AIBU To think that my sis booking wedding two months before my own is wrong?

[immortalwife]

I have been engaged since Feb 27 2013. I have already booked my wedding and venue. My Sis got engaged on Xmas Eve and has just informed me that she has booked (and presumably put a deposit down) her wedding for June. Two months before mine, and I booked mine first. I just think its massively inappropriate, as it kind of has already overshadowed my own excitement and big event. She has also started saying things about me making sure my hen do doesn't clash with her honeymoon, and that because she will be married by then, that she doesn't feel its appropriate for her to link arms with a groomsman to walk down the aisle at my wedding, as she only wants to walk down the aisle by herself, with my dad, or with her future husband.

Aibu to expect her to fulfil her obligation as a bridesmaid and spend 30 second max walking down an aisle with someone else? And to be frustrated and upset that she's swooped in and sort of stolen my thunder?

I just feel like my mum isn't going to have time for me to do the special mum daughter wedding things with me if she has to now concentrate on 'rushing' my sisters plans so she's sorted for hers. And that upsets me. Is that stupid and unfounded?

YA both being a bit U

Her for dictating what she will and wont do (the refusing to be accompanied down the aisle is ridiculous!) and for laying down the lay regarding your hen night. I would have it while she was away just to be a PITA now! And I smell something along the lines of her desperate to be married before you, which is childish!

But YABU for thinking that your day trumps hers just because you booked it first. You didnt book the whole year, just one day.

Sure it is annoying, but it isnt the end of the world. Is she going to be able to pay for her wedding in less than 6 months?

You've every right to be annoyed.

Don't listen to the posters here to view a wedding as about as significant as a trip to Tesco It's (hopefully) a once in a lifetime rite-of-passage. Yes it is a big deal - though really only for you and your intended and your nearest & dearest. One of which you'd normally consider your sister to be.

Sorry if I missed it but is your mum sensible and what does she say?

My SIL got married to my BIL 2 days before our wedding. They decided to get married as they were coming over from where they were living and his parents were coming over too. DH and i arranged their whole wedding for them as well as our own (theirs was much, much smaller). I never thought about them stealing our thunder or anything. It was lovely.

Mmm, BIl announced his wedding was to be in June. We then decided to get married in March.
When we told him he said he probably couldn't attend as he was very busy in March, to which DH told him not to worry as he wasn't invited.

He only stopped being stroppy when he realised that I was pregnant and we were running off to get hitched and only the parents were going.

Ironically we purposely went for a very different wedding so we didn't make it a competition (he's the sort of man who psychs himself up for Christmas trivial pursuit)
He looked a right knob

In your case though I think your sister is trying to upstage you...

Yabu to think she can't get married before you. You don't own dates.

YANBU about her attitude. She sounds like a bridesmaidzillla and you need to have words.

Although unless you live in the USA I've never seen bridesmaids walk down the aisle with groomsmen.

I do not have sisters so did not have the same problem but my mother was not in the slightest bit interested in my wedding and never asked one question about it BUT my very good friend got married 3 weeks before me and I was her chief bridesmaid (and a pretty poor one at that) I never realised it might be an issue for her til recently (15 years later) and cringe now but I had a very small do and she had a huge one and our mutual friends came to both though I also realised (recently) what a stretch that must have been for her. The problem (kind of) was that the summer/wedding season is really very short so either she has a winter wedding (your sis) or waits til next year. Maybe she's got her head in the clouds (like I must've done) and doesn't realise how much she is cramping you????

Your sister is being unreasonable about linking arms.
You are being unreasonable about having an elaborate wedding after you had a baby by your fiancé.

Ouch Milly about your mum

Is your wedding about being a 'star' or getting married?

I don't get it and think you are being very unfair and unreasonable.

What if she had fallen pregnant and her baby had been due two months before YOUR BIG DAY?

??

Should you not have a big white wedding unless you are actually a virgin??

LOL

YABU- 2 months apart is a reasonable gap, there's no clash, you can both have the wedding you want without there being any major impact on each other's weddings. You might even enjoy talking and planning weddings with your sister if you generally have a good relationship. There are also potential benefits in attending her wedding first, as it might give you pointers about things that did or didn't work well on the day.

