If you paid for a big wedding for your daughter, would you help with son's wedding too?

[Anonymous]

Yes, we spent considerable money on both.

[Anonymous]

I only have girls, but I would pay for a son’s wedding equally

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your question is ridiculously far outdated. You pay for an equal amount for both kids, regardless of gender.

It’s a tradition for Americans who have been here forever. Just like other cultures have their traditions.

No better or worse than wearing white having a male figure walk the bride down the aisle or collecting gifts and cash from your supposed guests.

Talk to both of them and see how her parents are feeling. If it’s a matter of them wanting more than the brides parents have offered and can afford then that would be insulting and rude. If they are ok with this then pay for a wedding if you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every kid gets $20k for wedding and 20k toward down payment. I encourage them to put it all toward down payment.

Cheapskate. I think over the top weddings can be tacky but that’s a small amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holding old grudges is natural but unhealthy, try to move on. What was a norm 20 years ago in a different country and culture, isn't valid for today. Its their money, you have no right over that.

I don't disagree with you. But my in laws made a choice, and choices have consequences

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+1. It gets the relationship off to a poor start. My ILs ended up asking us to contribute money to help the daughter that had an extravagant wedding ten years before. Inequity does not make for family harmony.

Wow. Your ILs have no shame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you paid for a big wedding for your daughter, and your son is marrying someone whose family cannot afford a wedding, would you help them with their wedding financially? Or just say no, let them either have no wedding or put it on their credit card?

Are you a time traveler from the past? Did you pay for your son to go to college but not your daughter?

You should contribute equal amounts to all of your children for their weddings and/or towards the honeymoon, down payment etc, regardless of what the other parents choose to contribute or can afford.

LOL, OP here, and I am actually the daughter in law. The "son" and I have been married for years now, we didn't have a wedding because his parents wouldn't pay for anything and at the time we were both poor. Prior to my marriage, they paid everything for their daughter to have a big nice wedding, Don't know why but this has been on my mind recently, I am curious what others think.

My ILs also did this. Some parents take a traditional view that they are only responsible for the rehearsal dinner for their sons and the wedding of their daughters. If their son’s fiancee’s parents can’t afford to pay, they are unhappy to be asked to contribute and to have their son marry into a poor or dysfunctional family that did not put aside funds for this expected expense.

How exactly is are poor parents supposed to pay for a wedding? Are they supposed to put themselves in debt and pay with credit cards?


People who push this as a tradition that should still have relevance seem to forget that weddings used to consist of cake and punch in a church basement, in a time when women didn’t have the ability to support themselves like they do today and got married very young. The fact that we still expect the parents of the bride to pay regardless of financial ability in a time where everyone seems to think they are entitled to a wedding fit for royalty is ridiculous(not to mention is this as proof they are “dysfunctional”😒).

Someone has to pay. If the couple wants a fairy tale wedding, and can’t afford it, they either need to go into debt or plan a simple affair. They won’t be any less married. The in-laws aren’t obligated to foot the bill for an outrageous party.

+1

If you are old enough to get married, you are old enough to pay for a wedding. It is not as if people get married at 19 any more - most couples are at least 26 when they get married, have been working more than a few years, and have been living on their own. I could not imagine asking my parents, and certainly not my ILs to pay for our wedding. We were supporting (2) grown family members on DH's side AND paying for ourselves/paying our own way when we got married.

If you want a huge party for your friends, either tone it down, or make it a smaller party. Surely you can cut some recently acquired acquaintances off the guest list!

Yes but OP didn’t hold her daughter to this standard so it’s inequitable to now decide her son to this standard. You’re living in a hypothetical scenario not the scenario OP is in.

For me the question is what the son wants/needs. Not really want the DIL to be thinks is fair. Both my son and daughter need an education. So I have planned to pay for up to 4 years of private school tuition for both of them. If my daughter has fantasies of what a wedding should be like, and I can afford it, I might throw one for her. Highly unlikely by the way that she will want a big wedding - so it will probably be fairly modest given who she is. If my son wanted a fancy wedding, and I could afford it, I would do the same for him. There is zero chance he would want such a thing unless he underwent some type of personality transplant.

I think what OP is missing here is that I would not give both kids a wedding to be “fair”. I work according to each one’s needs - a kid that wants weekly instrument lessons or travel sports or tutoring support doesn’t mean I do the same for the other. I also would not have any particular interest in giving my future DIL or future SIL a dream wedding (unless it was a dream shared by their partner who is my child).

OP. What does your husband think about all this? Unless he is feeling poorly treated by his parents, you need to let this go. I have all kinds of issues with my husband’s family dynamics. I only worry about those issues which affect me or my kids directly. Or affects how he feels. What I as an outsider think about equitability or anything similar in his family of origin is just an additional burden on my husband that he doesn’t need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your question is ridiculously far outdated. You pay for an equal amount for both kids, regardless of gender.

It’s a tradition for Americans who have been here forever. Just like other cultures have their traditions.

No better or worse than wearing white having a male figure walk the bride down the aisle or collecting gifts and cash from your supposed guests.

Talk to both of them and see how her parents are feeling. If it’s a matter of them wanting more than the brides parents have offered and can afford then that would be insulting and rude. If they are ok with this then pay for a wedding if you want.

