The Sibling Race
January 26th, 2007 @ 12:28 pm by Mrs. Bluebell
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?
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38 Responses to “The Sibling Race”
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.
I got engaged and married before my sister, who has been with her fiance for 5 years while we were only together two. I couldn’t have cared less if they got married first, she happen to meet someone in college, I didn’t until I was 27. You can’t plan how things like this are going to go and honestly I think it would be selfish to ask a sibling to wait for engagement or marriage. I understand not having weddings too close to each other to reduce the burden on your family, but if it’s the right time for your sibling then you should just be happy for them.
my two younger sisters (4 and 6 years younger than me) got married in the same year. they were both with their husbands for many years (from college and high school)
they also just had their 1st child 7 weeks apart last year (my 2 ringbearers)
i am finally getting married this year!
it never really bothered me. i think my middle sister might have been a little upset about my youngest sister getting married in the same year but she got over it.
my sisters are in college and highschool so yeahhh not likely they’re getting married before me.
mr. peach’s older brother (by one year) on the otherhand has a steady girlfriend but doesn’t seem to be bothered that we’re tying the knot first. mr. peach’s mom said, “no need for a stalled car to be blocking a normal car’s way.” =P
i could see this being an issue def more for sisters and maybe female friends? girls. we’re sooo sensitive about this kinda stuff. haha.
My sister is 10 years older than me, so it wasn’t an issue. If she hadn’t gotten married by the time she was 31, I wasn’t going to worry about beating her to it. Haha. But she got married at 20 or 21 just like I am, except she was with her now husband for only 6 months before the wedding (insane!). But they are still together with 4 kids. As for my friends, none of them are anywhere close. So I’m first!
My sister is five years younger than me, and she and her fiance announced their engagement last summer. I thought I would be bothered by it, since my boyfriend and I have been together for six years and we are still not in a place where we can get married, but honestly, I am thrilled! No more pestering by elderly relatives! No more hints from my mom since she is too busy helping my sister plan her wedding! It is fantastic. Also, since we(my boyfriend and I) have very specific ideas about our wedding(someday!), I think we will have an easier time with planning our celebration our way than my sister will with her wedding.
Also, as the oldest of four, it gets really tiring sometimes of having to be the first for everything. School, car, moving away, etc. I am more than happy to pass the “first” onto my little sis in this case!
i’ve been engaged for almost 3 years now (i know… it’ll be 3 years in june!) and in the 2+ years i have been engaged, my brother who is 2.5 years old is no where CLOSE to getting married. he’s so very single and focused on his career, but that doesn’t seem to bother him or anyone else… although they do poke and tease him a little bit.
When my bf and I first started dating, we knew right away that we wanted to get married. We’re still in college, so we decided that getting married after college was the best idea (which is a year away), the only thing we were semi worried about was that his older sister by 2 years was single, and in Korean families, usually the older sibling needs to get married first. Well, what do you know! Ironically, only 2 days after this conversation, she gets a bf! She never had one before (by choice, wanted to wait for her future husband) They’ve been dating for a year now, and their wedding is now coming up this summer. Funny how everything kind of worked out that way.
I have three older stepbrothers. The eldest was married almost three years ago. The next eldest was engaged but broke it off like a year and a half ago. The youngest of the three (he’s 27) is living with his girlfriend, but she’s still in school and only like 22. So I’ll “beat” two of my older stepbrothers. As for my blood family, I’m the older of two girls (by exactly 3.5 years) and the first grandchild (the next eldest being my sister). So there’s the order there. My FH has one older sister, who got married last August. So again, birth order. We got engaged a month ago, so we have just started the planning after basking in it. Two weeks ago his sister thinks she might be pregnant. Last week it was confirmed. We found out about the suspicion when we were out to dinner one night, and realized that her estimated due date would be pretty much the same time that we were hoping to get married (October). I almost wanted to cry, because not only did her news steal my engagement thunder, but now we were going to have to plan a wedding based on her pregnancy, and get married earlier (which I wasn’t thrilled about, since Texas summers are nothing to contend with!) The happy ending is that her due date is Sept. 24, and our first choice for a wedding date is Oct. 20, just under a month apart and plenty of time for her to recover and the limelight to shift back to me!
