My girlfriend and I got married this past December (after 24 years together) in a panic after Trump won. We're in Colorado and most of our family are back on the East coast. In the interest of saving money and getting it done quickly, we eloped with the plan to have a big proper reception/party with everyone the next time we both traveled back home.

That WAS the plan, until apparently my wife's brother decided to move his wedding up to the summer. I'm sure they didn't do it maliciously (everyone was very happy we finally tied the knot), just rather thoughtlessly. But here we are and there's a bit of a conflict. We can't afford to go back east more than once a year, so we want to go home to attend their wedding, but now we're going to have to share the spotlight with them. I can't help being more than a little resentful of this. It's supposed to be our big day, right? I don't want to ruin their big day, but I feel like our thunder is being stolen. My friend suggested throwing two parties, but that seems excessive and ridiculous.

Sharing Our Spotlight

I've always known homos could be just as awful as breeders about, well, absolutely everything. But I kindasorta hoped we'd be better about wedding awfulness, at least for a little while. After all those years of fighting and lobbying and shouting and lawyering up for marriage equality... I kindasorta thought we'd have some perspective, you know? I thought, at least for the first few decades of legal same-sex marriage, we wouldn't get upset over silly things like having to share the spotlight. I kindasorta thought we might be immune, at least for a little while, to un-ironic and weaponized references to "our big day."

It's not your day. No day is. There are seven billion other people on the planet, all having days. The same days. So you'll have to share this day, like you've shared all the days that came before it, and all the days that will come after it.

And why not share it with brother-in-law and his wife to be? Like you said, your BIL and SIL-to-be didn't do this maliciously. Perhaps it was thoughtless. But you can obsess about their thoughtlessness or you can seize the opportunity to have a great, big, mixed-sexuality family wedding bash. I can’t think of anything that would signify your family’s acceptance of your marriage on equal term more clearly than holding a joint celebration for both couples. If your BIL and SIL-to-be are willing to share the day—that's the day, not their day (no day is their day, no day is your day)—then you can focus on what matters: both couples sharing the commitments they've made with the whole family and a giant tribe of friends on hand to celebrate.

Plus, a joint wedding party is very Shakespearean comedy—the comedies always end happily with everyone getting laid. (Except for poor unlaid Malvolio, of course, and abused and unhappy Kate. And poor blissed-but-drugged-and-so-not-consenting Demetrius. Say, have you read Jillian Keenan's Sex With Shakespeare yet? Get it and read it.) And, if you absolutely must have your own day, take your friend's advice. Have one big weekend with two wedding parties. It's not an "excessive and ridiculous idea," it's an idea that will endear both couples to friends and family.