Parents of bride and groom - how to handle

[Anonymous]

There will be a few big ticket checks (venue, caterer) do you could pay those vendors directly (and have the other two reimburse you for their share, or whatever). Then give the rest as cash.

I appreciate that you want them to manage the budget but it’s not that hard to have them do that and just pay vendors directly. The kids can also manage a three-way budget.

[Anonymous]

Can't you gift each person $15k for a total of $30k without tax repercussions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should just book what it is and you pay the place (florist, venue, photographer, etc.).

This then you don’t have to worry about gift tax.

[Anonymous]

We still don’t know the gift is larger than $30,000. Because each person can give any person $15,000 without triggering a gift tax form required to be filed by the gift giver that then, at the death of the giver, is applied against the recipients’ $12,000,000 lifetime exclusion. So you and DH each can give DS and DIL $15k, so a total of $60,000 to the couple, IRS says fine, no paperwork required. As others have said, you could also pay the venue or caterer, in any amount. That’s up to you. People with plenty of money, do both (give $ gifts and pay for large ticket items directly).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Myself and my husband are the parents of the groom and we are married. The bride’s parents are divorced and giving money separately. In total, there are 3 sources of money for the reception. As I said in my OP, the bride and groom are very aware that this $$ is their budget and will spend accordingly.

My question revolved around their handling of the bill paying. My thoughts were that they would open a shared checking account (let’s call it the Wedding Account) and pay vendor deposits, and ultimately the final bills, from this one account. This way, it is their budget to manage, not mine.

Just wondering how others have managed their wedding events. I have been married for decades and my parents paid for almost everything.

You are all being very generous. I hope it's a wonderful wedding.

Assuming that no one in the picture is prone to wild spending that is out of line with the budget - I'd say just give them the check and trust that they will do what's expected with it. My parents and my husband's parents gave us checks for $10k each when we got married 10 years ago - that was the entirety of our wedding budget. (And we loved our wedding!)

We put it into our shared account and paid bills out of it, as we would have paid any other bills. That would be my recommendation here, too - why overcomplicate things. Just give them the $ you intend to give them, and let them handle the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no gift rules that apply to a wedding gift. You can thank John Gotti Jr.

We all know John Gotti Jr. got around 2.5-3.5 million in wedding gift money. Nice wedding at Garden City Hotel in Long Island

The IRS attended to tax as income. John Gotti Jr. pushed back and won. iRS rules must be applied equally and the IRS never taxes anyone’s wedding gift money either to person giving or receiving. So he kept money

Uh this isn’t really true. I mean it’s true that Gotti supposedly raked all that in but it was in $5k pp donations, not a million dollar gift from his dad.

Anyway OP, my parents did what you are doing— gave us a generous check and said we could spend as much or as little as we liked. They just wrote us a check and we paid the vendors. I mean admittedly we were living together but I don’t see why you need to worry about the logistics involved? Are you concerned it won’t get spent and will be spent by the wrong spouse? Or just it will disappear into their bank account and dribble away before the wedding?

[Anonymous]

Just pay directly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Myself and my husband are the parents of the groom and we are married. The bride’s parents are divorced and giving money separately. In total, there are 3 sources of money for the reception. As I said in my OP, the bride and groom are very aware that this $$ is their budget and will spend accordingly.

My question revolved around their handling of the bill paying. My thoughts were that they would open a shared checking account (let’s call it the Wedding Account) and pay vendor deposits, and ultimately the final bills, from this one account. This way, it is their budget to manage, not mine.

Just wondering how others have managed their wedding events. I have been married for decades and my parents paid for almost everything.

You are all being very generous. I hope it's a wonderful wedding.

Assuming that no one in the picture is prone to wild spending that is out of line with the budget - I'd say just give them the check and trust that they will do what's expected with it. My parents and my husband's parents gave us checks for $10k each when we got married 10 years ago - that was the entirety of our wedding budget. (And we loved our wedding!)

We put it into our shared account and paid bills out of it, as we would have paid any other bills. That would be my recommendation here, too - why overcomplicate things. Just give them the $ you intend to give them, and let them handle the rest.

This. Unless there is some particular issue here, don’t over micromanage this. And def dont try to control how others make their gifts, its none of your business.