Plenty of people in America don’t celebrate weddings the way you described. Both of my parents walked me down the aisle and my husband wore a dark blue suit and his family paid for the bulk of our wedding and we’re “American.” You’re slyly xenophobic observations on what you and your next door neighbors did in 1950 being a cultural norm that needs to continued to be followed is ridiculous. Should I have quit my job when I became pregnant with my first child? It used to be lawful for employers’ to fire women for becoming pregnant - that’s “American” so let’s do that. Slavery is also “American” as are internment camps! Why don’t we do that again? I’m being hyperbolic here to illustrate how ridiculous your commentary is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holding old grudges is natural but unhealthy, try to move on. What was a norm 20 years ago in a different country and culture, isn't valid for today. Its their money, you have no right over that.

I don't disagree with you. But my in laws made a choice, and choices have consequences

So you are the daughter in law whose parents didn't contribute at all to the wedding either. I'm sorry but no-one is entitled to other people's money. Get over it, already. Be grateful that you have a happy marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every kid gets $20k for wedding and 20k toward down payment. I encourage them to put it all toward down payment.

20k is 1995 prices for a wedding. 20k is a rounding error on a downpayment

Is that true? How much does a wedding cost? I had earmarked $25k for each kid and thought that sounded like plenty.

I looked this up recently because our children are approaching this age. Average US wedding costs $29,000. PP is just being a rude jerk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you paid for a big wedding for your daughter, and your son is marrying someone whose family cannot afford a wedding, would you help them with their wedding financially? Or just say no, let them either have no wedding or put it on their credit card?

Are you a time traveler from the past? Did you pay for your son to go to college but not your daughter?

You should contribute equal amounts to all of your children for their weddings and/or towards the honeymoon, down payment etc, regardless of what the other parents choose to contribute or can afford.

LOL, OP here, and I am actually the daughter in law. The "son" and I have been married for years now, we didn't have a wedding because his parents wouldn't pay for anything and at the time we were both poor. Prior to my marriage, they paid everything for their daughter to have a big nice wedding, Don't know why but this has been on my mind recently, I am curious what others think.

You should feel grateful that you and your husband are now entitled to defer to your SIL to handle your in-laws elder care needs since that’s how a traditional family would operate.

I like your thinking! OP. I highly doubt that my inlaws think that way. Everyone who replied thinks parents should contribute equal amount to their kids' weddings. I don't know why my in laws refused to. They have been pretty nice to me over the years but the wedding thing still hurts me deeply t be honestly. I've always wanted a wedding and I will never have one. Looking back we should've just paid with a credit card.

They have old fashioned ideas, which sucks, but if they’ve been kind to you it’s not personal. Your husband’s parents dont owe you a wedding. That’s a huge presumption on your part, for your fantasy of a wedding.

No one owes you a wedding. Most people I know paid for their own weddings, and I’m not young. Throw yourselves an anniversary party for some milestone anniversary and enjoy the people in your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why didn't your parents pay for your wedding? It's sad you're still mad about this and jealous of your sister in law. Be mad at your broke parents if you want to be mad at someone.

This. A wedding is mainly about the bride and the bride parents pay for it - at least in my culture. In recent years, both sets of parents pay for the wedding or in some cases the bride and groom pay for the wedding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every kid gets $20k for wedding and 20k toward down payment. I encourage them to put it all toward down payment.

Cheapskate. I think over the top weddings can be tacky but that’s a small amount.

Not PP but $20K is fine for a simple, fun and intimate wedding.

Wedding's main reason is to socially announce being a couple. In olden days, you invited everyone or posted in newspaper but now you can just get a license and announce on social media. Everything else is a fluff want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
A wedding is mainly about the bride and the bride parents pay for it

A wedding is about a religious, social, romantic and practical union, not just about bride's dress, jewelry and pictures. Ideally, couple and both set of parents should pitch in and manage within their budget. Unless female's parents are wealthier than other parties and willingly want to throw away their money, they have no obligation to pay.

[Anonymous]

OP said she has been married for years - so this happened years ago, and her ILs are probably boomers and they have a more traditional mindset. I was married in 1996 and my ILs did not contribute to our wedding costs at all and no one including me batted an eye about it.

Now I’m the mother of two sons in their 20s and of course I’ll share all of the costs of my sons’ weddings with the parents of my sons’ future spouses, or contribute as much as I can but in any event treat the matter the same regardless of whether my kids are sons or daughters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every kid gets $20k for wedding and 20k toward down payment. I encourage them to put it all toward down payment.

20k is 1995 prices for a wedding. 20k is a rounding error on a downpayment

Is that true? How much does a wedding cost? I had earmarked $25k for each kid and thought that sounded like plenty.

I looked this up recently because our children are approaching this age. Average US wedding costs $29,000. PP is just being a rude jerk.

USA- 30k was the average for 2022 ceremony and reception only- 117 guests. DC was 40k. Exclusions might be over 20k [rings, clothes, rehearsal dinner, any transport/hotel, brunch, honeymoon, etc]. Wedding planner? somewhat redundant if a venue has coordination staff/event planners, guidelines.
https://www.theknot.com/content/wedding-data-insights/real-weddings-study