[NOTE: I'm not an attention-demander or self-centered by any means; I just used the lingo for the sake of this topic :)]
My younger sister married first, but he eloped so it didn’t “count.” I am engaged now and my baby sister is about to be… I was surprised, but she and her BF actually have been together longer. Still, I do feel like I “should” be the one to go first The FI’s sibling married first, too, and he said at the time it felt strange she ‘beat’ him to the altar. But it’s all good… I do think there is more pressure to compete / differentiate the wedding when a younger sibling married first, though- almost like you feel like you have to justify why it took you so long!
When I just started dating my bf, we had this conversation that he said he would not get married before his older sister. She’s a nice girl and all, but she’s 31 yrs old and never been in a relationship. However, I told him right in the beginning that it is unfair for me to wait, and I even told him my plan is to get married beofre I turned 30. Of course, he agreed with me at the end.
My boyfriend and I have been together for nearly 5 years. My brother got marries this past August and was engaged for nearly 2 years. My boyfriend is a very considerate guy and as a result would not propose to me until my brother was “finished.” It’s not January and things are great with us and we have been talking about marriage and I knew that in the next few months he would be proposing.
Well, last weekend his parents were visiting and his younger sister calls. They get on the phone with her when she annouces that she and her boyfriend got engaged.
I was so upset. I went upstairs and didn’t come back down for a long time. I warned my boyfriend that I wouldn’t be happy if this happened…and lo and behold it happened. I have been upset since it happened because my boyfriend and I were planning on getting married in summer 2008 - which is the date his sister choice.
I was just so excited about it being my turn next. My boyfriend says he’ll continue with his plan and propose anyway, but now I am nervous about his sister being angry. I really want to be married before I turn 30 (I’m 28) and 2008 would have to be my year. 2007 is too soon.
I’ve been letting this eat away at me for the past week. It’s so upsetting…and the worst part is, I’m pretty sure that his sister believes that we’ll wait even though she got engaged first. I know it doesn’t matter but I’ve been with my boyfriend longer, we are older and since my brother just got married shouldn’t they assume that we were going to be next?
Is there some sort of etiquette in this? Should we now hold off on our plans (again!) or should we do our thing and let them work around us? My boyfriend is disappointed and his whole family is surprised by it. They were expecting my boyfriend and I to annouce our engagement, they weren’t expecting this. I’m just sick over it…
M, this is tough. I think your BF was a nice guy to wait for your brother, but at what point does it get crazy? I think that to an extent, putting your family before yourself is a great thing- until you start forgetting about yourself.
If I were you, I’d go ahead with the engagement, after all, it was your plan. It’s a little crazy to put your own life on hold just so other people can do what they want to do, right?
If his family was expecting you two to get engaged, by all means do it. It’s not like they’ll accuse you of trying to steal the thunder of the sister, because like you said, they were expecting it.
An engagement is a happy thing, M. Let your BF propose now, and keep your time span. Make sure you talk to your FSIL, though, after the engagement, and let her know that you’re not trying to steal any attention from her, and your two weddings will be totally different. Make sure she knows it’s not a competition here, and you guys just couldn’t wait any longer to be engaged- you love your BF and thought it was time. Good communication is key. No feelings will be hurt, and everyone can go ahead with their lives.
Sound good?
It does sound good. It’s mostly nice to know that I’m not crazy. The hardest part was having his family here when I found out about it. I went upstairs and couldn’t come down because I was so upset. I eventually talked with his mother and explained that we were indeed planning on getting engaged soon (which she gathered) and I was sorry that I got so upset about it, I just didnt expect this now. She said that she was just as surprised as we were and that we (my boyfriend and I) can just go ahead and do our thing. We can’t plan our lives according to what other people do.
