Cousin Picked the Same Weekend

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Be upfront with your cousin and ask them why they would schedule their wedding the same day (politely of course, there could be a chance that they forgot). Then have an open discussion with your concerns with splitting the family and how important this date is to you and your fiancé and how it feels unfair that others may think you (OP) will be the “bad person” when you send your STD and everyone sees both weddings are on the same weekend.

also, curious ... did you get an STD from them? It sounds even more rude if they purposefully decided to send you STD after the first wave

Also I JUST LOOKED AND YOU AND I ARE WEDDING TWINS! yayyayayayyyy!!! Same day and that day is me and my FH’s 7th anniversary in 2019! How awesome is that? Okay so going off of that, I’m assuming your cousins wedding is on that Friday or Sunday?? If it’s that Sunday I doubt anyone will want to go cause then they have to take Monday off of work to get home. If it’s Friday people will still have to take off work, maybe even more because they would have to leave Thursday. So you might be in a lot of luck whether she’s getting married the 1st or 3rd!

I was just about to ask, do you think she sent out her save the dates to her guests just so she could have an excuse not to change her date? I am so sorry this happened to you. This almost happened to me too. My fiancé and I got engaged in Dec '17 and chose our wedding date in January. My cousin got engaged soon after me, and after EVERYONE had known about our chosen wedding date for months, she chose to have her wedding the weekend before ours. I was very hurt and felt like it was a competition. Luckily for us, we were open to moving our wedding date up sooner and sadly for her, the relationship didn't work out. This also just happened to my co-worker. She got engaged and chose her wedding date on the DAY she got engaged, and her cousin a few weeks like said she would also like to get married on that day. Why is this such a thing?!

This just blows my mind. When we got engaged, we decided that we wanted an October wedding. My cousin was getting married in September, so we decided to push our wedding back a year so that we didn’t have back-to-back weddings. And we lived on the same street, so the only family that would have to travel is our OOS uncle. But I wanted us to each have our own time without any competition or comparisons between our family.

DH’s cousin got engaged 7 months after we did, and she happened to pick the same date. (We hadn’t formally announced our date.) But we decided to move ours up one week, and she actually ended up getting married a year early, because she was concerned her grandpa wouldn’t make it another year. I’m actually glad that happened, because our wedding day had absolutely gorgeous weather, and our original date ended up being cold and rainy!

It just blows my mind that your cousin would do this. Is she not concerned about missing your wedding or you missing hers? Does she not care that family members might not attend her wedding because of yours, or is she hoping they will all choose her?

Extremely messed up! I would be very upset. And yes I do believe she sent her STDs out to get ahead of you. Like others have said a lot of people might want to stay local. I’m sorry this is happening to you.

I remember asking my cousin when she will get married because she got engaged after me. We are also having a long engagement, but the first thing she said was "don't worry, it's not in march 2020" so she let me know ahead of time that her date would not clash with mine. It takes consideration and I would definitely remember or ask the date before the save the dates go out so there is no conflict.

This is shady as heck. My cousin got engaged a few months before me as did one of my closest friends and we made sure we had knew their dates so we could avoid the week before, of and after. There is no way we would have wanted a wedding at the same time as these other couples. I'm sorry this is happening to you. At this point, aside from talking to your cousin, there's nothing you can do and I certainly WOULDN'T move your date. Not for someone like this.

I'm sorry! That's awful. So your cousin knew your date? I would just send your save the dates out ASAP.

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Literally every STD I've gotten (8 this year and a bunch more last year) were received a 11-12 months in advanced. I sent mine out about 11.5 months before my wedding. I find the 6 months that people state on the forum laughable because that wouldn't be enough time to actually save a date and plan vacation and travel. My summer plans for next summer are already finalized.

View Quoted Comment Wow you plan way ahead! I just went on vacation recently and didn’t book any of the hotels til a few days before cause we still hadn’t decided where we wanted to go yet!

Sorry for the delay in response. I really appreciate the support and knowing that I wasn't just being crazy. I'm going to do my best to respond to everything thus far in one post rather than trying to respond to each individually.

If my cousin did not know my date or at least the general time frame, I'll be really surprised. It's total possibility to it somehow got by her; however, seeing as we had previously been in contact to discuss varying aspects of wedding planning, I feel that she would remember my date or at the very least mention the fact that we had somehow both ended up settling on the same date. Also, I most certainly did not get a save the date from her nor did my mother. I haven't talked to other aunts or uncles to see if they were invited yet.

My fiance and I are currently working on our save the dates and getting them out as soon as possible. We had intended to wait until the 8-month point but now we feel we need to try and do "damage control." Like you guys have said before, even if we invite a lot of the same people, knowing my aunts and uncles, most of them wouldn't be able to take the time or spend the money to go across the country. This really just leaves concern about my grandparents. They are my only surviving grandparents, so it's important to me that they be there. My fiance, mother, and I are having lunch with them this Sunday and I'm sure this subject will come up. I think the fairest compromise at this point would be for Grandma to come to mine and Grandpa to go to my cousins, as then each grandparent would be fulfilling obligation to their blood relation.

Oh, and on top of all this, yesterday morning, I woke up to notification that she had commented on a Facebook post regarding my wedding that basically said her tip for having a perfect wedding is keep everything a secret until its a done deal and then announce it so that you can beat out "family drama." To me, that seems to be in reference to the whole situation - saying that she knew it was the same date but didn't tell anyone until the save the dates. It just all seems so intentional. We're not super close as we've lived in separate states our whole lives but I never considered there to be any negativity between us either.

