My Fiancé’s Cousin got engaged a year after us, and chose our wedding Date.

Why would someone do this? That had to be done on purpose. I’d be pissed.

Cousin's fiancée may have had dates that were better or worse for her family, and key friends too, which when added to venue availability, was why they chose that date. May have been nothing to do with your date. And her family is as important as his. Frankly, if my cousin had already been engaged a year and not signed a contract for a date yet, there is no way I would take a, well maybe this day in May, or Maybe that one, as a reason to avoid a good date for my plans, and maybe lose some of my friends and family coming, or not get the venue I wanted. If they had a definite contract, then I would choose at least 2 weeks away.

That's super frustrating but I'm optimistic things will work out for the best anyway.

My sister got married a week after finals and really regretted it. There's so much stress surrounding finals that she didn't get to put as much thought as she wanted into her wedding. She got married between her junior and senior years of college so that she could start her networking/internships/career with her new name.

I was originally going to wait until summer 2020 to get married (when I'll have six months off between my current program and my Master's) but I decided I didn't want to wait that long. So we're eloping this summer and we'll have a very belated reception next summer. But I'm planning that for July because I know from my sister's wedding experience I'll need June off to put together last minute details and get far enough away from finals to into the right headspace.

Best of luck!

I would also be frustrated and disappointed but you don’t truly “have a date” until you have paid a deposit to book the venue. I think it’s fair to be frustrated and they should have approached you guys to let you know they were moving forward with the date you had previously mentioned but you can’t expect other weddings to be planned around what your desired but unbooked date is. I’d try and stay positive, you didn’t pay a deposit and you can still move your date out without financial implications.

View Quoted Comment This. If you had your date picked out, you should have put down some deposits to make it official. I don’t really think your fiance’s cousin did anything wrong. And I don’t think they screwed you over on purpose - they probably just wanted a Saturday in May, and their venue was available then, and it had nothing to do with you. They might have thought you were never actually going to book something because it had been so long.

Either way, don’t let this ruin your enjoyment of wedding planning! You’ve waited so long, what’s another month or two? I would pick a Saturday in June and be done with it. It might be nice to have some time between graduation and the wedding anyway.

View Quoted Comment This. "My sister got married a week after finals and really regretted it. There's so much stress surrounding finals that she didn't get to put as much thought as she wanted into her wedding." is the second mention of something you should listen to, in my experience. We planned our wedding, for my first marriage, the week after finals but before graduation from college, for both of us. In the end, eloped after a mother in law mess. But in spite of planning 14 months in advance, we had a heck of a time with venues, and costs. Near my school in Boston, and near Dartmouth, all local lodgings booked by families coming to take kids home for the summer, or parents coming a few days before the graduation. Room costs up as much as $50 per room. Venues about 25%, just because of the timing. We wanted school friends to come before they dispersed, then have a honeymoon, then to jobs to get living money for grad school. Problems we had, otherwise: If FMIL has started being a pain in the derriere any other time, we might have dealt with her and gone on. But come the beginning of April, we still both had finals in 4 subjects and term papers in 3. Wedding all planned, but when she created bumps in the road, we had no time, and no patience to deal with it. Or redo things she had gone behind us and cancelled, what a horror, they all rebooked in less than a week when we found out her surprise changes. We just plain cancelled, with 90% of RSVP in as acceptances. Between finishing school, planning our mini-move to Colorado for honeymoon and summer jobs, and looking for housing for fall near grad school back in Boston, to go back and forth 4 hours north of me and an hour from him, to where I grew up, was too much. Exhausting enough with finals and papers, and my nursing boards in one state 2 weeks before our wedding, and a second state a week after. No time to look at a new caterer, or photographer, or all of an Inn. Even though we had all deposits from othersback, all the money, just no time. We did not want to blow graduating with honors over poor scores in one semester's courses. And my free tuition only to my graduate school, was because my GPA so high. The condition was, if it dropped under summa range, my scholarship would disappear. So we had to cancel. Problem 3 we encountered just because if May date and graduation: We got wedding invitations for 14 other weddings for our weekend, or the one following , when we would have been honeymooning in Colorado. We did not find out until Sept and Oct of they last school year, how many people we knew had booked for the 2nd and 4th of 5 May weekends, with both of us and all of them, graduating the 3rd weekend on different days in cities 3.5 hours apart. Since we went to 7 of those weddings after cancelling ours, and 2 Boston graduations, mine and my brother's, then 1st cousin's , and FI and my other brother's med school in NH, We managed to spend over $2000 of our honeymoon money, on travel, lodgings, gifts. Weddings and graduations presents we had thought about but did not plan out by the dollar, between time for school, and for wedding planning. . We married at a Colorado courthouse wedding. I was widowed months later. 6 years later, marrying my present husband, I completed my grad work, except a Masters thesis, in Jan, thesis due in May, and Hubby was finishing his Masters in May. The previous December, not engaged but thinking if a short one and setting a date, he said, lets get married the last of May or First of June, there is a break between weddings in April, and August, in my (FI) family, and in yours April August, September. I just looked at him like he had grown antlers. May? You want to get married immediately after graduation?Are you CRAZY? We got engaged in May, married in October. We went to 15 other weddings together , and 2 weekends we were in 2 different cities, in weddings we had committed to long before. The summer of 17 weddings, starting April, before ours in mid October. 4 of our siblings, 3 first cousins, and 3 second cousins, of one of us. The rest friends, just out of college, grad school, or the army, taking advantage of the transition between finishing one thing and starting something new. The previous year, I had gone to 9. Part of why we had 13 infants in a murder when we married in October. . I would advise anyone, not to book a wedding so close to graduation, no matter how sensible it sounds. Exams, closure, other people's weddings and graduations, truly awful time unless you thrive on stress. Planning in 5 months May to October a breeze after the first 2 weeks. All done with time to spare over a month and a half before our wedding. Cheaper. Dates available. We relocated to a new rented home. We both mentioned our coming marriage, and were told, they would give us at least 10 unpaid days off, or we could work some extra time and take all paid comp time. So fine with 2 new jobs. Had we wanted summer off for a wedding and travel after, the answer from both jobs would have been a flat no. Senior staff booked June -Labor Day. Bit lots of extra work available when they were on vacations, so we cleaned up on overtime, and got to take 1.5 hours comp time around our wedding, paid, for each hour worked. . . Give it more thought. As a poster above said, this may be a blessing in disguise. Planning new job and move right after graduating, then late summer ir fall wedding, may be best.

