SISTER WIVES – Meri says Kody and Janelle planned to get married on her birthday, but Kody’s mom stopped it

When Kody Brown and Janelle Brown decided to enter into a spiritual marriage in 1993, they made a wedding date choice that would become a lasting source of tension in their plural family: they initially planned to marry on January 16, Kody’s first wife and Janelle’s former sister-in-law Meri Brown’s birthday.

The decision, which was ultimately stopped by Kody’s mother, has resurfaced as a point of contention as the Sister Wives cast reflects on their fractured relationships in the show’s latest season.

In 1993, three years after Kody married his first wife Meri, he was preparing to take Janelle as his second spiritual wife. According to recent revelations on the TLC reality series, Kody and Janelle initially selected January 16 as their wedding date, which happened to be Meri’s birthday.

“They wanted to get married on my birthday,” Meri shared in a preview for the upcoming Sister Wives “One-on-One” special obtained by People.

While the exact reasoning behind the date selection hasn’t been fully explained, Meri revealed that Kody and Janelle’s attitude toward the choice was dismissive of her feelings.

“They thought ‘it doesn’t matter, we’ll just celebrate it a different day,’” Meri explained. “Like, excuse me? It does matter.”

The wedding ultimately did not take place on Meri’s birthday, thanks to intervention from Kody’s mother. Despite the date change, the fact that it was ever considered has remained a sore point in their relationship.

For Meri, the birthday wedding plan represents a broader issue in her marriage to Kody and her relationship with Janelle: a failure to recognize the emotional complexity of their situation.

“Kody and Janelle fail to recognize that possibly some of the issues that I had in polygamy could have stemmed from the fact that, oh, they wanted to get married on my birthday,” Meri said in the special. “And they forget that there might have been some emotions involved with the fact that she used to be married to my brother.”