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i think i beat you - i got engaged the day before showing up to my friend's bachelorette party, two days before her wedding. i called her before showing up and offered to keep it a secret until after the weekend was over, but she was incredibly gracious and excited. i'm definitely lucky to have a friend who's so understanding.
Not only will I tell you what I WOULD have done, I'll tell you what I actually DID. I'm sort of in your same shoes! My sister got engaged in September of last year and Mr. Chickadee and I got engaged the next February.
My sister and I are just over one year apart in age. Additionally, my sister and her now-husband started dating a couple weeks before Mr. Chickadee and I nearly 4 1/2 years ago. Mr. Chickadee and I always talked about getting engaged our last year of college, and I always secretly planned that it would work perfectly if my sister would get engaged at the end of her senior year of college, a year before us! However, my sister didn't really consult me on what her plans should be, haha.
Rather, she and her husband waiting until after they'd moved up to the suburbs and gotten settled to get engaged. I knew right away this might be an issue because Mr. Chickadee and I wanted to get engaged at pretty much the same time. Ideally, I wanted to get engaged on Christmas Eve, but it just didn't happen that way. When my sis first got engaged, my mom was sort of like "well you know they want to get engaged too?" and my sister first said she wanted us to wait until after they got married! Whoa, that was not going to fly with us. But soon after her engagement she said she hoped we could wait until after Christmas so she could sort of have that holiday to be the center of attention.
We were all up-front about our wishes and plans so as not to offend anyone and it all worked out perfectly. I do think, if it's possible, you should talk to your FSIL and just give her a head's up at least about the engagement. Good luck and let me know if you want to hear any more of all the sordid details, haha! :)
Hey Chickadee - it's already happened! We are having our weddings a week apart next summer. I was just curious what other people thought about the whole scenario.
I don't think we were stealing thunder because we had always planned to get engaged when we did - I knew we were going to get hitched, I just didn't know when (there was about a 5 month period that I knew it would happen in). My fiance's family had an idea too - they knew what our plans were and what summer we were hoping to get married in and what-not.
I didn't think that we had to "clear" it with the other couple first - they certainly didn't check with us before they got engaged. I guess we all just have to live our lives and be aware that other people will live theirs too. And now we have one heck of a busy week ahead of us next summer. :)
(and I know it doesn't matter - but we are also the 'older' couple and have been dating and living together longer - so the fact that we got engaged was really no surprise to anyone!)
It sounds like she had been engaged for a few months already when you got engaged. Did I get that right? In that case, I think it's totally fine to have overlapping engagements. People cannot expect everyone who knows them to put their life plans on hold for their wedding. Engagements can sometimes last 2 years for heaven's sake - nobody in their right mind could possibly expect you to put your own life on hold for that long just because someone else beat your fiance to the punch with the proposal!
I do think it would have been a bit mean if you had gotten engaged within a couple of days of her, and then told her right away. That would have been stealing her thunder a bit. But it sounds like she had a few months for the news to sink in and get used to it, so I don't think you stepped on anyone's toes.
I guess weddings come in groups, because after my fiance' proposed last November his cousin proposed (on the night of our engagement party in fact--no they didn't come) and then about a month later his little sister got engaged. We had already set our date, October 11, 2008, and both couples planned weddings before ours. The cousin is getting married less than a month before us. His sister told me at first that she was thinking of getting married in late summer 2008. now I know that we can't expect other people to wait as long as we did to get married after getting engaged, but why wait almost as long and get married right before us? I talked to her and said that I thought it would be best to give at least a few months in between weddings for the sake of her family members, and now they're getting married this April. It is strange since we've been dating longer and are older, but that's his sister's personality and you have to go with it.
Next question: she didn't ask me to be in her wedding, but I'm planning on asking her to be in mine...will this be weird? probably :)
Mrs. Oskins, nope it's not weird necessarily. She may have a larger group of close friends or more sisters or just may have a set idea of how she wants her bridal party made up, but if you know her well then it's not strange to ask her to be in your party anyway. One of my bridesmaids just got married this summer, had SEVEN bridesmaids and I wasn't one of them, but she was still extremely honoured and excited to be asked to be one of my BM's. She just has a larger group of friends than I do and had a SIL she wanted to include, etc. Neither of us thought it was strange. I guess it depends on your situation, but if she was someone that you would have wanted to include in your bridal party if you hadn't known who would be in hers, then I say don't alter your plans. It's not a reciprocal thing.
Mrs Oskins: I'm in the same boat - I've asked her to be in my wedding party, but she hasn't asked me to be in hers. At first I was a little hurt, but now I'm thinking that it'll be easier to NOT be involved, as my wedding is happening the week after hers and it might be a little too much stress for me to handle. She did me a favour by not having me in her bridal party. :)
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I'm just curious about something...is there Engagement Etiquette? My fiance's sister got engaged a few months before we did.
My guy was already planning to propose to me when she got engaged (the ring was being made) and he decided to go ahead and propose anyway. (which I was thrilled about!)
But what is the etiquette? Should he have waited? Should he have told his sister? Should he have asked them if it was okay? Are we thunder stealers? (I hope not!!) But should we have put our plans on hold? Everyone has their own lives and own agendas and I suppose sometimes things overlap. Which is difficult, especially when weddings are involved.
What do you folks think? What would YOU have done?