Author Topic: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding  (Read 504 times)

Offline Lynn2000

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Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« on: November 16, 2018, 02:25:43 pm »
Slate's Care and Feeding had a letter today about paying for a wedding:

https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/11/wedding-costs-bride-family-advice-care-feeding.html

The letter writer is the father of the bride. His daughter's future in-laws, having paid for their own two daughters to get married recently, have suggested they are NOT going to contribute financially to their son's wedding, and expect the bride's parents to foot the entire bill. However, the bride's parents can't afford to do that. The groom's parents "have very particular plans for" for their son's wedding, which is only described as "a big white wedding for 250 guests." The father of the bride wants to know how to address this with the groom's parents before planning gets any further along, as it has become "extremely contentious."

The advice given is to ignore the parents of the groom and go directly to the couple, telling them exactly how much the bride's parents can contribute--they recommend having a check already made out. Hand it over, be firm that nothing else is available, and assume the couple "will have the decency to thank you and take the check and downgrade their plans accordingly."

I think the advice is spot-on, though these advice-givers are always nicer than I would be. I'd be like, who gives a flip what the groom's parents want in a wedding?! Well, maybe the bride and groom do, but YOU sure don't have to be drawn into that. Contribute what you want, if you want to contribute anything at all, and sit back and let your daughter and her future husband be grown-ups and figure out how to work on a budget and set boundaries with what seems like a very interesting set of future in-laws. And watch this space for more advice regarding these parents who "have very particular plans" for their son's wedding, but no intent to pay for those plans. They could be real doozies.

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Offline lowspark

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2018, 02:35:25 pm »
Quote
It is immaterial ... if the groom’s parents have already paid for a thousand weddings for a thousand daughters. That’s their business, just as your money is your business

I totally agree with the advice given, and love the quote above.
It sounds to me like the groom's parents fell into the very trap they are trying to set for the letter writer. They probably let the grooms' parents in their daughter's respective weddings dictate expenses, and now they want their just rewards. Sorry folks, that's not how it works.

The couple should be thrilled to accept any amount the parents want to give, and supplement with their own money if they feel they want to spend more.
Houston 
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Offline lmnop

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2018, 03:51:24 pm »
The advice was bang on. The FOB needs to sit his daughter down right now and explain what they will pay. The couple may have to make some hard decisions and stand up to his parents in a way that they maybe haven't before, but it's good practice.

guest121

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2018, 06:37:57 pm »
I'm of the mind that if your parents are planning your wedding, you're not grown-up enough to get married.

Helping? Sure. Contributing? If they want to and can, that's lovely. But getting married is time to "leave and cleave," as they say, and the wedding plans are the first stage of that.
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Offline Kiwi Cupcake

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2018, 09:53:16 am »
*They* are planning the wedding and expect *you* to pay? No no no! Put your foot down now or they will continue to walk all over you when it comes to the children and future grandchildren. It's one thing to say they won't pay but they also don't get to plan the entire thing on your dime.

I agree to just hand over a a check in the amount they want to give and stand firm. The HC can accept it and be grateful like grownups or they can die mad. Hopefully they raised their daughter right. I can't imagine putting my parents in that kind of financial position for one party.

Offline ginger aka Gellchom

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #5 on: November 19, 2018, 04:08:14 pm »
Looks like we all agree -- the thing for these parents to do is to offer as much as they are willing to offer, in terms of money and work, and stay politely firm about it.  They can be understanding and sympathetic to the other parents without caving -- after all, there is a future relationship (even if not between the parent couples then between the bride and groom and each other's families) to consider.  Best to do what you want without making a battle about it.  Solve, don't win.

I'm not quite in agreement with all of CautiouslyOptimistic's post, though:

I'm of the mind that if your parents are planning your wedding, you're not grown-up enough to get married.

Helping? Sure. Contributing? If they want to and can, that's lovely. But getting married is time to "leave and cleave," as they say, and the wedding plans are the first stage of that.

It's not a one-size-fits-all rule.  Planning the wedding isn't the litmus test for maturity.

