How much $$ are the Grooms parents expected to contribute to wedding costs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Very few weddings are $250k, even in UMC DMV circles. I don’t believe you.

I assure you that you are wrong. Since last September I attended (or know bride or groom’s family for) four. My DD is in two in the next year. Many, many weddings in the DMV are $250k or more. Ask any local wedding planner, or stop by any of the local country clubs or luxury hotels.

Honest question: How are parents able to afford to pay $250k for a wedding and still offer a couple hundred thousand for a down payment for a home? (Especially after paying $400k for college). Maybe folks make more money than I realize?

We over funded our kids education. Superfunded back in 2006 and the money has grown substantially. My oldest got in many schools and decided on Virginia Tech for engineering. Mid way through got awarded a scholarship that funded his last 2 years.

we also have separate investment account that’s in a trust we contribute to monthly to gift them a down payment one day. that has also benefited from a historic bull market. I will feel like a failure of a parent if my kids want to use a large chunk of that money for a wedding rather than an opportunity invest. DH and I didnt get to where we are in life by tossing huge chunks of money down the drain.

we have boys and have raised them to understand how money and investments work and have pulled them into our finances. However love is blind so who knows who they might marry and how she’s been raised and what level of pampering she has had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Very few weddings are $250k, even in UMC DMV circles. I don’t believe you.

I assure you that you are wrong. Since last September I attended (or know bride or groom’s family for) four. My DD is in two in the next year. Many, many weddings in the DMV are $250k or more. Ask any local wedding planner, or stop by any of the local country clubs or luxury hotels.

Honest question: How are parents able to afford to pay $250k for a wedding and still offer a couple hundred thousand for a down payment for a home? (Especially after paying $400k for college). Maybe folks make more money than I realize?

We over funded our kids education. Superfunded back in 2006 and the money has grown substantially. My oldest got in many schools and decided on Virginia Tech for engineering. Mid way through got awarded a scholarship that funded his last 2 years.

we also have separate investment account that’s in a trust we contribute to monthly to gift them a down payment one day. that has also benefited from a historic bull market. I will feel like a failure of a parent if my kids want to use a large chunk of that money for a wedding rather than an opportunity invest. DH and I didnt get to where we are in life by tossing huge chunks of money down the drain.

we have boys and have raised them to understand how money and investments work and have pulled them into our finances. However love is blind so who knows who they might marry and how she’s been raised and what level of pampering she has had.

What does understand how money and investments work have anything to do with gender?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Very few weddings are $250k, even in UMC DMV circles. I don’t believe you.

I assure you that you are wrong. Since last September I attended (or know bride or groom’s family for) four. My DD is in two in the next year. Many, many weddings in the DMV are $250k or more. Ask any local wedding planner, or stop by any of the local country clubs or luxury hotels.

Honest question: How are parents able to afford to pay $250k for a wedding and still offer a couple hundred thousand for a down payment for a home? (Especially after paying $400k for college). Maybe folks make more money than I realize?

Indian-American parent here. This is the tale of several generations of educated parents who helped their offsprings by saving modest amounts of money and pooling resources so that every subsequent generation did better than before.

- Grandparents paid for the college of our parents and their wedding. They took care of their own retirement. Families lived in joint-families, so there was no pressure to build new homes. People lived in their ancestral homes and just kept building extra rooms when someone got married. Food came from the fields so people were able to subsist well. There was no concept of assisted living or daycares. The old and the very young were looked after by the whole family.

- My parents and ILs paid for our college and our wedding. They also lived in a self-sufficient manner in Govt jobs, with their pensions, some generational wealth and investments. Both my dad and my FIL - also educated several younger siblings and nieces and nephews. They paid for college and they got their siblings married as well as nieces and nephews married. So there was a sense of responsibility that the rising tide will raise all boats.

- DH and I, immigrated to US for high paying STEM careers. We did not have student debt and did not pay for our wedding. We started saving for our retirement, kid's college, wedding of kids (even before the kids were born) from our first paychecks.

- We lived below our means. There were significant savings because of these few things - no student debt, lowest mortgage on SFH, no childcare cost (I became SAHM after DC2), no eldercare or monetary help given to parents or siblings, no private schools, minimal college costs since kids went to public flagship on $$$$ merit. No, we did not pay 400K for our kids college.

