'Wedding Shaming: family member is furious we 'stole' her wedding month?' UPDATED

"Wedding Shaming: family member is furious we 'stole' her wedding month?"

I’m at a loss and just want to check if I missed something. If I missed some major wedding planning etiquette, I’ll own up to it… but I really don’t think I did? Cousin got engaged Sept 2024. We got engaged May 2025. We had a conversation with her about wedding stuff shortly after we got engaged and she mentioned wanting to get married “around March or April 2026” with no confirmed plans or specific date.

Soon after, my fiance and I determined we wanted to get married around the same timeframe, for the nicer weather and to avoid price increases. Also, I personally didn’t want to be engaged longer than a year. Where we live is extremely hot in the summer so spring and fall are definitely the wedding seasons.

We let them know this and asked if they had chosen a specific date. They still hadn’t, and didn’t say anything about us planning for that time of year. I didn’t see any issue getting married around the same months, as long as it wasn’t the same exact weekend. I thought this was normal? I really thought it would be nice to celebrate around the same time and go through this milestone together. Silly me.

They mentioned touring a couple venues but didn’t love them and hadn’t booked anything. We mentioned our potential dates to them before booking. We shared with them when we visited venues. They didn’t raise any issues. In Oct, we booked a venue for late April 2026 and told them. Since then we’ve hung out many times and she seemed completely normal and we got along.

Recently we were asking family for addresses for Save the Dates and she became radio silent and wouldn’t fill out the form. She would text us about other stuff like nothing was wrong, which was odd. We sent her and her fiance several reminders about the address form and still nothing. After a few weeks of this, we told her it’s rude and confusing to be completely unresponsive about the address request.

She then blew up at us and told us it’s “bizarre” and completely rude to have booked “their” wedding month and that we basically ruined all their wedding plans. To be clear, this is 2.5 months after we booked our date and told her. To my knowledge, they still haven’t booked anything or even confirmed a specific date they want.

She said there’s no way our family from across the state could make it to both ours and hers, and we knew that and did it on purpose, and that we were stealing their anniversary. She said it’s “common sense and everyone knows” to not book the same month as someone else planning in the same family and can’t believe she even had to say anything.

I truly have never heard that in my life. I’ve been a bridesmaid 4x, I’ve attended weddings that were close to each other and never thought anything of it. It’s not a destination wedding. Some family members will have to drive like 7 hours if they want to come, many are local.

I feel completely blindsided. I even checked past texts to see what her response was when we first told her the date. She just said “cool” and said she was thinking of a courthouse wedding weeks before that.

I told her she could have expressed this sooner and I don’t understand how she expected us to know how she felt when she never said anything. If she had mentioned something sooner, we could have considered a different date, but now we’ve paid all the deposits and stuff.

She proceeded to call us assholes, insist that it was obvious/common sense, say we “know what we did”, imply that we screwed her over intentionally, and choosing the date “wasn’t about the weather.” I told her it really had nothing to do with her and it’s weird to make our wedding about her, but she’s not having it.

I pointed out that when we booked our date, they had already been engaged for a year and if she felt that strongly about the date, which is already quite soon, then she should have booked something or told us one specific date to avoid.

I don’t understand feeling such strong ownership over an entire month when nothing was booked and it’s common for a lot of people get married in spring. I think our relationship with her is suddenly over. Am I crazy???

Here's what people had to say to OP:

historyandwanderlust said:

If she doesn’t have a date now for April, she won’t have one in April. It sounds like something is going on that’s preventing them from planning the wedding - maybe it’s just procrastination, maybe it’s finances, maybe it’s relationship issues.

But she’s taking out her anger on you because you booking something is making it obvious that she hasn’t. Plan your wedding, have a great time, and just let her figure out how to manage her emotions on her own.

littletinyfishie said:

I’m getting married one month after my cousin. Same boat here. I asked what their plans were and planned accordingly. One month buffer time is totally fine in my case, and in your case, they don’t even have a wedding date yet so I wouldn’t worry about being at fault here.

fairy_freckles said:

She's way overreacting! No one owns the entire month of their wedding. If my future sister-in-law decided to get married in the same month and year, I did I literally would not care and would be happy that we could talk about it and relate to each each other other. (I know she's gonna be proposed to soon).

broul1109 said:

Jealousy is a heck of a drug. This is insane behavior on her part.

Own_Spray_5961 said:

She sounds exhausting. I understand it’s family, but sounds like you’ll be a lot more stress-free without her in your life. Harsh to say but good riddance. My cousin is getting married 3 weeks after me, and I couldn’t be more excited to celebrate her and be with our family again. It would be SO selfish if I caused a scene about it.

FabulousBullfrog9610 said:

No you aren't crazy. The wedding industry/social media has made weddings a competitive sport. No one can take the "glory" away from their moment in the sun, which apparently extends to an entire season. Stop defending yourself. Stop questioning yourself. You are fine. I wouldn't bring it up again. If she doesn't provide her address, don't invite her.

UPDATE:

We had some back and forth over text. I reminded her she never actually had any date reserved and she should have said something early on if it bothered her. She told us to “stop harassing her” (lol I definitely wasn’t), that she “already explained the common sense thing and you’re still being aholes”, and to “leave her alone.”

I sent her the screenshot of when we texted her the date and all she said was “cool. I might do something on this other date” so there’s no way for us to have known she was secretly upset.

She made it clear she doesn’t want to come. I removed her from the guest list and blocked her. I’m pretty sure she blocked me too. I’m frustrated and a little sad, but I do not need someone causing drama and saying lies about me in my life.