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One of my friends (hi friend!) just told me her younger brother is engagement ring shopping! This is exciting news because a) who doesn’t love engagements? (mean people, that’s who), and especially b) the whole family loves the soon-to-be-future-daughter-in-law.
But…my friend sheepishly admitted that she hopes they wait a couple years, until her future-sister-in-law graduates from college to actually get married - so that she (the older one, who’s been talking marriage with her boyfriend for awhile now) can get married before her brother.
This is a phenomenon that occurs between friends too; who has the higher “rank” should get married first, whether rank be determined by age, length of relationship, length of engagement, etc. But there’s an extra little element in siblinghood, in that birth-order is the only rank that really matters when you get right down to it. If you’re 5 years older, it doesn’t matter if you’re still single - you should still be getting married before your little sister! Who cares that they’ve been dating eight years!
Of course I’m exaggerating, but I do feel like the sibling order issue is a bit less fluid than friend competition. Because no matter why one friend “should” be getting married before another, you can still find something that means friend B has the “right” to go first.
For me, Mr. Bluebell and I had been ring-looking for a couple months and I knew he had chosen my setting but not my center stone when, out of the blue, my brother called to announce he was engaged! He is older than me ~and~ they had been together a whopping 7 years already. I just congratulated them and declined to mention our upcoming plans, so they were just as surprised when we made our announcement a couple months later! Hehe.
I felt like it was their “turn” first, so I just shouldn’t do anything to take the excitement away from them, and then, well, everyone could focus on us when our turn came around. 
Anyway, the point is that there seems to be a strong ingrained idea that the older sibling should marry first. Did you and your siblings marry in age-appropriate order? Was there any drama if someone wanted to go out of order? Would you feel like a younger sibling was stealing your thunder if they went before you - regardless of relationship length?
i hope our siblings dont feel that way… haha… im the younger one… my brother is 7 years older and hes been with his girl for about 6 years but it doesnt look like any marriage plans are arising from them… and my fi is the middle of five children and he will be the first too… but weve been together for 9 years! i think its about time! haha
My brother is 7 years older and has been with with girlfriend for 5-6 years. No concrete wedding plans for them yet. I’ve been with my fiance for 8.5 years and I think sometimes my Mom’s disappointed that I’m going first. I think all of this is retarded. You get married when you’re ready!
My older brother married first, too. And like your brother, it was really a “What?” thing. He got married right after we got engaged. A few weeks later. Although I don’t think he would have been upset if I had gotten married first. He just doesn’t care. 
i’m a younger sibling getting married before my sister! traditionally in korean families, the parents expect their children to get married in birth order. of course it’s not completely the case these days but growing up it was sort of given that i wouldnt get married before my sister. she’s 8 years older than me and i always thought for sure she’d get married first but she isnt at the point where she wants to get married and hasnt found the fantastic man yet.
for my parents they’re ok with it but i think it’s because all of their friend’s kids are my sisters age and already married so it’s been a long time coming for them to be able to host a wedding.
the fiance’s parents were really worried about me getting married before my sister…until both my parents and i reassured them..
my younger brother married 8 months after i did. he was only 25, but i don’t think he would have married so quickly if i hadn’t already gotten married.
i have to admit i think i would have been a little sad if he married before me, esp since he’s a guy. we met our so’s around the same time though.
while i’m not officially engaged yet, i’m a middle child and my older sister got married before me [she's 3 years older] so things seem to be in working order. especially since my younger sister is 8 1/2 years younger than me and still in high school. lol.
My 2 years-younger sister got married in 2005 to her boyfriend of 5 years. It didn’t bother me that much. I was no where near ready to get married and was happy for her. What irritated me a little bit was when she announced she was pregnant 2 months after I got engaged. But, I’ll get over it…I’m very happy I’m not the one pregnant!
i guess it depends on who you talk to. i will be getting married 1 month before my older sister. i had a cousin who waited 2 years to get married so that her older sister would find someone. maybe the older sister may feel pressured or outstaged (society’s at fault) but everyone’s situation is different. you can’t plan on when you’re going to find that special someone.
i’m the youngest and my two older sisters got married in birth order. they’re 3 and 4 years older than i am so i just assumed they would get married before me since my parents expected us to finish college first before even getting engaged.
in fact, i think my parents were starting to lose hope in me since my sisters married right after college and i didn’t get engaged until 7 years after i graduated!
one of my friends married before her older brother, so according to chinese tradition, she had to buy him a pair of pants, but i forget what that was suppose to symbolize.
