COMPITION??

jessicaholly90

I got engaged Febuary 14, planning a wedding next year. I've been planning a wedding way before I even got engaged. My fiance' sister got engaged in December of last year and now all of a sudden wants a wedding in 2013 too. Great I think. (kidding) now everytime I turn around she's coming up with ideas that I already am planning with. Like a teal wedding, and wedding dates three months different..

I just want to know if this happens to other people or what? His sister is so spoilled she wants everything, seems to come up with the ideas I am using. I will be the one getting married first. So if anyone one also went threw this and how did you over come it?

akbrown19

If you ask this question on other boards on The Knot, most people will tell you that you only get one day. You get your day, and she gets hers, even if she decides to plan it the week before yours. This happens to a lot of other people - if you search other topic boards you will find a lot of people in your situation.

Unfortunately, all you can do is make the best of it. You are in a better position if your date is before hers anyway. Just don't share any of your plans or ideas with her, and don't make your decisions based on what she does. It's up to you to be the bigger person and try to focus on you and your FI, because that should be all that matters.

tiffanydaniels

I think I would be a little annoyed if that happened to me, because your guests will be the same mostly! But you are lucky because she is after you and it might work in your interest if you use the same stuff to save money! I doubt people will notice too much and I would totally do it. 

Belle0000

Three months is a pretty decent gap in between the two.  Your wedding will have taken place before her shower, b-party, etc.  What would you consider to be an acceptable amount of time between the two?  I don't think it's really reasonable to expect  her to wait another year because yours is in 2013.

I would just avoid discussion of your details with her.  Even if a lot of things are similar, I totally wouldn't notice.  No one will probably remember your wedding as well as you and your DH, so as long as it's at least a different venue, I wouldn't worry.  And like tiffany said, it could work to your advantage!

Six of FI's college friends are getting married in a 4 month period this year AND we're getting married during that timeframe too.  One is a week after ours.  A lot of the same people will be at all of them.  So it could always be worse! 

jnkreager

DH's brother got married 2 months before us and his cousin got married a month before us...and we were the first people to start to plan.  There really isn't much I could do about the situation so I just accepted  it and moved on.  I did make a point of not sharing a lot of my planning details so my ideas wouldn't be taken.

saacjw

My cousin an I have a similar situation. I got engaged about 3 months before her, she's getting married about three months before me. I planned some ideas, she planned similar ones, some we talked about, some we didn't. Same colors, similar dresses, similar plans in general. We actually laugh at how much we planned without talking to each other because at the end of the day, the guest lists don't overlap that much and really, they won't be that similar. 

Don't stress over it, because really, it's NOT a competition over who's going to have the best wedding and using the same details isn't going to throw anything off. Coming up with the same ideas really isn't that surprising either, weddings only have so many variations and certain things are in vogue, so a lot of people do them, it's easy to plan similar weddings (like what my cousin and I have done). 

MrsBoss2012

I ABSOLUTELY know what you mean. My FI's sister has been dying for a "ring" ever since we got engaged. She's pretty young and immature and even her parents don't feel she's ready for marriage. Well appearantly her and her bf of a few months are planning to get married. She even went as far as posting on fb that she was engaged and had a pic of a ring. Turned out to be a "joke". FI told her she better not get married before us which is only 5 more months. She said she doesn't know because she doesn't want a long engagement. I wouldn't have any problems with family members who are legitimately planning a wedding around the same time as ours. But I think you can tell when someone is just biting off of you and trying to compete and it's annoying. I wouldn't share anything with her just like I don't talk to my FSIL at all about weddings.

angelm2

Similar thing happened with me. My fiance's brother knew he was planning to propose to me and rushed out to get a ring and propose to his gf of a year, simply because he didn't want his younger brother beating him to the punch. We thought we would want a summer 2012 wedding, but when they set their date for 2012- we said forget it, we'll just wait until 2013. My fiance's brother is just like your fiance's sister in that he gets everything he wants- so we did whatever we could to avoid even the thought of it being a competition. We also avoid any wedding talk with my fiance's brother and his fiancee- it's not worth the time, or the anger if they ended up taking any of our ideas.