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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to get married before her? Brutal honesty please!

60 replies

Salamander16 · 16/06/2015 17:03

(Name changed).

Best friend got engaged over Christmas. They've been together for 5 years and are having a big, beautiful, proper 3 course meal/ country house wedding next July (2016). We have 6 joint, close school friends & she's the first girl in our group to get married.

Me and DP have been together for 9 years. Discussing marriage for the last three months. Would like a cheap wedding - our local church and a buffet in a church hall type thing. Elderly grandparents who we really want to be there. We would still have to invite around 80 people due to family sizes.

We would, if BF was not a factor, like to do it next January. Should I suck it up, wait till after hers (we'd then do it in November - I deliberately want it out of wedding season), to avoid causing any bad feeling?

WWYD? Haven't told anyone yet, as we can't decide....

OP posts:
whois · 16/06/2015 17:16

Totally fine. If you were planning a wedding the weekend before, now that would be different!

WaferInMyCoffee · 16/06/2015 17:17

I think you are fine to get married whenever you want :)

ggggllll · 16/06/2015 17:17

Congratulations! Flowers

Do it when the time is right, I'm sure your friend's wedding will be lovely, too.

LovelyFriend · 16/06/2015 17:19

agree do what you & your P want to do.

singme · 16/06/2015 17:20

I think you have to live your life and it really isn't a big deal. Do you have overseas friends that can't travel twice?

I've been planning my wedding for a while and a friend just announced her date as 2 months after, but she didn't know the date I was planning. I can't change things round now and neither can she. I can't wait to go to their wedding!

Also isn't going to weddings most enjoyable for those planning their own? Your friend will love coming to yours and planning it with you. Well, I would if it was me!

PurpleDaisies · 16/06/2015 17:23

When I read the thread title I thought it would be a week before or something stupid.

Absolutely no problem at all and I'm sure your friend will think you are sweet but silly for worrying about stealing her thunder.

Happy wedding planning!

missnevermind · 16/06/2015 17:23

Or

You could get married the morning of her wedding and use her reception as your own to save money Grin sorted.

Original poster
Salamander16 · 16/06/2015 17:23

Thanks all.

Singme - we don't have any friends travelling at all (we all live in the same city). I think the issue is doing it before her because she has been waiting ages for the ring/proposal/big day etc. (I'm not having an engagement ring, and I banned DP from doing a proposal....)

OP posts:
roofio87 · 16/06/2015 17:25

We got engaged in the March and set the date for our wedding for 18 months ahead (we had a baby in the mean time!) and my 3 best friends all got engaged and married in that time, didn't bother me in the slightest. I was happy for them all.

norksinmywaistband · 16/06/2015 17:26

My sister got married 6 weeks before me. Guest lists were almost identical.. plus looking back it must have been a nightmare for our parents.
I had no problem with it especially as they were very different weddings and i got a chance to break in my wedding shoes!

marcopront · 16/06/2015 17:32

My two best friends got married the same weekend. One Saturday and one Sunday about 200 miles apart. Two of us made it to both weddings. As far as I know neither was cross with the other one, although I think both felt it was a shame the other one missed her wedding.

OhEmGeee · 16/06/2015 17:34

But it's six month difference? I thought you were going to say the week before or something.

Tizwailor · 16/06/2015 17:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Stickerrocks · 16/06/2015 17:39

OP, yours is also going to be beautiful, proper wedding. It's just slightly different to your friend's choice of ceremony. A wedding is one day where you have fun. A marriage is the rest of your life and is actually the important bit. Don't get hung up on the wedding itself. When you look back in 20 odd years time, you'll just have happy memories & won't actually care one bit about who did what & when.

AGnu · 16/06/2015 17:57

You're really not keen on the mushy wedding stuff, are you? Grin Do it whenever you want, if anyone raises an eyebrow just explain that once you decided to do it you just wanted to get it over with! Your friend will have a lovely time at your wedding daydreaming about how much bigger/fancier/flower-ier hers will be!

FWIW, my cousin got married just a few weeks before me. We sent out our invitations first. Family members came to both, we went to theirs, they went to ours, I bit my lip when I overheard people chatting about their wedding/honeymoon at ours... It wasn't a big deal though, just happened that way. No super-special days were ruined.

kathryng90 · 16/06/2015 18:06

If you had said you wanted a June wedding then yes unreasonable. But months apart go for it

reni1 · 16/06/2015 18:07

With an 18 month engagement I expect they are aware people have time to make and have a baby, do a masters degree, get married, buy houses before the big event? I can see no possible problem.

Yarp · 16/06/2015 18:09

I think I'd mention that you are doing it, but personally, if she's the kind of person who thinks when another friend gets married is anything to do with her, I might re-think how much I've got in common with her

catsrus · 16/06/2015 18:14

If she'd wanted to be first in your group to get married she should have booked the wedding within weeks not years!

Lweji · 16/06/2015 18:19

If she gets upset, she is not a good friend.

I might understand if you had your wedding within a week of hers, but a small wedding in January will have been forgotten by the Summer.

And I hope it's not a competition over who marries first.

LynetteScavo · 16/06/2015 18:25

Don't wait for hers...they could have split up and met new people and remarried by then.

I won't bore you with the story of the time I was one of several asked to be bridesmaids and we were told we weren't allowed to be pregnant, then the couple split up. There was no bitterness there about delayed pregnancies, oh no.

WhitePhantom · 16/06/2015 18:34

Unless you're prepared to wait till Nov 2016, don't ask her - what if she says she's annoyed about it? Then you've got a bigger problem because you either go against her wishes after asking for her opinion, or you wait ages.

minibmw2010 · 16/06/2015 18:36

Do NOT ask her if she'd mind ... What will you do if she says yes? Put your lives on hold for over a year? Ridiculous ... Just do it Smile

LokiBear · 16/06/2015 18:38

My cousin got engaged very quickly after we booked our venue and married 8 months later, 4 months before me and dh. I didn't mind at all. However, there were some comments from mutual family members about it bring bad manners. I thought the family members were being ridiculous. 5 years down the road and several kids later, no one cares. Just do it.

TheRealMaryMillington · 16/06/2015 18:44

I can't get my head round any set of circumstances in which it could possibly be a problem. If she is anything other than delighted for you I would be wondering about the basis of your friendship (and her sense of perspective)

She's doing the whole big June Bride wedding hoohah. You're doing something wintry, low key and homespun.