I met my wife at church. Not just at church, but when I was a youth leader (i.e. adult lay-teacher) and she was a "youth". For 2-3 years we saw a lot of each other and got to know each other in activities with the group. Before we became interested in each other I knew her parents, brothers, both sets of grandparents, her friends, etc..
I knew how easily things could go wrong in the leader-youth situation so I was careful to the point of paranoia. Given our almost 8 year age difference I decided to formally ask her parent’s permission before we started dating. I also let the church leadership know. I wanted to do things right and I didn’t see that giving ourselves a bad reputation would show her that I cared about her.
We dated for a year. I was unemployed for a while when we were dating so we did a lot of inexpensive things together—picnics, barbecues, parks. Yes, I asked her parent’s permission then, too. We were engaged for a year and a half and have been married for 21 years.
By the way, we both feel that the proper length for an engagement is “long enough to plan and execute the wedding” and no longer.