There are many families in which the parents do part or even all of the planning/paying, for all kinds of reasons.  It may be their ethnic culture or simply family preference (including the preference of the bride and groom) to have big, all-the-extended-family weddings that are beyond the bride and groom's ability to plan and perhaps pay for at the time, and it suits everyone to let the parents host.  Or it may just be what everyone wants.

Sometimes schedules and geography play a part.  My best friend's daughter lived in another city but wanted her wedding in her home town.  She was perfectly happy with her mother, with whom she gets along great and whose taste she completely trusts, planning everything, and her parents were happy to pay for everything. 

My daughter had a similar situation -- she wanted to get married here, but she lives overseas.  It was hard enough to do the planning together; it would've been an nightmare for her and her husband to try to do it themselves, seven time zones away.  We were happy to pay for and plan it; our parents did the same for us, as did our friends in the story above.

Both these couples were quite mature enough to marry and a few years down the road have very good marriages to prove it.  I'm sure they could have paid for and planned very nice weddings, if perhaps not as big as their parents did, but it suited everyone involved to do it this way, so whom did it hurt?  It's not necessary to judge them with a blanket declaration that they must not have been grown-up enough to get married.

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #6 on: November 19, 2018, 05:24:08 pm »
Looks like we all agree -- the thing for these parents to do is to offer as much as they are willing to offer, in terms of money and work, and stay politely firm about it.  They can be understanding and sympathetic to the other parents without caving -- after all, there is a future relationship (even if not between the parent couples then between the bride and groom and each other's families) to consider.  Best to do what you want without making a battle about it.  Solve, don't win.

I'm not quite in agreement with all of CautiouslyOptimistic's post, though:

I'm of the mind that if your parents are planning your wedding, you're not grown-up enough to get married.

Helping? Sure. Contributing? If they want to and can, that's lovely. But getting married is time to "leave and cleave," as they say, and the wedding plans are the first stage of that.

It's not a one-size-fits-all rule.  Planning the wedding isn't the litmus test for maturity.

There are many families in which the parents do part or even all of the planning/paying, for all kinds of reasons.  It may be their ethnic culture or simply family preference (including the preference of the bride and groom) to have big, all-the-extended-family weddings that are beyond the bride and groom's ability to plan and perhaps pay for at the time, and it suits everyone to let the parents host.  Or it may just be what everyone wants.

Sometimes schedules and geography play a part.  My best friend's daughter lived in another city but wanted her wedding in her home town.  She was perfectly happy with her mother, with whom she gets along great and whose taste she completely trusts, planning everything, and her parents were happy to pay for everything. 

My daughter had a similar situation -- she wanted to get married here, but she lives overseas.  It was hard enough to do the planning together; it would've been an nightmare for her and her husband to try to do it themselves, seven time zones away.  We were happy to pay for and plan it; our parents did the same for us, as did our friends in the story above.

Both these couples were quite mature enough to marry and a few years down the road have very good marriages to prove it.  I'm sure they could have paid for and planned very nice weddings, if perhaps not as big as their parents did, but it suited everyone involved to do it this way, so whom did it hurt?  It's not necessary to judge them with a blanket declaration that they must not have been grown-up enough to get married.


Fair point. Perhaps I should have used the word "dictating."

It certainly sounds like the young man in the original question is letting his parents run rough-shod not only over him and his bride, but over his future in-laws. To the point that they are causing contention with her family.

And any man who can't tell his parents "No. Stop it. This is for me and (wife) to work out," is definitely not ready to have a happy, healthy marriage!
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Offline Lynn2000

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2018, 05:57:39 pm »
The story just leaves me with so many questions. I really want to know what the bride and groom think about this! There's no hint of this in the letter. When the writer says the planning has been "contentious" so far, what does that mean? His daughter has been complaining to him about her future in-laws being pushy? Or have the groom's parents actually confronted the bride's parents?

The father of the bride/letter writer definitely hints that the groom's parents want to plan the whole wedding, but I wonder what that really means--if they just want "large, formal" or if they are actually picking out the napkins and chair-bows they want used.

