Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5821891-20131031221624/@comment-1894786-20150406151414

Hmcooper4 wrote: Just to put some additional perspective on the convoluted timeline. We know that Ella and her step-sisters went to the Ball (seperately) at the beginning of the 'Price of Gold'. And a Royal Snow and David are attending the Wedding Ball of Thomas and Ella, so the Wedding is after Snow and David defeat Regina, and probably even after they are married, meaning that the Wedding is at most a year prior to the casting of the Dark Curse. And allowing for both Snow and Ella to be pregnant (and Snow to give birth), there has to be approximately 9 months between Ella and Thomas' Wedding and The Dark Curse.

This would leave the only real question to be how long between the Initial Ball transpires before Ella and Thomas are married. I highly doubt it is more than a year.

Also, when we see Ana and Will go through the Mirror ('Heart of Stone'), the marriage of Ana's stepsister to the King had already taken place, so that would put Ana becoming the Red Queen in the months preceeding Dark Curse (if Ana is Cinderella's step sister).

So, if Ana is Ella's stepsister, then the writers are going to have to really work to reconcile all of the differences. Well, to be fair, we're assuming Thomas finds Ella soon after the ball like in the fairytale. A&E could've royally screwed them over by keeping them apart for a long time, Snow & Charming style.