Drama over who pays for the wedding

[Anonymous]

23 yo still financially dependent on Mom and Dad are getting married before they go to grad school. A recipe for disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s 2023- the bride and groom should be paying for their own wedding.

College grads heading directly to grad school? How?

Exactly. Maybe wait?

The med student has 4 years then followed by a low-paid residency. Not realistic to ask them to wait that long. Business school means two years plus however-much-time of gainful employment before saving enough for a wedding.

I think it's reasonable for affluent parents on both sides to pay in this case.

Why is it not realistic to ask them to wait? Lots of people wait until they can afford to be married, let alone afford an expensive wedding to start the marriage. Why are these two any different form others?

These two are different because they are rich people.
Rich people don’t have to wait. They have family money.
Poor people take loans or work and save before they go to grad school. Rich people don’t have to wait. Mom and Dad pay for it.
Poor people wait until they have a down payment to buy a house. Rich people don’t have to wait. Mom and Dad provide the down payment.
Why do you want rich people to wait for the wedding?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:23 yo still financially dependent on Mom and Dad are getting married before they go to grad school. A recipe for disaster.

$500 or $5000 or whatever want to offer for wedding as one-time and only present and then the bride and groom figure out rest and by rest, mean both what they do for wedding AND paying for grad school. Fully agree ridiculous for married couple to have their parents paying for ANYthing. If going to marry then be grown up and responsible for yourself and your decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BG: our DD and her fiancée are both seniors in college and recently got engaged. DD is accepted into medical school and the fiancée into a top MBA school. Neither has debt from college. We will pay for DD medical school and his parents will pay for MBA school. Both families are well off with family all in the US.

The fiancée’s parents are going to traditional route and want us to pay for our DD’s wedding. While we can, we also have a second DD and their’s is an only child. We also feel we are keeping the young couple out of debt (but so are they). I want to suggest we split the costs but I don’t want to offend them.

DS says he and the fiancée will contribute but they don’t have much to contribute and we don’t want them to.

The fiancée doesn’t want a fancy wedding but we both have big families.

Should we ask the fiancée’s parents to contribute? How should we word it?

It is 100% the responsibility of the bride’s parents to pay for the wedding, irrespective of family size and wealth. Our son got married about ten years ago and his fiancée’s parents didn’t offer to pay a thing. Yes, we own a successful business, have a 15,000 sqft home, a NW of $150M, and own $1M+ in automobiles, but this shouldn’t have mattered. We had to step up and foot the bill and what a total embarrassment and irrevocable loss of face that was for the father of the bride. He was a proud military man that was dishonorably released, demanded respect, but did nothing to earn it. My son and DIL are now completely estranged from her side of the family. We rightfully own all holidays, birthdays, and priority time with the grandchildren.

This post is a joke, right?

I like the wording that the parents OWN the holidays. Guess perspective is they bought them. Fun times.

[Anonymous]

Fwiw, if the groom’s family are really traditionalist, they are supposed to pay for the flowers and the honeymoon, as well as the rehearsal dinner. That’s the old school rule. With how people splash money around now, that could be a bit chunk of the change.

What’s awwwrd is always when the grooms side wants to invite every business partner of the dad or second cousins and the brides family is small. My MiL wanted to invite tons of people my husband had never heard of. We told her she had 30 seats she could use for family and friends and to let us know. She was going to throw a separate reception to invite all her friends which we said was fine, but then it turned out she didn’t actually care enough about those people to plan a different party.

All these answers are different for different people and the goal is just to come up with a solution where no one is spending more than they are comfortable with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fwiw, if the groom’s family are really traditionalist, they are supposed to pay for the flowers and the honeymoon, as well as the rehearsal dinner. That’s the old school rule. With how people splash money around now, that could be a bit chunk of the change.

What’s awwwrd is always when the grooms side wants to invite every business partner of the dad or second cousins and the brides family is small. My MiL wanted to invite tons of people my husband had never heard of. We told her she had 30 seats she could use for family and friends and to let us know. She was going to throw a separate reception to invite all her friends which we said was fine, but then it turned out she didn’t actually care enough about those people to plan a different party.

All these answers are different for different people and the goal is just to come up with a solution where no one is spending more than they are comfortable with.

Traditionally, the groom pays for the bride's ring and boouquest (not all the flowers) and presents for the groomsmen. The groom’s family pays for the rehearsal dinner.

The honeymoon is nobody's business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You? What do you have to do with it?
The bride and groom deal with this, not you.

You offer $X to them, whatever you are willing to give, and that's it. If they want more, they can ask his parents.

This is what you do.