I think my older sister is a little upset that I got engaged first. But since me and fi are having an extremely long engagement, there’s no saying her won’t still meet someone and go first.
oh, and i had another friend who was the oldest in her family of five. the four oldest all got engaged within five months of each other and their grandmother strongly believed they should get married in birth order. They all got married with only four months in between each wedding… thank goodness the youngest is only 19 so she still has some time to go!
My younger brother married before me and I didn’t feel any ill will. Do people really feel this way? Age rank should not matter at all. how ridiculous.
My younger sister married 4 years before me. She was in a serious relationship and I wasn’t so it was perfectly fine with me. The only problem I had with it were the reactions of other people- “if your little sister gets married before you then you will never get married.” Well, they were wrong and I’m getting married this summer.
I’m the oldest, and my brother is nowhere near getting married. So I suppose we’re going in order. FI’s bro is older than him, but I don’t think it really bugs him.
I agree that it is a little silly.
Both DH and I are the oldest and married first among our siblings. None of our younger siblings are even seriously dating right now. My youngest brother did beat me to having a baby first though. (Right before our wedding, ha ha.) No worries though, that’s a long way off for DH and I. =)
My fi’s little brother got engaged a few months after us, and are going to get married two months before us…which at first was kind of frusterating, but now, it’s great because we’ll all be closer for being in the same “stage” of our lives at the same time.
The hardest part has been that our weddings are going to be very different, size wise, etc. so we have to be cautious of who will be at theirs who won’t be invited to ours…
We didn’t know Fi and his GF were thinking about getting engaged because they are younger and had been dating for less time than we had, but when we announced our engagement, he was a little put out, because (I guess) he felt like he now had to wait to pop the question so that he didn’t steal our thunder…
I think there is often a bit of competition, just because you want it to be *your* day or year hehe.
I have 2 older brothers and 2 younger brothers (one of which is only 11, so not quite marrying age yet), no sisters for this girl. My oldest brother is married and has been for over 6 years. My next older brother is the type of person that will probably never get married, and the same goes for my younger brother that is old enough to get married. They are both very independent men and just prefer the bachelor life, and I fully support them in that. So, lucky for me, there has been no rivalry between us that I am getting married before them.
As a middle child, I thought it was fair that I got married first since I’d been dating my fi the longest (4 years). My older sister got engaged a few months after us (after 1.5 years of dating) and is having her wedding 3 months after ours.
She knew that it would have hurt my feelings if she squeezed her wedding in before mine. As it stands, we’re both happy with the wedding dates and having fun planning together.
My older brother is 6 years older than me, but so is my FI. My brother didn’t really care, he’s been w/his girlfriend for much longer but they have no plans of getting married, EVER, so I wasn’t going to wait around for him! Some of my cousins did have a problem b/c I threw the whole family order out of whack! Oh well, they’re all single, they need to get over it!
My husband is the oldest of 8 and we got married first and his next oldest brother is getting married in May, so it looks like they are in order so far.
As far as me, my brother is 3 years older and has been with his girlfriend about 5 or 6 years and aren’t engaged or anything. I think he was really suprised when I called him up and told him I was engaged after we only dated for a year.
It doesn’t seem like there is any rivalry.
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Mrs. Bluebell, New York Age and Occupation in 07: 26, Finance Manager Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Playing with the cat and/or Consulting Engagement Date: December 25, 2005 Wedding Date: June 2007 Venue: Bride's family summer home in the Adirondacks About Me: Trying to find the perfect balance between family tradition (marrying at the house everyone else in my family gets married at), making our's modern, interesting and different from everyone else in my family's, and incorporating some Chinese tradition for my Chinese fiance. I really have no idea what it's going to end up looking like! Also, I picked Miss Bluebell for my name because I have blue eyes and I'm a loser like that.
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