Sister-In-Law

My brother gets married this week. My younger brother. My only brother.

Mostly, I'm so happy for him and excited to get to know this new sister he's bringing into our family.

However, there is some weirdness, which I think is mostly just getting used to the idea. You see, I've never met his future wife. I'll get to meet her a couple of days before the ceremony, but we won't have much time to really get to know each other because those days will be chock full of last-minute wedding prep and masses of other family and friends. I've met her via Skype and we've been Facebook friends for some time now, but that's hardly sufficient.

The rest of my family, on the other hand, has spent lots of time with her. Even my own blood sister, who I also haven't seen in almost two years, calls our new sister a BFF. I'm actually afraid that not being there from the beginning will hurt the rest of our relationship. I'm afraid that I'll always be this outsider and we'll never have the kind of relationship we ought to.

Of course, I'm likely paranoid. If she's as awesome as she seems from her Facebook and from reports from my brother and family, we're going to hit it off right away. And even if we don't? We have eternity to figure it out. My brother really, really loves her, so I'm going to welcome her into our family and just be excited to have a new sister!

I think the other weirdness stems from the fact that this is the first wedding in my immediate family. We've been just the five of us for nigh on thirty years, or a little more than 20 if you count when my sister joined us, and now we are six. Forever. It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this woman I've never met is going to be one of us for the rest of time and all eternity. Not only am I getting a sister-in-law, I am now someone else's sister-in-law!

And yes, there is a little bit of jealousy. Most of the time, as the oldest, it's my job to do things first. But not this. I promise, however, that jealousy is just a tiny part of it.

So, tell me, friends with siblings-in-law - how did you get through the weirdness of welcoming a new family member?