She also assured me that they didn’t get engaged to upset me and my boyfriend…but part of me still feels cheated out of my turn. I know that a couple doesn’t have to consider anyone else…but…it’s hard not to feel hurt. I am very emotional, I wear my heart on my sleeve and I take these things to heart.
What’s done is done and I’ll just have to make sure to keep communication open. His sister is coming here for a visit (she lives in another province) next week. I just hope I can keep it together while she is here - I’m pretty sure I can, but man, this is hard. I’ll just have to put on a smile and do my best to be happy.
*sigh*
actually, i think i would prefer it if my younger bro (2 years diff) got married first. mostly to see how my family would handle it and what i should expect. the main problem with that is that he’s not even seriously dating anyone. he was and they were talking about engagement, but then he broke it off instead. that and our (my bro and mine) relationship with our parents (for separate reasons) isn’t so good right now and my parents don’t even know i’m engaged b/c i’m afraid of how they will take it. all our weird family issues aside though, i can understand why it would seem that the birth order is important.
we also have two younger (about 10 years younger) siblings and if one off them were to get married first that would mean that we had hit 30 and were still single while our 20 year old siblings were finding love and getting married.
My (now) husband is the oldest, but we had been dating the shortest period of time (2.5 years) when we got engaged. We made the announcement at a family gathering and I could see younger brother’s girlfriend seething. Anyway, we set our date, paid our deposits on the venue and then younger brother gets engaged and gets married ONE month before us. Talk about competition. I don’t think birth order has as much to do with it as who was dating longer. Regardless, it seemed very important for them to “do it first” even if it meant taking away alot of our excitement.
I have been with my boyfriend for 5 1/2 years. My boyfriend’s brother is 4 years older than him, and has been with his girlfriend for 10+ years, and they’ve been living together half that long! They both have stable jobs, a house, dogs, and nothing big to wait for. I feel like I am just waiting for his brother to propose already so I can be proposed to, and it’s a little frustrating, especially since my boyfriend probably will wait even longer to propose until after his brother’s wedding
Ok so, my issue is very similar to M’s above. My BF and I have been together almost 4 years now and we both knew that one day soon after we both graduated college that we wanted to get married. So did his family. While in school we have been living in the guest house of his Mom and stepdads house, keeping an eye on it while they are doing buisness overseas. We see them alot and have a great relationship with them. His Mom and my Mom have been saying for over 2 years that they couldn’t wait for us to announce an engagement. Anyways I knew that a proposal was going to come soon because we both graduate in spring of 2009 and are planning on moving out of state in the fall of 2009 for my BF’s, and I said that I would not be comfortable moving out of state before I had my wedding. Well, about 2 months ago my BF’s older brother announced that he had asked his GF to marry him. This was pretty much a shock to me because he has always been this crazy “bachelor” kind of guy. Plus he has only been with her for like 8 months. They live in OK, where my BF’s other side of the family live, while we live in WA where his Mom and stepdad are now retired and living. I was pretty upset when I heard the news because I hadn’t even been asked yet. Then, they announced that the date they had set was August 1st, 2009. Well, my birthday came and went a couple days ago and to my surprize my BF proposed! I was so excited and full of happiness. I thought, this is perfect we can get married exactly one year after our engagement, Sept. 6th 2009, and then move shortly after that for our jobs. Then I remembered the grim truth. My BF’s brother’s wedding is during that time. 
My BF is worried that people, especially his family that lives in Europe are going to feel pressured that they have to choose between the weddings. I mean its only like 6 people but still it is important to my BF that they are there. Should I send out save the date cards before his brothers fiance’ does? I mean, she hasn’t booked a place, or sent save the dates out. It has all been hear say. Maybe I could just pretend I didn’t even know the date when I set mine. My BF hasn’t even called his brother and told him about the engagement, however all my family knows and already are making plans. What do I do??? I dont want to “steal her thunder,” but I don’t want to move away from my family and friends unless I am married. And I dont have a choice on the time of the move. Any advice??
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.
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