Dear Prudence: sibling "stealing" wedding date

[Hmmmmm]

I think this poor letter writer is getting flack for wanting to celebrate her anniversary with her husband.  Some people do not care about their anniversaries or are ok celebrating whenever they get a chance.  The LW wants to celebrate her first anniversary with her husband, not at a party for BIL.   I don't think her feelings are wrong.

I don't think anyone is giving her flack for wanting to celebrate her wedding anniversary, or at least I haven't found the post that does.

I think we all just having varying opinions on whether you can still celebrate your wedding anniversary if you are also attending an engagement party.  I personally would think it extremely romantic to end my weekend anniversary celebration by toasting the upcoming wedding of a sibling.

Obviously the groom to be was sending out emails to family members as a heads up. The only thing I'm giving them flack about is not being more direct in saying "that's our anniversary and we already had plans."

[JacklynHyde]

Shared dates can be made special.  My youngest cousin and his wife set their wedding date on my brother and SIL's fifth anniversary.  At the reception, after the father / daughter dance, the HC invited my brother and SIL to a special anniversary dance to celebrate them.  Their young daughter joined them on the floor, making it a moving, lovely moment for the extended family.

[bah12]

I think this poor letter writer is getting flack for wanting to celebrate her anniversary with her husband.  Some people do not care about their anniversaries or are ok celebrating whenever they get a chance.  The LW wants to celebrate her first anniversary with her husband, not at a party for BIL.   I don't think her feelings are wrong.

The vibe I got from the letter was that she wanted the date to be hers and her husbands in perpetuity. I think that's unreasonable. I understand wanting to celebrate her first anniversary with her husband and skipping the party. I can't understand skipping the wedding to celebrate the second anniversary. Nor can I understand dates being off limits for people to have their wedding on. I don't understand that at all. And I don't understand what she wants the BIL to do. Should he change the proposed date of his wedding to suit the LW? I don't think that's reasonable.

And see, I didn't get that all.  I didn't get the sense that she was saying that no one could pick her anniversary to do anything on, but that she's thinking that she's going to spend every anniversary with her husband celebrating and won't be willing to do anything else.

The difference between saying "How do I get them to change the date?" vs what she really said which was "How do I tell them I'm not coming to the wedding."

I do think she should go to the wedding...but I don't think she's out of line to skip the engagement party.  Especially considering that it's her very first anniversary. 

[Rohanna]

My sister and I have wedding anniversaries 2 days apart, and children with birthdays a single day apart and neither of these bother me. However, this does make me a bit suspicious of the engaged brothers motivations as it takes up that date not once, but twice. It seems very strange to hold two parties a year apart on the same day. I personally would skip the engagement party if it interfered with my plans, and attend the wedding. I have very fond memories of my first anniversary out with my husband (he surprised me by getting the hotel to "re-do" our wedding meal and a mini-cake, as we had little time to enjoy the meal and the cake was all eaten before we got back to it after cake cutting! It was very sweet and still makes me smile...)  However, I spent my 4th anniversary as a bridesmaid and it didn't bother us as much, not being the first or a milestone date. The bride was very gracious and sat me with my husband rather than at a "head" table so we could spend some time together.

[TootsNYC]

I think this poor letter writer is getting flack for wanting to celebrate her anniversary with her husband.  Some people do not care about their anniversaries or are ok celebrating whenever they get a chance.  The LW wants to celebrate her first anniversary with her husband, not at a party for BIL.   I don't think her feelings are wrong.

The vibe I got from the letter was that she wanted the date to be hers and her husbands in perpetuity. I think that's unreasonable. I understand wanting to celebrate her first anniversary with her husband and skipping the party. I can't understand skipping the wedding to celebrate the second anniversary. Nor can I understand dates being off limits for people to have their wedding on. I don't understand that at all. And I don't understand what she wants the BIL to do. Should he change the proposed date of his wedding to suit the LW? I don't think that's reasonable.

And see, I didn't get that all. I didn't get the sense that she was saying that no one could pick her anniversary to do anything on, but that she's thinking that she's going to spend every anniversary with her husband celebrating and won't be willing to do anything else.

The difference between saying "How do I get them to change the date?" vs what she really said which was "How do I tell them I'm not coming to the wedding."

I do think she should go to the wedding...but I don't think she's out of line to skip the engagement party.  Especially considering that it's her very first anniversary.

