"AITA for picking my wedding date before my FSIL did and not changing it?"

I (28F) am recently engaged to my partner of 5 years (27M). We have been planning for this day for a while and we just announced the engagement last week. We were originally just planning for the wedding to be in December but my Fiancé’s brother is deployed and won’t be able to take leave so we are now planning for May.

My fiancé’s sister (38F - let’s call her Megan) has been engaged for about a year but has never actually announced it or even spoken about it with anyone including family. We only know because she wears a ring and occasionally slips and calls her SO fiancé. When she learned we were engaged, she acted happy but then started talking horrible things about us to her mom (Sussie).

Before we selected this date, I asked Megan and her Sussie if they had any wedding dates picked or planned so that we don’t interfere since they were engaged first and below are the responses I got:

Megan - “what are you talking about? Why would I have plans? Do you think I’m getting married? Who said that?”

Sussie - “Megan has not told me about the engagement first hand so I don’t believe there are any plans and I no of nothing so you should be clear!”

Based off of these responses we picked a date, a venue, set a deposit, and mailed the scar the dates. Much to Megan’s disliking. She called my fiancé SCREAMING at him for picking the weekend of her wedding, that she had planned for that all along and was still trying to get her things in order to place a deposit and announce it. She called me all kinds of names and told him I’m an @$$hole for ruining her big day.

The next day I screenshot her text and sent it to Megan and asked her how she can be mad when I asked her point blank about the dates and she said “I figured you’d pick any other day of the 365 days but not that one.” I said I was sorry and that I could try to reschedule and see if our venue will change our date with the deposit.

I tried, but the venue won’t budge. We would lose the deposit and the next open date that we liked isn’t until Nov 2022 and that’s just too long. So we both agreed that we would keep our date since she hasn’t spent a single dime on her wedding and she could pick a new day since she didn’t disclose it to us when asked.

Megan obviously hates this and is threatening actions on us (all different kinds of threats so far). AITA for picking my date before Megan and not changing it now that she’s upset? My fiancé’s family is split and some think we are the AH and others that Megan is. So we turn to you, whose TAH?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

soulpeace2 said:

NTA why is she even trying to hide her wedding date?

xpotential31 said:

NTA. This is 100% on Megan. You asked her about her plans, she said she didn’t have any. I can’t believe people would even take her side over yours.

NoGuarantee3961 said:

I will add, GET YOUR SAVE THE DATE CARDS OUT IMMEDIATELY. She will get notifications out first and steal your guest commitments if you aren't careful.

And Gat000 said:

NTA. You asked for a date, she didn’t give it. Don’t let her jealousy ruin your special day. She called your fiance because she is trying to skew the story to make herself sound like the victim. Have a heart to heart with your fiance to seeif any damage control can be done.

Your FSIL sounds like she has mental issues so I would not be surprised if she tries to escalate things. I would have an honest talk to see what the limit would be. If she crosses that line do not invite her to the wedding because she may be dramatic and be a negative influence. It sounds like all she really wants is to be the center of attention and she thinks that you are “stealing” it from her.

She later shared this update:

Timeline - This all happened over the course of the last 15 days. The threats Megan had towards us were not physical, more so threats to cause us to be “outcast” from the family, to ruin our wedding day, to curse our future children (wishing harm or unwell to them). She also threatened to get us fired from our jobs but we aren’t sure how she would accomplish that.

Yesterday morning, Sussie called Megan to try and get her to settle down and to see she had at least three opportunities since we announced the engagement to inform us if there was a date. About 30 minutes after that call, my fiancé got a text from Megan (if anyone knows how I can attach the screenshot please let me know) the text read:

“After speaking with mother, I will agree to move my date on the condition that I am a bridesmaid in your wedding. This is the only way I’d consider giving up my wedding date for you.”

Clearly, that is NOT happening and I called Sussie and Megan and explained why that is not an option. Megan again, lost it and said then she is taking our date and it’s now hers. My fiancé jumped in with the support of his family now completely behind us because she was actually trying to blackmail us and said the following.

“Megan, you’re not going to get our date. You’re not going to be a bridesmaid. You’re at this point, not even invited to our wedding. It saddens us to say that but you can’t be a rational adult and we don’t have time to babysit on our wedding day. If you choose to have your wedding on the same day, clearly we will not be attending.

This is driving a wedge in our family and you need to act like a 38 year old mother of two and and not like your 2 year old.” Sussie then added that if there are two weddings on one day, the family would have to pick sides and since everyone except her brother (deployed overseas) was on the call they voted and not a single family member outside of Sussie and her SO would be attending her wedding.

The call ended around 5pm and about 5 hours passed before we get an email from her saying she is leaving the family and will not be contacting us again. She had a lot of other reasons than just this listed and it clearly took her most of the 5 hours to type it. The family is not shocked and most expect she will be back in touch in the next 6 months anyway since that is a common trend.

So, our wedding day is now OUR wedding day and yes, passwords are already in place so she can’t do anything about it. Thank you all for the support.