Sister Just Got Engaged, How Long Do We Wait?

graceyg82

Thank you so much! We've definitely decided that when we get married, we'll do so on the East coast.  I hope that, as so many of you have said, my FSIL is happy and not too worried about the date of our wedding as long as all of our important family members can come to both. I'm not sure why I had it in my head that we would need to wait until they got married. I just wanted to be respectful of her and my new family. 

I appreciate everyone's help! 

dramamonkey

graceyg82 said:

Thank you! All your comments have been super helpful.  I lost sleep over this last night and am feeling so much better about it now.  I think having the wedding on the East coast is the solution to most of our problems.

One more question though...

If we get engaged now, would it be rude to get married before his sister? We have such a small window where family members are available, plus the weather is nice.  I know a lot of you said that I shouldn't consider them at all when deciding on a date but I still feel a little guilty.

If she gets married in late September, would it be in poor taste to have our wedding in June next year? 

Thanks again! 

While not 100% relevant, because we're friends and not relatives: 

My good friend got engaged last Christmas (December 2012) and are getting married next June (2014). I got engaged in February of this year, and am getting married this Sunday. 

I think what you proposed is totally fine. It really doesn't take that long to plan a wedding, and if you can work it financially, do it! 

daveANDkristen

Sharing my experience via C&P from another recent thread:

 

DH's sister picked a wedding date before getting engaged (personally, I think this makes no sense but she does not consider herself engaged until 6 months later when her now-DH officially proposed).  During this time, before SIL was officially engaged, DH and I got engaged - the timeline is:

Feb '11 - we got engaged
June '11 - SIL got engaged
Oct '12 - SIL's chosen wedding date

SIL chose this date before either of us got engaged.  DH and I wanted warm-but-not-hot weather - so roughly May or September as the weather goes here.  Our choices then were:

May '11/Sept '11 - which I ruled out because I wanted more time to save money/plan
May '12 - ruled out because desired venue was already booked
Sept '12 - which is what we went with
May '13 and beyond - which I ruled out because I didn't want a 2+ year engagement

We did not choose our wedding date to steal anyone's thunder, we did it based on the timeline that worked for us. 

There was very little overlap in guests in our case, and the majority of the overlap was guests that DH's family insisted on that he could have cared less they were invited.  So basically the only people it would affect were DH's immediate family, and they got over it. I'm sure at least one of them thought we were assholes, but that's their problem, not mine.  SIL had a lovely wedding day (that's right, one day), and so did I.

Inkdancer

Your sister's engagement should have no bearing on your own relationship status. If you and your boyfriend want to get engaged, then you should.

The only thing you need to think about is making sure that your wedding and other parties aren't on the same day as hers. That would be rude. But you are an adult, and you can get engaged and married whenever you darn well please.