I assume she wants to go to your hen party, so I don't understand the problem with the two of you planning honeymoon and hen party not to clash. Surely you'd arrange your hen party taking into account commitments of people you really want there anyway? I appreciate it might feel like she's bossing you about a bit but practically, it makes sense.

Don't understand the walking down the aisle thing- unless it's an American thing as a pp suggested. Married or not I wouldn't be thrilled at the prospect of hanging off some groomsman's arm if he wasn't family/ someone I knew well. I'd probably suck it up if my sister has asked that of me, but she wouldn't have asked anyway.

I don't think you're being unreasonable. I would be very upset if my sister did this and just can't imagine that she would. Sorry you've got to deal with it. I'm sure your wedding will be amazing and you won't care about it on the actual day.

I probably would have tried to make my sister change her totally hypothetical wedding day to the same day as mine, to make the most of everything and to make sure we could both have our loved ones there (and save a fortune)

But then I don't care about thunder-stealing (just time taken on wedding day to do hair).

YABU.

YABVU, you choose the wedding date you wanted and she can do the same. I quite like short planning terms for weddings, no boring talk from the bride to be for months on end.

You are both adults, your mum shouldnt have to run around doing wedding things for either of you.

You sound very precious. You should be concentrating on the marriage ahead as the wedding is just a big party for many. Not her fault you decided to wait and have a baby first. Perhaps she wants to do it the other way round.

I haven't read the full thread but maybe she booked a wedding so quickly for the same reason I did : £4,000 discount because we took a cancellation date. Absolutely nothing would have made me turn down that discount!!

She's being very silly about the Groomsman thing - it's a bit of a precious and immature attitude.

Do you have family travelling from far away? There was a previous thread about something similar, however they had far flung family that could only afford to travel to one wedding during the year so the OP predicted that she wouldn't have much family at hers.

A friend of mine got married two weeks after me. We had the same friends at both. I couldn't have been less bothered! We spent many hours discussing weddings.

Writerwannabe may have a point about getting a good deal for that date, although IME places don't need to offer deals for June as couples always want to get married then. Is it on a Tuesday or some inhospitable day like that? Also, are you sure she's not pregnant already?

And yes, the walking down the aisle objection she's made is spectacularly silly.

Hahaha! Has she gone for June 13th? The Friday? I provisionally booked that for DSis2 and negotiated a huge amount off due to the superstitions of the B&G.

YABVU. You are actually upset that someone is not delaying their desired wedding date for you. Madness.

I think you have forgotten what getting married is actually about.

BIL and SIL did this too - suddenly announced that they were getting married in 6 weeks time, which happened to be 4 months before the wedding we had booked.

I thought it was funny they are v competitive and silly about lots of everything and it just made them look a bit daft that they had been happily engaged for many years but 'suddenly' decided to get married as soon as we booked our wedding.

I wasn't pissed off at all, didn't feel that I owned the year and had dibs on getting married or anything, just thought good luck to 'em.

So we were very enthusiastic and full of congratulations.

It was funny though as we saw BIL the night before his wedding and I said "so are you all set for tomorrow then?" in a happy and enthusiastic manner and he replied "well, we've been thinking about getting married for a long time now, and it seemed and appropriate time for us now that we've moved house and my job is settled etc etc" and started reeling off these answers as if I'd asked about the timing of it.

They had obviously been hoping for expected some kind of inquisition over it and had briefed there answers. Was v funny.

In short, YABU, and if you think she's done it to 'steal your thunder' then it just looks bad on her and not on you.

Oh stop being so drearily worthy and too cool to get excited about weddings.
It's a real thing on MN to profess not to care. It doesn't mean you are a Bridezilla if you think a wedding is marginally a bigger deal than a dental check up.

I also think you're being bridezilla about dictating how people walk down the aisle , but if she'd agree to do it then her reason for suddenly backing out of it is lame.

SinisterSal - haha, agreed, there's always lots of competitive under-weddening on here, "ooh, I got married in a charity shop dress and went to Nandos for tea afterwards"

"dress? Nandos? I got married in an old chip wrapper and scavenged scraps from the back of Tescos afterwards"

etc etc