To think my sister should think carefully about her wedding date?

[ThroughGraceAlone]

My sister (28f) just got engaged. (or rather, they are just waiting for the ring and will then make it public/announce it, but her bf has gone round to chat to my dad)
My sister and whole family live in a different continent. Myself, DH and 2 children live in the UK.

We (me, DH, kids) have flight tickets to go back home for Christmas. But we fly out end of November and are only returning in the middle of January. (+- 7 weeks) We especially made our trip home that long because we were kind of expecting an engagement and wanted to give my sister ample time to plan the wedding if they wanted us included.

My sister phoned me crying yesterday explaining how she and bf had been wanting to get married in October, but obviously really want us there, but really do not want to wait till December. Besides, she argues that December is a hard time to get married.
{for context, we are a large close-knit family, having a big Christmas get together)
She does not want to miss Christmas with us and family, to be on her honeymoon if she gets married December. ( we have another family wedding 15th of December so she argues with another wedding and Christmas, when is she going to fit in her wedding? )
I get that, really, she wants to feel special not pushed in somewhere, she wants a nice long honeymoon, but not have to miss family events and get married sooner rather than later.

But we make things difficult. To add to that my mom has apparently said the's intentionally being difficult by not just having the wedding when we are there.

Realistically best choice would be to get married in January (after Christmas and everything) and I can help with arrangements etc or then October and we miss out.

I do not want to influence my sister either way as I think it is her choice, but don't want her to regret it down the line. ( the photos I have of my wedding with my sisters helping me get ready are special to me)

What would you do? Is it reasonable to expect November, December or Jan or should they just do October.
Thanks for reading this far!!

I also wondered if she might be pregnant which would explain the rush.

You have to be clear about what you can and can't do with her and just let her make a decision with all the facts in hand.

Your DMum is the problem - guitling her. Tell her to stop.

OP, the details about your sister's engagement give me a really weird vibe.

Taking you and the fact that you live on another continent out of the equation for a minute. It's actually super weird that your family was anticipating an engagement to the point where you were basically saying, "Are you engaged yet? Any dates we need to work around?" before the couple were actually engaged.

How did this situation come about? Was she putting pressure on him to get engaged? Was he dangling engagement in front of her like a carrot on a stick? Why all this pre-engagement discussion, particularly given that she's only 28? And now they actually have got engaged, they've decided to get married super quickly, and will probably be engaged for less time than your sister has spent talking to all her nearest and dearest about the fact that she might be getting engaged.

What's the tearing hurry? Is she worried that if they have a long engagement he might change his mind? Because it would be perfectly normal of her to say, "Hey, you know my sister is coming out for Christmas so let's do it then" or alternatively, "Yes an October wedding will be fantastic, let's do it next October though because this October is pretty short notice, especially for people like my sister who will need to buy flights for the whole family."

What is her relationship with her fiance like? Because this sounds a bit weird and maybe you'd be better off having a conversation with her about whether she's really sure this is what she wants.

With the info in your updates OP, I think you have done everything you can to find out when the wedding might been before booking your flights.
The flights are booked now and non-refundable. And you can’t afford to go twice. Your sister knows this but still wants to get married in October when you aren’t there. And your mum wants the wedding when you are there.
I would quietly wait and not get involved in the wrangling between them. Hopefully, someone else will persuade your sister that a New Year wedding would be worth waiting for, but it shouldn’t really be you who tries to persuade her one way or the other.

So the other who didnt side with you were not objective given your strongly worded OP??

You are not going to listen to objective posts, you will only find those objective which say what you want to hear.

What is your sister's reason for eantimg to get married in October knowing it is inconvenient to her local siblings due to exams and for you and your family? There must be a reason she wants October knowing it does not suit so many people or is it she is on purpose making it hard for you all?

Its funny that half of the poster's are like "you should have chatted to her before hand" and you're like "why did you chat about dates".

SA is still pretty conservative, i got married at 22 for example. It wasn't weird, they started dating and he seemed like the one. We just sort of thought "oh it looks like they fit well together, do we hear wedding bells'. It is not common to date for ages in our culture.
And how they spoke, for example. 'Oh once we live in x city' or 'we thought about this house etc.
And we didn't want to jump the gun and ask outright but we wanted to hear if she had dates in mind, so we just asked. Hey is there dates to work around.

I don't find it odd,

Ultimately I'll be sorry but cannot be responsible for her feeling sad that we're not there.

I meant like to have a think about it and not just choose a date and then be sad we can't come. I meant weigh up what is more important to her, october wedding or us being there

I get that English isn't your first language, OP, but these are quite odd, passive-aggressive statements. Who has suggested that you are responsible for your sister feeling sad you can't attend her wedding? It does seem to me that you are the one who is suggesting she will be sad -- it's not coming from her? I mean, it seems as if you would in fact like her to be sad, but surely if she chooses a date when you aren't in the country, then that suggests she's OK with your absence?