Wow. That’s pretty messed up. No you’re not over reacting. Why would she do that!? Has there always been some type of cousin competition or something. Out of all the weekends to get married, she picked that exact same weekend as you? That’s just too big of a coincidence. So yep, I believe it was on purpose. Not cool at all. So sorry this is happening to you.

I'm sorry you're going through this! My cousin just announced that him and his fiancée picked a date that's a week before ours. I'm still kind of miffed as they knew about our date before hand (my cousin reached out to my mom to confirm our date and our STDs went out in early September) and said they wanted a May or June wedding and come to find out they picked the weekend before us in mid June. It's not a huge deal, but puts a lot of burden on our families for travel and my sisters can't go to their wedding now due to committing to mine and the time and travel it would take to attend both. But you can't control what other people decide to do so I've just had to come to accept it. If they picked the day before ours I would've been way more upset though.

Dang that is messed up and I'm sure it made you bummed out to heard your grandma ask you to change your date. But she did get the jump on you, maybe because it is across the country.

All I can really say is if you haven't sent your save the dates and you really want your grandparents there you might have to change your date. Sorry sug

I'm pretty so please keep this is mind I would do the following

1. On her FB post the following early in the morning around when she goes to work so she cant delete it. Post
Grandma Smith just told me that she received your save the date oh my gosh I can't believe you chose the same wedding weekend as us. How fun it's going to be to share the families hell you could use some of my vendors if you'd like you my friend is my new wedding bestie. You'll love it did you know that the month of June is our anniversary month from when we met that's why we picked our date. The only bad thing is our families won't be alble to celebrate our marriages together and I'd hate for them to miss yours. I know you must have forgotten we announced our date at Christmas dinner last year everyone is so excited to go to my wedding, well got to go bestie I'd love to help you I'll send a vendor list next week



2. You send out the dates like yesterday

3. And I'd make it known maybe tell the family friend who likes drama and tends to gossip tell them I'm so excited that Brittney chose the same wedding weekend I had chosen the date back in December and the fact that she chose it for the same weekend only makes it fun because she and I can wedding plan together. Did you know my and Ryan's anniversary date is our wedding date it holds so much significant meaning behind it. the only hard part is the families will be split up and they would have to choose and the expense involved going to the weddings



Okay so this is what will happen it will go around the family and hopefully it will do 3 things
1. Make you look like the bigger person
2. You had announced the date first it will make her look petty
3. It will hopefully make your cousin be called out for her actions

I'm sorry your going through this

Yes, it sucks. Have you spoken to her?

She did it on purpose and tried to beat you to it by sending out her Save the dates. Honestly send out your save the dates soon and people can decide which they'll be in attendance to. Honestly people are more likely to travel locally!

Have you talked to her about it? Say something like, hey just got your STD, you know we already booked our wedding that weekend, right? I would just be curious if it was an honest mistake (as some suggest) or if she did do it on purpose. 6 months is typically standard for a STD, so the fact she sent them out so early is definitely suspicious that she knew what she was doing. I would just recommend confirming that. Don't reschedule your wedding, but understand that your family will be in a place where they have to make a choice. Your grandparents may not be there depending on who they choose, and you'll just have to be okay with that. I wouldn't take it personally. Just focus on everyone who will be there to celebrate you and enjoy your day with them.

I'm hoping that she didn't do it maliciously and you can just sit down and talk about other dates you are thinking for pre-wedding activities together to make sure there are no future conflicts. If she did know what she's doing, you unfortunately have a Bride Wars situation and I would say try to lock in dates for your pre-wedding activities sooner rather than later and get invites out ASAP so family will get yours first. If you explain this situation to whoever offers to throw you a shower/bachelorette/whatever else they will jump right on it to help you out. Good luck, sorry you are dealing with this.

It is possible that the date was chosen to accommodate some events or important dates already scheduled in the groom's family, and with conflicts everywhere in the 4-6 weeks that would allow them vacation from work, and availability of church and venue, and avoid holidays, left few choices. And they looked at how many overlapping guests on your guest list, and decided that date , though the same weekend as yours, affected fewer VIP than other choices. Don't go making it all about yourself, when you and your wedding may have been one of 5or 10 pieces of the puzzle. As for Save the Dates, although the promoters of STD make it sound like once someone has your card first, they must turn down all other invitations, that is a marketing promise, and totally untrue. No matter if you receive a save or a phone call or email, 15 months or 4 month, at anywhere in between, for 2 or 6 events the same day, the potential guest has no obligation to choose the one that arrives first. Once the invitations themselves are out, guest may choose any one if the 2 or 6 invitations, according to which people they feel closest to, and which they can best afford in dollars and time of travel. Guests have no obligation to choose one and turn down other offers until they have ( by promise or in writing) accepted one invitation. After they have accepted one, no other old or new offer can be accepted. So cousin sending out Saves early or a a usual time does not amount to a hill of beans. In the end some people will have to make a choice. If a person's friend sends a save a year ahead, and sister gets engaged 4 months before the same wedding, who told you first does not matter. Though it may be a hard choice. But another date might have presented a conflict in cousin's FI family, and how can you say, her FI should take second place. In the end, your grandparents might get bad colds, and not attend either wedding. And your weddings will go on. But if you make a big deal of this, and make remarks about your family (cousin) you may create a rift that will never heal. For one day, even an important one, is it worth having many in your family think badly of you , and others never speaking to you again, over weddings. That it is upsetting, I have no doubt. But focusing blame on your cousin when you have absolutely no idea about her FI or his family's input, or conditions like work, church, and venue issues, is unfairly jumping to conclusions. If you were in her shoes, you might have made the same choices, putting your FI and his family, or other issues, before your cousin. Sorry, but this may be a situation where you unhappily accept the conflict of dates, as the only choice.