At Time of Engagement

• Tell your parents the happy news, if they do not already know.
• Buy or make a wedding organizer. 
• Think about whether you will want to have it as a keepsake later on; if so, this may influence your decision about what kind of organizer to have. At a bare minimum, you should have an organized way to keep track of appointments/payments/etc., and a system for keeping track of invitations, gifts, and thank-you notes.
• Call or write to your close friends and relatives to let them know, unless you plan to have an engagement party.
• Have an engagement photo taken.
• Find out the policies of the newspapers where you and your fiancé grew up, and where you now live, about engagement announcements.
• They may have specific guidelines about how far in advance of the wedding they will publish an announcement. Submit announcements to the papers at the appropriate time.
• Keep up with thank-you notes as you receive gifts.
• The best time to write a thank you note is immediately after opening the gift; Unless you receive hundreds of gifts in one day, it should never take more than 6 weeks to send a thank-you note (unless you are on your honeymoon, when you are not expected to be writing thank-you notes). If you do receive hundreds of gifts in one day, you may want to send gift acknowledgments to the givers, letting them know you have received their gifts and will send a personal note as soon as possible.