your child's future wedding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I have a question....maybe too early and silly to think about it now as my children are still young. When I grew up, my parents attended a church and this was their social group. When I got married they invited our extended family plus church friends to the wedding. We had less than 100 but still a lot of guest.

Fast forward now and we don't attend church regularly and barely have a social group. Long story short, who are we inviting to this future theoretical wedding? As our kids age, do you think we will get the opportunity to do more social things and meet more people well enough to invite them to our kids wedding?

So, my 20 something dd is getting married next year. We live states away and the church we went to closed. We have a new one but she has hers where she is. We are planning now (of course) and her early guest list has her/fiance' friends, and our (and his) closest family. Not sure how far into extended family we will go. Other than my family members, no one coming is anyone we really knew when our kids were young. People move and scatter, things change.

I'm paying for most of it, but I am firm about it being what THEY want-I had almost no say over my wedding and I resent that. My dd is running this show, although I am helping plan in the ways she has asked me to. DD has a fun, young, eclectic style and this wedding is going to be awesome!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have already told my kids that we will not have a wedding where there is a limit to the number of guests we (DH and I ) can invite to the wedding and reception. Since DH and I will be paying for it that should not be a problem. I will also want to have some special events before the wedding that has a great ritual significance to my beliefs. I am ok with keeping those small and for the family only.

My kids are ok with it.

Yikes. How nice of you to use money to hold your kids hostage.

Wonder how their SO’s will feel about it. Good chance your future DIL/SIL’s will hate you.

That’s dangerous ground you’re treading. If you keep getting overly involved in your kids’ lives, they’re going to eventually cut you off. Your probably the same kind of grandparent who will refuse to provide childcare unless you get to do insane things like take them to the doctor because you don’t like their under eye circles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I have a question....maybe too early and silly to think about it now as my children are still young. When I grew up, my parents attended a church and this was their social group. When I got married they invited our extended family plus church friends to the wedding. We had less than 100 but still a lot of guest.

Fast forward now and we don't attend church regularly and barely have a social group. Long story short, who are we inviting to this future theoretical wedding? As our kids age, do you think we will get the opportunity to do more social things and meet more people well enough to invite them to our kids wedding?

Marriages may not even be a thing when your kid grows up. This is something I never think about and my kids are older!

[Anonymous]

Your kid is probably going to be non binary and single for life. Stop worrying about a traditional wedding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will encourage elopement. Weddings are a huge waste of money. I’d gladly pay for a nice honeymoon and a down payment a down payment for a starter home.

You can have a nice, fun wedding for FAR less than a house down payment. I'm the pp helping plan dd's next year. It's not going to be fancy, but it will be fun and happy and hopefully great memories for all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will encourage elopement. Weddings are a huge waste of money. I’d gladly pay for a nice honeymoon and a down payment a down payment for a starter home.

Some of us can pay for all of this.

Ability to pay and willingness to throw money away are two different issues

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are isolated nowadays. The things that used to connect people (church, clubs, sewing circles, civic volunteerism) have disappeared from the social landscape. The world ironically gets smaller as it gets connected online.

Church is actually a great place to socialize. You should attend more often if you want to make more friends.

?? What are you talking about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I have a question....maybe too early and silly to think about it now as my children are still young. When I grew up, my parents attended a church and this was their social group. When I got married they invited our extended family plus church friends to the wedding. We had less than 100 but still a lot of guest.

Fast forward now and we don't attend church regularly and barely have a social group. Long story short, who are we inviting to this future theoretical wedding? As our kids age, do you think we will get the opportunity to do more social things and meet more people well enough to invite them to our kids wedding?

So, my 20 something dd is getting married next year. We live states away and the church we went to closed. We have a new one but she has hers where she is. We are planning now (of course) and her early guest list has her/fiance' friends, and our (and his) closest family. Not sure how far into extended family we will go. Other than my family members, no one coming is anyone we really knew when our kids were young. People move and scatter, things change.

I'm paying for most of it, but I am firm about it being what THEY want-I had almost no say over my wedding and I resent that. My dd is running this show, although I am helping plan in the ways she has asked me to. DD has a fun, young, eclectic style and this wedding is going to be awesome!

Sounds like you are doing a good job. Did you set a budget and she works from within that to plan and allocate money to where she wants. Or does she have open-ended spending privileges?

[Anonymous]

We go to church and in fact my husband is an elder but I don’t see us really inviting a lot of church friends to any of our kids’ weddings. I do plan to pay for it though and would definitely not encourage eloping or a “destination wedding.”

[Anonymous]

You don't invite anyone. Your child does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will encourage elopement. Weddings are a huge waste of money. I’d gladly pay for a nice honeymoon and a down payment a down payment for a starter home.

Some of us can pay for all of this.

They didn’t say they can’t. They said they don’t want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I have a question....maybe too early and silly to think about it now as my children are still young. When I grew up, my parents attended a church and this was their social group. When I got married they invited our extended family plus church friends to the wedding. We had less than 100 but still a lot of guest.

Fast forward now and we don't attend church regularly and barely have a social group. Long story short, who are we inviting to this future theoretical wedding? As our kids age, do you think we will get the opportunity to do more social things and meet more people well enough to invite them to our kids wedding?

So, my 20 something dd is getting married next year. We live states away and the church we went to closed. We have a new one but she has hers where she is. We are planning now (of course) and her early guest list has her/fiance' friends, and our (and his) closest family. Not sure how far into extended family we will go. Other than my family members, no one coming is anyone we really knew when our kids were young. People move and scatter, things change.

I'm paying for most of it, but I am firm about it being what THEY want-I had almost no say over my wedding and I resent that. My dd is running this show, although I am helping plan in the ways she has asked me to. DD has a fun, young, eclectic style and this wedding is going to be awesome!

Sounds like you are doing a good job. Did you set a budget and she works from within that to plan and allocate money to where she wants. Or does she have open-ended spending privileges?

We talked at first about her vision for her wedding. Then I told her what I could afford. She and fiance did some research, and decided to add about 25% above that. This all should pretty much cover everything. She will be deciding on the Big Stuff, like the food. I handle the boring stuff like porta potties LOL (it's outside). I told her, tell me where to send the checks! Haha. It's going to be nice and fun, but defenitely not formal or fancy. If she wanted formal, she could do it, but it would probably be much smaller, but doable.

[Anonymous]

I hope my friends don’t ask me to go to their kids’ weddings!

[Anonymous]

This is what happened at our wedding -- my inlaws are quite social and had a lot of friends they wanted to invite. Some we agreed with, because they were family friends and DH felt close with them. Others not so much, like his dad's work colleagues because he didn't know them. Still we let them invite them. My dad and stepmom (mom has passed) are not as social and had like 2 friends they wanted to invite. That was fine too. It didn't feel unbalanced because I have a large extended family.

I really have no memory of those people at our wedding. I probably met them, but I didn't know them so it didn't register. I was ok with them coming, but if they hadn't come, that would have been fine too. Why do you think your DC will have a problem with you not having your friends at their wedding? It's something a bride and groom just tolerates for the sake of their parents, not because they really want these people at their wedding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have already told my kids that we will not have a wedding where there is a limit to the number of guests we (DH and I ) can invite to the wedding and reception. Since DH and I will be paying for it that should not be a problem. I will also want to have some special events before the wedding that has a great ritual significance to my beliefs. I am ok with keeping those small and for the family only.

My kids are ok with it.

And how old are your kids? How they feel about it could change drastically between now and when they meet their future spouse, especially because their future spouse may have feelings about the wedding too.

This. It really isn't about you, pp.