-so and so-and-so. If invitations have already gone out, every guest should get a phone call notifying them that the wedding is no longer happening. It’s best to be candid and get the news out as soon as possible, Kay says, but you don’t have to explain why the wedding has been called off. If emotions are raw, the would-be couple might draft friends or siblings to circulate the news, Kay suggests.
What to do with gifts:
Typical etiquette says that the couple should return any engagement, shower or wedding gifts they’ve received, even if they were personalized, Kay says. Mike Cramer, who called off a wedding about four years ago, says that when he and his ex-fiancée returned gifts to guests, most people told him to keep whatever they had sent. “I don’t think I took everyone up on it,” Cramer recalls, “but I did get a really nice coffee maker out of the whole thing.”
What about the engagement ring?
Typically whoever proposed should get the engagement ring returned to them, especially if the ring was a family heirloom. Receiving an engagement ring is essentially agreeing to a contract that you
will marry the person who gives it to you, says Caroline Krauss-Browne, an attorney in the matrimonial and family law department of Blank Rome.
Krauss-Browne also advises not to return the ring to the proposer right away if the party holding the ring lost money on a deposit for a venue. She has negotiated exchanges where the ring is traded for part of the un-recouped wedding costs.
Cancelling on wedding vendors:
Unfortunately, wedding cancellation insurance usually covers things such as cancellation or postponement due to weather or a death or illness in the couple’s immediate family, but not a change of heart. Reagan says she’s never really been able to talk to her parents about how much they lost on her would-be wedding venue, band, caterer and custom-dress
designer.
The big day that’s now just a normal day:
After the logistical work of cancelling a wedding is complete, the emotional toll sets in. While on the bus to work on her would-be big day, Reagan typed a note to herself on her phone: “Today was supposed to be my wedding, but it’s not. Today’s going to be a great day anyway.”
She went out for happy hour with new friends at
work. Later on, she hosted a blowout 30th birthday party with money that had been set aside for her honeymoon.
Every year on his would-be wedding day, Cramer and his friends celebrate “Mike Emancipation Day.” It’s usually just a happy hour, a date that his friends have in their calendars every year. His current girlfriend has even celebrated two Mike Emancipation Days. After all, it’s part of the reason they’re together.