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!!

They know you are there from November to January. They either plans the wedding for that time if they want you there or they don’t. Leave them to it.

Or they get married next year instead.

I was making a point to @ThursdayFreedom who was being smart#ss to another poster.

In the end, posters will side with sister or OP depending on their own experience with families.
A complete objective answer is sister decides the date without any influence but she can't be upset over OP not bring there.

It's not your responsibility to validate her decision.

Just say, "I'm sure you understand that we can't fly out in October when we are already coming in November and unfortunately the tickets aren't refundable, so it is what it is. If you get married in October I guess you'll just have to tell us all about it when we come home for Christmas. I'm sure you can figure things out with Mum."

Hope you are wrong but you have made some good points

Haha this made me laugh so loud! SA can be very hot, the city where sis live has nice and mild weather, on the hot side but not unbearable, I think. But yeah it would be hotter in Dec/Jan than october for sure. October is a beautiful month in SA to be fair. So maybe IABU. Although it;s not me that minds. I just figured out from another poster, what it really is. It is mom and sis butting heads. I'm just in the middle

We did have multiple conversations of "hey any preferred dates if you were to get engaged." and she kept saying she doesn't know, they're not engaged yet.

You should have said, ‘I need to know so that I can book the flights.’ That’s what I meant when I said why didn’t you ask her. Just saying ‘hey any preferred dates,’ you didn’t say anything about why you wanted to know and apparently that was important, wasn’t it? One would think that she’d put two and two together but apparently you weren’t clear enough about why you really needed to get a date from her.

Your mother is not the bride and you are not the bride. The bride gets to decide when to get married. You’ve decided already so simply miss the wedding, that’s what you’re going to do. You and your mother are trying to dictate when the wedding is. Your mother is siding with you. Your sister is begging you to tell your mother it’s ‘ok’ to let sister get married when she wants as SHE is the bride. And you refuse ‘I’m neutral.’ Sure. What a b.

I voted YABU on the basis of your title and OP - but having read your updates, I have changed my mind (but can't change my vote).

The only thing you can do is step back - "I would love to be at your wedding, we will be in the country on these dates, if you choose that time then brilliant, but if not the sadly we don't have several thousands to pay for another visit so we'll just have to miss out, sadly" - and not get drawn into it.

I think a neutral stance sounds like the best plan OP to avoid getting involved in arguments and give your sister space to come to her own decision. Not quite sure why all these people are attacking you either, sounds to me like you have been very reasonable in all of this. Your sister just needs to recognise she's got a lifetime of marriage ahead of her (hopefully!) and waiting an extra month so you can join the wedding is not as big a deal as it feels.

I have to say that sexual impatience sounds quite mad to me as a basis for marriage in 2023.

The South Africans I know (quite a few down the years, in SA and various other countries) didn't have any such cultural prohibitions on sleeping together before marriage, or indeed living together for long periods before, or instead of, marriage. Are you from a particularly conservative background?

I don't think you're 'batshit and self-absorbed' at all, and I don't think there's anything wrong with your English, it's more that this whole thread feels like it's from the POV of someone who is taking things for granted (very short engagements, a real impatience to marry, sexual conservatism etc) that not all of us see as natural or inevitable. Or, in my case, desirable.

But this will affect the kind of advice you are getting, OP. I think people would respond differently if you'd said 'I'm from a conservative background where very short engagements are the norm, and as I knew my sister was about to announce hers, I deliberately booked a longer than usual Christmas trip home to try to be there for when I estimated the wedding was likely to be, but now she wants to marry even sooner... What do I do?'

Even then, though, it doesn't sound as if there's anything for you to 'do'. You just deal with whatever she and her fiancé ultimately decide.

Sjoewee. Just to clarify firstly sis is part of christmas planning and knows we meant we're coming home for Christmas, anything else we need to take into account. Sis isn't stupid you know.
Also I haven't chatted to my mom at all. I only have this one phone call from my sis. She says mom says type vibes

The people on this thread are nuts! Of course she should just book her wedding for when her family are already going to be in the country!
they obviously want to get married sooner rather than later (I would assume Christian which is normal if not living together).
it’s literally just a wedding, family being together is more important than the perfectness that’s displayed on social media nowadays!
If she just wanted to elope or something that also would be fine but I can’t understand her reasoning!

‘I need to know so that I can book the flights because they get more expensive the longer I wait, and I can’t wait any longer which means I will miss your wedding if you don’t tell me now.’ She didn’t realize there was a time crunch and extra expense (why she didn’t realize I don’t know but that’s obviously what happened) or I bet she would have gone ahead and told you what month she would want.