- Our kids do not have student debt, wedding cost, car costs, cost of setting up first home, down payment for home. They have been investing money since their first year in college. Over the years, relatives and friends have given them cash for all occasions. The combined amount was given to them when they went to college as seed money to invest. Their unused 529 was converted to their Roth, all internship money was put for retirement and investments. They are welcome to live with us for free so that they can rapidly build a nest egg.

- In short, they have to learn to pay themselves and their future children first from their first paycheck. This kind of discipline and awareness also hopefully makes them attracted to people similar to them - those who can delay gratification, are family oriented, can plan for the future and work hard.

Whenever Indian immigrants tell their stories all I can think about is caste system.

Whenever Americans tell their stories I can only think of their parents having affairs and divorcing each other. After that it is just sordid details of various kinds of neglect and abuse in the family.

[Anonymous]

50% of everything

[Anonymous]

Why spend 250K? Have a wedding that costs 25-30K

[Anonymous]

^ You don't have it in the DMV

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH’s dad is an “old dad” worth something like $50M and he refused to offer us any money for a wedding because he said it was traditional for the bride’s family to pay (of course we didn’t ask directly but DH’s Mom did the digging for us. She said he balked at even the idea of it because of his generation). My dad is about as middle class as you can get so that wasn’t happening for us.

We eloped instead and when the parents complained about not being able to show their friends elaborate wedding pictures or invite their friends to “celebrate us” we said oh well sorry.

Much better choice. Why spend $250K+ on a one to two day event. Much better to put that towards a home/paying off student loans (if you have them). Unless parents can help with wedding and a downpayment, money can be better used elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH’s dad is an “old dad” worth something like $50M and he refused to offer us any money for a wedding because he said it was traditional for the bride’s family to pay (of course we didn’t ask directly but DH’s Mom did the digging for us. She said he balked at even the idea of it because of his generation). My dad is about as middle class as you can get so that wasn’t happening for us.

We eloped instead and when the parents complained about not being able to show their friends elaborate wedding pictures or invite their friends to “celebrate us” we said oh well sorry.

Much better choice. Why spend $250K+ on a one to two day event. Much better to put that towards a home/paying off student loans (if you have them). Unless parents can help with wedding and a downpayment, money can be better used elsewhere.

PP you quoted here - to be clear the ask DHs mom socialized with his dad was $25K total, not $250K+. It’s his money so we have no right to it at all but it was a little weird given the NW and expectation from him that we still had a big wedding he could invite his friends to…

[Anonymous]

I think the rehearsal dinner is still the default, but there are a million variations of who can pay for what.

[Anonymous]

0.

[Anonymous]

No snark here: I am eager to hear from South Asian families in the DMV/NYC areas about their ways of managing money and raising their children. Please keep the advice coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These day most couples pay for their own wedding festivities.

Not in my WASPY family. Parents are still paying for everything. It is a way to "transfer" wealth. It is like helping out with the downpayment for house.

not in my WASPY family. My sister just got married and she paid for her own wedding because my parents gave us all substantial down payments for homes.

If they can’t afford both then a down payment is much better than an overly done wedding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the rehearsal dinner is still the default, but there are a million variations of who can pay for what.

You could do what my inlaws did. They promised to pay for the rehearsal dinner, but said to send them a bill after the wedding. But dh and I were BROKE. We were 23, paying for the wedding ourselves (my parents gave a downpayment instead) and then our car died. We didn't have any money to spend $1500-2000 on a rehearsal dinner. And that would have needed to have been paid 30 days in advance to the restaurant. We just had Italian in the church room for $300. Everyone was pissed there was no alcohol, but that was the church's rules. My inlaws did give us the $300 later, but that was their only gift to us for the wedding.

[Anonymous]

I'd say you give what you would like to contribute. My in laws and parents gave us a set amount that worked for them and the rest was on us. The traditional you pay for this and they pay for that has been long gone.

[Anonymous]

In my opinion, parents only need to provide for college for their children. Everything else they provide is due to kindness of their heart.

And yes, parents can pay for weddings if they want, but then parents can also insist on a low cost wedding.