Chris and I announced our engagement (via Facebook!) around 11pm on March 29, 2011. Early the next morning, I drove to my dad's office to tell him the news in person, before he had a chance to check his facebook. I told my mom when she woke up a few hours later. Chris called his dad that afternoon. Then it was for real. We were going to get married.
Shortly after Chris and I announced our engagement, we decided a couple of major things.
First: since theoretically, we're only going to get married once, we wanted to do things right and go all out. Unfortunately that costs money, which we are low on at the moment. In order to give ourselves time to save, we have decided on a 27-month engagement (March 2011-June 2013).
Second: neither of us are particularly close with our families (with few exceptions of course). Our friends are the people we want to share our day with. We have decided to have a very large wedding party, so that friends from different parts of our lives can be with us on our day. Large meaning 9 attendants each. Aka humongously insanely wtf was I thinking large. More on that later.
Third: we both knew that we wanted to get married in Chris's hometown, San Diego. It's our favorite place to travel, and many of our friends live there, as do some of Chris's family. With the exception of a few OOT guests who would have to fly in no matter where in Southern California we had the wedding, San Diego is within reasonable driving range for our friends in other counties. It was an easy sell, and we're happy with our decision.
What were the first things you and your FI decided on when it came to planning? Who did you tell first after you became engaged?