Man, your wording is perfect, wish I phrased it like that!

The point is, you didn’t tell her you were booking the flights. You booked them then she found out.

This is a horrible response.
So they have not to have thier wedding in October when they want to because it doesn't suit you.
And they have not to have their wedding on Xmas eve because ' you don't want to share your Xmas with their wedding' 😳
Why don't you just pick the date and plan the wedding. And let the bride and groom know when to turn up 😳

I meant, 'this sound like a good and practical plan, although I would never suggest it as I know no-one wants to get married on Christmas.' ?

I don't give two hoots if they got married on Christmas eve. I'm not the one sharing my wedding anniversary with Christmas.

I've just re-read your posts, OP.

The situation sounds infuriating, and I don't know what thread some of these other posters are reading but from what you say, it sounds perfectly clear to me that when you were asking her about potential dates and saying you need to book your flights home for Christmas soon as prices are going up, it should have been perfectly obvious to her that as things stood you were planning to come home for Christmas and you were going to book your flights soon.

But perhaps the actual conversation wasn't that clear. I don't know. I wasn't there.

It seems to me that you have a communication issue here.

You have told us that you feel upset about the situation because you want to see your sister get married, you arranged your holiday to maximise the chances of her being able to plan her potential, as yet unconfirmed, wedding to coincide with when you were there, and now she's decided she wants to get married literally a month before your arrival.

She's phoned you in tears saying she really wants to have you there, and she also really wants to get married in October, and supposedly asking for your opinion. But you're staying "neutral" and not saying what you really think.

Why don't you actually say, "You know what, I would be so sad to miss your wedding. But you know we are coming out from November to January, and you know the tickets are non refundable. So if you want us there, it has to be either during that six week period, or you will need to get married next year so that we have time to save up for and plan a second trip. Or you can go ahead with your plan to get married in October. What you can't do is get married this October AND have us there. If you'd got engaged a month earlier then we would have come in October for your wedding and skipped family Christmas, but you didn't. What I would like is for you to get married between late November and early January so that we can be there, or put it off until next year. You asked for my opinion, and that is how I feel. But it's not my wedding, it's yours. You have to make your own decision. All the rest of us can do is go along with whatever you decide."

I don't think it's particularly productive to "stay neutral" when your sister is actually asking for your opinion. If she said, "This is when the wedding is, suck it up bitches", then perhaps keeping your mouth shut would be the best approach. But if she's phoning you in tears saying, "What do you think I should do?" she needs to be prepared to hear the actual truth about what you think she should do, which is not get married in October.

OP, I think you are getting a hard time here when it’s your sister that is being a bit unreasonable. And, as I’m (mostly) honest with my sister I wouldn’t be able to stay neutral about it. If she wants to get married a couple of weeks before you arrive then she can. No one is going to disagree that it’s her’s and the groom’s decision. But she also wants you to pretend not to be disappointed - and that’s not something you have to go along with. That’s her being manipulative.

When I got married, we checked with close family that they were going to be available that day. Not just choose a date and expect people to cancel holidays etc. And everyone I know would consider this to be so normal as not to be worth comment. It’s just what you do.

Personally, I would say to DS ‘Yes, I will be disappointed if you get married before we arrive. Because I would love to see you on your big day, and it was so special to me that you helped me get ready on my wedding day. But I also understand your eagerness & I will still love you & wish you well whatever you decide to do.’

she sounds absolutely infuriating and she wants you to step in to essentially sort it out for her. Stay neutral, along the lines of: it would be lovely to be there and I'd be sad to miss it but you obviously do what is best for you.

But ... she isn't even engaged yet????

My sister did this OP. I had to go to my home country twice in 4 months and the tickets to her wedding costed £1200 each. I completely understand why you couldn’t hold off any longer when you are travelling as a family.

I think your approach is the right one. You’re not applying any pressure or getting angry with her. She can choose the date that suits her.

If you’re somehow able to change the tickets you should consider doing this but beyond that it’s up to her.

So if you knew that you couldn’t do two trips but were also expecting a wedding soon, then you should have just waited for the invitation. She is right, she can’t tell you a date when she isn’t even engaged, I can’t believe you kept badgering her. And of course you are spoiling this for her.

I actually think you’re being unreasonable in this scenario. Those flights were booked on the pretence that you were expecting a wedding. Nothing was set in stone and if you were expecting a wedding you should of waited until it was confirmed and she had booked a date. Maybe see if you can alter your flights but I don’t think you’re sister is in the wrong, hard situation as as her sister I know you will want to be there and she will want you there too.