I also didn't think she came across that selfish at all.

And I didn't get the impression that she was definitely going to boycott the wedding. Just that she was wishing she coudl decide not to attend and hadn't decided what to do.

(I do NOT celebrate my anniversary at lunch. I just don't. I celebrate my anniversary with a romantic evening. Period. It strikes me as really weird to celebrate my anniversary at lunch and then go to someone else's party. I don't anymore insist on my anniversary being celebrate "on the day," but I do vastly prefer it. It's more important to me to be "on the day" w/ this than it is with Christmas, my birthday, Thanksgiving, anything.)

[LifeOnPluto]

Add me to the camp of people whose Hinkey Meters are going off.

I can understand a sibling having their wedding on the same date as yours. As PPs have stated, wedding "dates" are limited, and that particular date might have been the only one that worked for them. But to plan an engagement party - normally a far more casual, smaller event - for the exact same date, one year before the wedding? To me, that's quite odd. It definitely makes me think it's deliberate.

I really think it comes down to the relationship between the siblings. If it's otherwise been friendly, it could be the BIL's and his fiancee's misguided way of honouring that date? However, if the sibling relationship has been toxic, I'd suspect the BIL was deliberately trying to upstage the LW and her husband.

[kudeebee]

I have not read the whole thread, but here is my 2 cents worth.

i would guess that bil and fiance did not remember/know the date of the lw's anniversary, even if it was his brother's wedding.  Not everyone remembers dates of others anniversaries.  I would also guess that this date worked for them in terms of the time period they wanted to get married, when the venues were available, etc.  Also, to them it may not be a big deal that their anniversary is the same as the lw's.

It would be interesting to know if the ILs said anything to bil when he anounced the date, if they remembered the date of their son's wedding the year before and mentioned it, if they think it isn't a big deal, if they think it is cool that both sons are married on the same date.

LW and her husband should go ahead and celebrate their 1st anniversary, which is special, as they want to celebrate it, whether that is dinner out or a weekend trip.  If it works to go to the engagement party, fine; if not, that is okay.  I can't imagine anyone getting mad that they are celebrating their first anniversary.  Now, they do need to go to the wedding and participate in pre-wedding events that they are able to.  They can celebrate the 2nd anniversary another time, as many of us do--we don't all celebrate on the exact date.  However, I do think the first anniversary is a little more special and if it is important for them to celebrate that day, they should do so.

I sincerely hope that this isn't a plot by bil to hurt his brother in any way by having his wedding on the same day and then taking that day as hostage--celebrate our day, celebrate us--for the rest of their lives.  That could make things very uncomfortable down the line.

[violinp]

I understand that other people don't always remember wedding anniversary dates (or birthdays, etc.), but, for me, it's stretching credulity to believe that BiL didn't remember that his own brother got married on May 11, and chose that date at random to have the engagement party and the wedding. I remember the wedding anniversaries of my grandparents, parents, and my two uncles, and I was only alive for the last two. Presumably, the BiL went to his brother's wedding, and the memory is still fresh in his mind, considering that it's been less than a year since it happened.

I don't know whether the brother and his intended chose the date for a nice or malicious reason, but it's certainly odd to choose that date without any reason related to family.

[LadyR]

What I find odd is that it means one of these dates is a non-weekend unless OP got married on a Friday, the engagement party will be on a Saturday and the wedding on a Sunday. It seems like aawful lot of work and fuss for one date.

[doodlemor]

What I find odd is that it means one of these dates is a non-weekend unless OP got married on a Friday, the engagement party will be on a Saturday and the wedding on a Sunday. It seems like aawful lot of work and fuss for one date.

I looked the dates up - it is a Friday - Saturday - Sunday configuration.

My hinky meter is going off, too.  I don't necessarily think that this is BIL's doing, though,  It could very well be that FSIL is going to be one of **those** SIL's that we read about on ehell.

[Aeris]

What I find odd is that it means one of these dates is a non-weekend unless OP got married on a Friday, the engagement party will be on a Saturday and the wedding on a Sunday. It seems like aawful lot of work and fuss for one date.

See that's what actually leads me toward believing that the date must have special, personal significance to the BIL and FSIL. Who knows, maybe it's her parents wedding anniversary, and she and BIL met that day or something. It could be anything, but yes, the date does seem to be particularly important.

It's just impossible to know whether it's important because they want to deliberately upstage the LW or because they have some independent reason for being attached to the date.