I don't know if you've already addressed this in a comment I haven't noticed, but I'd echo a pp in asking if there's some cultural element in this dash to get married in October when your sister hasn't yet announced her engagement? It seems very rushed.

I assumed the posters asking why you didn't chat to her beforehand hadn't RTFT!

I guess your explanation makes a little more sense but it still doesn't explain why they're in such a hurry.

You're South African, OP?

Thanks, this is sort what I wanted an opinion about. Do I have to have an opinion or do I just leave everyone else to decide. Which is what I think I'm going to do. She and bf and mom and new mom in law can wrangle.

Yep, we're Afrikaans, which although changing, is still more conservative

She phoned me in tears? I was trying to console and said in the end you don't really remember who was at your wedding, it doesn't matter etc. But yeah judging from the comments I either use the English language extremely poorly, or express myself badly or am absolutely "batshit and self absorbed' I think someone said.

It's her choice, so you are being a little unreasonable. If you have to miss out you will still see her in November.

But if she wants or expects you to be there then I think it's only right she works around your existing plans and we are talking a few weeks, not 6 months (it's a pretty short engagement by UK standards anyway) but also need to consider other people friends and grooms side who may also have commitments.

So I am surprised she thinks getting married a month earlier is more important than waiting till you can be there. If it was a case of you having no plans to travel then she could set any date she wanted....did you discuss dates for your trip as a daily first?

As for the honeymoon that's nonsense. She could do a short 2-3 night trip straight away and then go on a longer honeymoon later.

@ThroughGraceAlone I think people have been harsh about it, if you were my sister I’d try to time my wedding for the 8 weeks you were around as I’m able to appreciate that 4x UK to SA flights are hugely expensive. Or do the date she wants but accept you may not be able to come.

@Annipeck
To answer the question they don't live together. (neither did we, so we also wanted a short engagement because if you want to get married why wait. It is no fun saying goodbye each night) So obviously they have want to get married sooner or later, which I totally get! 100000%. I remember those days vividly, you just want to get married! So that's why i fully get her point of wanting to get married sooner rather than later, but also get mums point of waiting one month for end november is not the end of the world

It all seems very quick. Seems to take at least a year to book nice venues for a wedding in the UK. Or maybe it's cultural. But a year's notice seems more usual than four months in my experience.

Anyway, as you say, it's ultimately up to her. Why she wants you to disagree with your mother about it I don't know. It sounds a bit manipulative to me, like she wants to get married in October AT ALL COSTS and wants you to tell your mother that you're fine with it.

Personally I think getting married so your close family can't come is pretty shabby and goes against what weddings are about, which is uniting families and starting new ones. But if she wants that, let her do it. It's her decision.

Can OP miss one Christmas for her sister's wedding?

If the tickets are non refundable and she can't afford to buy new ones then missing Christmas or not makes no difference to her being able to attend the wedding.

The month people want to be married is usually very important to them. I don’t understand why you didn’t just ask your sister when she thought the best time would be? Instead you went ahead and booked for Christmas, in fact for all the months around it except the month she wants, without even asking first.

Your title, your sister ‘should think very carefully’ sounds like a threat, and also, why didn’t you think carefully and ASK her first instead of booking first. She found out thus the crying phone call.

You brought this predicament on yourself. It’s up to the bride when she gets married.

I think you should read the updates?

JFC, why can't people RTFT?

If your sister really wants you there then she will make those 7+ weeks you are there work. It is her choice. Not many families could fly out October and then again November. She's showing what her priorities are. I could understand if you were there in December for a weekend, not enough time etc. But 7+ weeks is a significant amount of time. They could get married a week after you arrive and still have a long honeymoon, Christmas etc.

Wedding is in South Africa, where I'm from so I know the weather. January is summer.

I’ve never been to SA so unfamiliar with the weather in Summer. Is it like where I am (Australia) with hot as fuck, not wedding weather in Summer, or is it okay, no one will break a sweat weather at a wedding, in Summer? The answer to this will dictate whether YABU or YANBU😁.

I don't understand that sister will regret later not having OP in wedding photos etc.

OP said her sister should face the consequences of being sad later and that she won't take the responsibility, etc.

Wedding date can be important to a couple as it become anniversaries.

But OP clarified that her sister does want her to attend the wedding and was full of tears. In that case, can she get married in Nov when OP is there too?

Also I'm sorry this has happened @ThroughGraceAlone I'm sure you and really disappointed.

I didn't even think of it this way. It is true that what she wants is for me to tell my mom that I am fine with her getting married when she wants. She wants me to act as a middle man. (and i think also for us to come over twice - because she also said she wants to be there for the christmas period and for her bf to get to now us) S And as another poster said, leave them to decide for themselves. My thoughts are a bit clearer now. IDK she can be a bit manipulative at times, but I mean it is her wedding so I don't want to judge her on past behaviour, but neither do I want to be the one that's in the middle.