How far has planning actually progressed? He said he wanted to limit his financial input before things got too far along, but it sounds like there has been a fair amount of discussion so far. I know some people like to speculate and daydream a lot before committing to anything, while others are like, "Action plan, boom, done."

Also, I think it's interesting that it's only the father of the bride writing in, though it sounds like he's married to the bride's mother still. Not that a man shouldn't be interested in wedding plans, but I wonder why it wasn't phrased as being from BOTH the bride's parents? Is this only something the husband is worried about, for some reason? The situation should apply equally to both of the parents. Just makes me wonder if his wife has a different opinion or something.

Also, the guy obviously hasn't lived with the expectation he'll one day be paying for his daughter's wedding--like, he hasn't been setting aside money for it for years. Yet, he doesn't seem to be surprised by the idea that he SHOULD pay for it, he just says he can't afford it. I wonder if the daughter is his only child, or perhaps oldest, so they've never been in this situation before? It's kind of lightly implied by the letter but not really stated.

I was involved in a former friend's wedding planning--she was the older daughter and the first to get married, and she wanted a big white wedding with all the extended family. Her in-laws contributed a little, and she and her fiance contributed a little, but the vast majority was contributed by her parents. $30,000 (half again as much as our salaries at the time) had been budgeted, but I was there when it was realized that they hadn't communicated clearly about the costs and more would be needed, and her mom was like, "Don't worry, we'll just pay the bills as they come in." Fast-forward a couple years and their younger daughter was getting married. In an effort to be equitable, they decided to offer her, as a lump sum, the same amount they had spent on the older daughter's wedding. The younger daughter promptly decided to have a smaller, cheaper wedding and put the excess towards a house. The older sister was pretty mad about that and thought it was unfair (she would have liked her wedding paid for and part of a house payment, if that had been an option), but my goodness, that's just one of those situations where there's no way to be "fair" and make everyone happy, you know?
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guest121

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #8 on: November 19, 2018, 09:04:04 pm »
The letter writer didn't say he couldn't afford a wedding, nor that he couldn't afford the wedding his daughter wanted.

He said he couldn't afford the wedding the groom's parents were insisting on.

The situation sounds very wierd.
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Offline corgiqueen

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2019, 01:45:32 pm »
*They* are planning the wedding and expect *you* to pay? No no no! Put your foot down now or they will continue to walk all over you when it comes to the children and future grandchildren. It's one thing to say they won't pay but they also don't get to plan the entire thing on your dime.

I agree to just hand over a a check in the amount they want to give and stand firm. The HC can accept it and be grateful like grownups or they can die mad. Hopefully they raised their daughter right. I can't imagine putting my parents in that kind of financial position for one party.

This! 100%. i recall back when I was in my 20's, and in a pretty serious relationship. My dad joked he'd give us 10K if we eloped. Thankfully it never came to fruition, and 30+ years later, I'm still single. I do know if i were to get married at this stage in my life. i and my husband to be would be paying for all of it. its now just my mom, and while she MIGHT offer to help out, i don't even know that I'd accept any financial help from her! it would depend on what it was. and how much

but yes, the groom's parents get NO say in anything. Not how the wedding "should" be, not who pays for it, nothing. hopefully the B&G are reasonable but you never know.

Offline STiG

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #10 on: January 15, 2019, 01:56:47 pm »
My dad joked he'd give us 10K if we eloped.

My Dad joked about this before I was ever seeing someone.  LOL

Offline Winterlight

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #11 on: February 05, 2019, 10:29:17 am »
The letter writer didn't say he couldn't afford a wedding, nor that he couldn't afford the wedding his daughter wanted.

He said he couldn't afford the wedding the groom's parents were insisting on.

The situation sounds very wierd.

It sounds like the bride wants a reasonable wedding, but the groom's parents felt it should be a Busby Berkeley level of show.
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Offline HenrysMom

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Re: Care & Feeding: Paying for the wedding
« Reply #12 on: February 15, 2019, 03:40:49 pm »
FOB should simply say to the in-law’s “those who write the check makes the rules,” and let the chips fall. 
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