[ChiGirl]

Ok, I just reread the letter, and it seems the writer has 2 issues with the date:

1) they want to celebrate their own anniversary and
2) they are "taken aback" that the brother picked "their" wedding date.

I'm not impressed with either of her reasons.

As to 1), the "logistics of celebration" issue -- I don't understand why, if the anniversary MUST be celebrated on that date, the engagement party, or even the wedding, completely precludes their private celebration.  They are both invited to these events; it's not as though the party/wedding requires them to be apart on that date.

As to 2), the writer and her husband do not own that date.  It is not "their" wedding date anymore; their wedding is over, and so is any expectation that others will acknowledge that date as "theirs."  It is now their anniversary date, and they are the only people who will celebrate it.  Frankly, their emphasis on "owning" that date comes across as thinking that they are the only people to whom attention should be paid on May 11. 

From the letter, it seems that the LW is actually considering skipping the wedding because she just doesn't want to to go.    The LW should think long and hard about the consequences; I can tell you that if one of my siblings skipped my wedding because they wanted to have a 2d anniversary dinner --- well, that's quite the message to send.

[delabela]

My first thought is that it would be awesome to be able to go to a party you didn't have to pay for on your anniversary!  But me and my guy are fairly low key about the anniversary - as long as we could sneak off and have a toast to ourselves, we'd be happy.

I could totally see the BIL and fiancee thinking that it would be fun to have the engagement party and wedding exactly a year apart, and then figuring out the season, and picking a month, and then the weekend, and there you go - same date. 

I could also totally see them thinking, hey, wasn't my brother's wedding fun, and what a good time of year to have a wedding, and wouldn't it be kind of cool to be on the same date, and there you go - same date.

Basically, I have a hard time seeing anything nefarious, and, in my heart of hearts, I would think the LW petty if they skipped either event.  But I get that others disagree. 

Maybe the special significance about the date *is* the fact that their sibling got married on that date.

I think the fact that they are upset says a lot about their rel@tionship. My first wedding was on my sister's birthday. We picked that date for several reasons, mostly time of year and availability of venue & clergy. The fact that it was also my sister's birthday made it even more special to me.

And my sister? Well, she thought it was great. She was my maid of honor and I had the pianist switch to a brief moment of "Happy Birthday to You" as she walked down the aisle.

I can see the first anniversary conflicting with the engagement party, but to be honest, I'd go to the party and do the anniversary celebration the night before. Is it really THAT important to celebrate on that specific night? My current (second marriage) anniversary is near a holiday and DH & I almost never go out on that exact night because there's always some kind of conflict. Doesn't diminish the fact that we're celebrating another year. We have just as nice an evening a week before or later as we would have on that day.

I wanted to say this is super sweet and made me smile 

[Specky]

I can see making an effort to attend the wedding, but I think that it is perfectly reasonable and sensible to skip an engagement party to celebrate a first anniversary.

[WillyNilly]

To me part of the LW's position is... she got married on a Friday.  And now in essence they have been asked to spend their first anniversary - a Saturday night - at the engagement party.  And then the next year the wedding is on a Sunday... well its pretty standard for there to be a rehearsal dinner the night before a wedding and the groom's brother (and his wife) would usually be expected to attend.

So even if the couple wants to celebrate on a night that's not their exact anniversary, but rather the Saturday closest to it, that date is essentially pre-spoken for.  Lets face it, often in the case of a wedding drawn out to the point of a months-in-planning engagement party and over a year of engagement, the wedding takes up more then just 6 hours on the day of for the immediate family of the bride & groom; this doesn't sound like its going to be a small modest wedding.

The LW might not have a right to her anniversary, or even the Saturday night closest to it, but the BIL and FSIL are inconsiderate at best: They failed to consider the impact of their decision.

I think its also worth mentioning that the LW is reacting now, less then a year after her own wedding, and to a double announcement.  Sure maybe by 2014 she will be ok with the idea of 'observing' her anniversary on another weekend, but she's not writing to Prudie in 2014, she's writing now, and for now I think her initial reaction is absolutely justified. Its nice when family gives lots of notice on their planned wedding date, but 14 months in advance when the last wedding on that date was only 10 months ago? That really seems like it was either astounding inconsideration, or very deliberate. If they had waited until after the first anniversary/engagement party to announce their date, it might have been received better, lessen the blow and all.