Personally, if someone was engaged a year before me and still hadn't officially chosen a date, I wouldn't wait around for them. It stinks but until you sign that contract, it's not your date.

Hey all. I read a lot of your comments and all of you made great points. Even though we had a date we wanted, we should’ve made a deposit as soon as we could. Regardless, since they told a different time that they were looking to get married than us, I wish they would’ve just let us know what they decided to do at that time since they actually booked it about 3 weeks ago. The last we heard, they were getting married after June 6, but what happened happened. My fiancé and I talked and this could’ve been a blessing in disguise for us so we can figure out exactly what we want. Thank you!

View Quoted Comment I’m glad you’re figuring out how to make the best of it. Good luck!

Some family member are worst than your arch nemesis. This is why I am havi ng an intimate wedding. If I invited 150-250 people, half of them would be plotting for the demise of my marriage anyway. Why pay to feed them

If you had already considered 2 days chose the other one May 30th

Sound like they did ot on purpose ots not an early on thing like others commented because they handt beej engaged long snd knew your date it sounds like a competitive thing for them get it done first i have family who do things like that and its irritating id keep the same date to be honest.. Cause yall had it 1st if the whole family cant make it to both oh well at least ur married happy and have the same plans in the order u arranged or maybr elope or speak with hos cousins about a double wedding since they stole ur date of none of those ideas r convenient move it up rather then back y should u have 2 wait longer?

View Quoted Comment I like this idea so what if family is exhausted attending double activities for 2 couples its not ur fault someone stole ur date obviously on purpose since they knew your date you guys shouldn't have to wait because of their decision sorry im very blunt

This is definitely frustrating that they didn’t tell you, but if you hadn’t booked anything or sent out save the dates you can’t really expect them to make plans based on your hypothetical plans... maybe they didn’t know if you’d actually go through with booking in May because you’ve already been engaged so long and not booked anything? Idk im just trying to think of it from their perspective.

Also, as someone else who got engaged in college, I really don’t think you want to get married the week after graduation. You want to have to be dealing with last minute planning stress at the same time that you’re taking your finals? We planned our wedding for June 2019 and I graduated in May 2018 and it was great to have a full year in the real world to plan. I also get wanting to use that gap before your career for your honeymoon, but is there a reason you can’t just do a graduation trip during that time? Since our wedding is a year after I started my career I’ve accumulated enough PTO to take off 9 days for the honeymoon.

I’m sorry they kinda stole your date lol but I think they actually may have ended up doing you a favor. I think you would be putting way too much stress on yourself as you are graduating.