A Fall Bride

No, not me.  I'm definitely a winter bride.  But, my family is planning a second wedding this year, as my little brother proposed to his girlfriend of 10 years (!!) the Saturday before Valentine's Day. 3 months after  Mr. Ly and I got engaged, and they are planning a wedding for 3 months before our wedding!

I think everyone expected me to have a less-than-cool response to finding out my little brother was getting engaged.  Not the case. To be perfectly honest, I had always thought he would get engaged before I did.  He has been with his fiancee for 10 years, and they have watched countless numbers of their friends and family get engaged and married, long before they did.  They are serial wedding attendees, and I can not imagine how torturous that must have been for my brother's fiancee.  I've read some of the waiting posts, and trust me, I feel for you girls, it is not easy.   My brother had planned on proposing before the end of 2011, however, within 1 day of each other,  his future brother in law proposed to his girlfriend, then I got engaged the very next day.  Let's just say it wasn't part of his plan, but being the good brother that he is, he didn't want to steal our thunder, and decided to postpone his proposal for a few months.


That brings us to the Saturday before Valentine's Day, my brother and his (soon-to-be) fiancee were going to YET ANOTHER wedding that night.  My brother had bought a spa day treatment for his fiancee for their anniversary, he surprised her at the end of the massage, and proposed right there.  He had arranged for their friends and family to meet them at a restaurant for lunch to celebrate, which is how we do. I was away and sadly missed it, but here are some good proposal shots for you guys:

Proposal at the spa with chocolate covered strawberries 

At Philly's LOVE Park

Once they got engaged, the first question we all know that comes next is, so did you pick a date yet?? My brother constantly joked that they were getting married the day before ours, which funny as it would be, I'd totally be ok with**.  We could share vendors, people wouldn't have to fly in twice, and best of all, we wouldn't have to worry about a rehearsal dinner!  But he was just trying to ruffle my feathers, (unsuccessfully to his dismay.)

She really wants a fall wedding, but didn't want to wait another year (understandably so!) and so, my little brother will now be getting married just 3 months ahead of us. Luckily we don't have a ton of out of town guests coming in, so there really won't be a case of who's coming to which wedding (although I briefly worried about this with my aunt who lives in Hawaii, and is my brother's godmother, she promises that she will be there for both...) And I think my brother is looking to have a smaller wedding, so we might be hosting a lot of the overspill of extended family (kind of like the consolation prize wedding - but we have a minimum number we HAVE to meet, so we're ok with that too!)

I've read about a lot of drama from family members getting married to close to one another, I'm really hoping this will not be the case with us.  My siblings and I have gotten very close over the past few years and I hope that getting married so close will strengthen our bonds, not tear them apart.  I want my brother and future sister-in-law to have everything they want on their day, and I know they want the same for us.

Has anyone else had 2 weddings in the family close together?  Did either of the brides mind?

**I say this now. Knowing that they are not getting married the day before us, had they actually chosen that day, I probably would not be cool with it.