Age and Paying for Weddings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No parent has to pay for the wedding of their children.

+1

Also, I would think most competent adults would be embarrassed for their parents to pay for a wedding, especially if the couple getting married has full time jobs.

I really don’t get this whole strain of “it’s embarrassing to pass wealth from parent to child before death”.

The whole point of a dowry was to pass wealth at marriage but all of a sudden people think it reflects poorly on you as a person if you accept any cash from your parents besides an inheritance? Makes no sense to me (assuming of course the parent has the wealth to share).

Paying for a wedding is essentially a dowry. Think about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No parent has to pay for the wedding of their children.

+1

Also, I would think most competent adults would be embarrassed for their parents to pay for a wedding, especially if the couple getting married has full time jobs.

I really don’t get this whole strain of “it’s embarrassing to pass wealth from parent to child before death”.

The whole point of a dowry was to pass wealth at marriage but all of a sudden people think it reflects poorly on you as a person if you accept any cash from your parents besides an inheritance? Makes no sense to me (assuming of course the parent has the wealth to share).

Paying for a wedding is essentially a dowry. Think about it.

Outdated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, you’re a “late bloomer” to parenthood and you’re punishing your kid for it? What an absolute gem.

How is not paying for an extravagant wedding and other functions punishing your kid? Get a clue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No parent has to pay for the wedding of their children.

+1

Also, I would think most competent adults would be embarrassed for their parents to pay for a wedding, especially if the couple getting married has full time jobs.

I really don’t get this whole strain of “it’s embarrassing to pass wealth from parent to child before death”.

The whole point of a dowry was to pass wealth at marriage but all of a sudden people think it reflects poorly on you as a person if you accept any cash from your parents besides an inheritance? Makes no sense to me (assuming of course the parent has the wealth to share).

Paying for a wedding is essentially a dowry. Think about it.

Yes and so is paying for college but I don’t get why some people think it is embarrassing to have parents pay for those things

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For us older parents. I had my last kid 45.

If my kid gets married say 32 am I really expected at 77 to pay daughters wedding, throw baby showers and all that normal younger parent stuff.

I mean I will be in 80s when my kid has kids

At age 32, the adult child should be paying for their own wedding. Gen-X here, I got married at age 22, paid for 90% of my wedding with money I saved working while going to college (which my parents paid for). I didn't want them to have to pay for the wedding, however, they offered and paid for the food. By 32, I was fully immersed in my own career and family, had built a house from the ground up, has put myself through grad school, and was having a second child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No parent has to pay for the wedding of their children.

+1

Also, I would think most competent adults would be embarrassed for their parents to pay for a wedding, especially if the couple getting married has full time jobs.

I really don’t get this whole strain of “it’s embarrassing to pass wealth from parent to child before death”.

The whole point of a dowry was to pass wealth at marriage but all of a sudden people think it reflects poorly on you as a person if you accept any cash from your parents besides an inheritance? Makes no sense to me (assuming of course the parent has the wealth to share).

Paying for a wedding is basically a dowry. Think about it.

Yes and so is paying for college but I don’t get why some people think it is embarrassing to have parents pay for those things

That is not true, because in paying for college, the parent is not/should not be paying for the significant other to participate in the college education. In paying for a wedding, you are marrying off your adult child. An adult child who should be (wait for it) paying for their own wedding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For us older parents. I had my last kid 45.

If my kid gets married say 32 am I really expected at 77 to pay daughters wedding, throw baby showers and all that normal younger parent stuff.

I mean I will be in 80s when my kid has kids

At age 32, the adult child should be paying for their own wedding. Gen-X here, I got married at age 22, paid for 90% of my wedding with money I saved working while going to college (which my parents paid for). I didn't want them to have to pay for the wedding, however, they offered and paid for the food. By 32, I was fully immersed in my own career and family, had built a house from the ground up, has put myself through grad school, and was having a second child.

+1

Paid for own college, wedding, house - not that long ago!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For us older parents. I had my last kid 45.

If my kid gets married say 32 am I really expected at 77 to pay daughters wedding, throw baby showers and all that normal younger parent stuff.

I mean I will be in 80s when my kid has kids

No. If they want a fancy wedding, they can pay for themselves. How do you think the adult children from working class families manage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For us older parents. I had my last kid 45.

If my kid gets married say 32 am I really expected at 77 to pay daughters wedding, throw baby showers and all that normal younger parent stuff.

I mean I will be in 80s when my kid has kids

At age 32, the adult child should be paying for their own wedding. Gen-X here, I got married at age 22, paid for 90% of my wedding with money I saved working while going to college (which my parents paid for). I didn't want them to have to pay for the wedding, however, they offered and paid for the food. By 32, I was fully immersed in my own career and family, had built a house from the ground up, has put myself through grad school, and was having a second child.

+1

Paid for own college, wedding, house - not that long ago!

Me too, and paying for my parents' living expenses right now. An adult has to be a total loser to live on one's parents.

[Anonymous]

OP it is not just the age I am already exhausted. I had kids 38, 40 and 45.

Weddings are Drama Lamas and I have three girls. I just and my aunt once said I just want to shut up and wear Beige.

The weddings in my family are often a direct reflection on parents of bride so best case I get a rich future son in law who is a great planner. I don’t mind chipping in. But my daughters dragging me around at almost 80 sounds exhausting.

I actually don’t like the idea of giving them cash for a house downpayment instead of wedding. My neighbor did it and to protect himself he gave cash to son pre marriage to buy house put himself on title of house pre marriage with son, after a few years and his wife had kid he put her on title. It seemed crazy controlling.

To be honest dreading even college hunting thevyoungest I was burnt out on that years ago

[Anonymous]

I’m of the impression my parents paid for most of my wedding at age 29yo because 1) they could, 2) they wanted a say in inviting our huge family 3) they’re parents were not able to pay for their wedding when they were in their early 20s and not quite launched.

It didn’t really occur to me to not have help when they were offering it. In turn, it would make me as a parent assume that I would help out my kids as well. All the same, if they surpass us in income at the time of their weddings, I might reconsider from a practical sense or have the conversation of your gift is the wedding or a downpayment (if we are so lucky to be in the position to offer that, but I have hope that we will be.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Paying for a wedding is essentially a dowry. Think about it.

No it isn't, as all that money goes to vendors, not to the bride (or groom or whoever). There's no possible return on investment. Which also distinguishes a wedding from paying for college, as that is an investment in the child's future, including their future earning potential.

I cannot believe it's 2023 -- nearly 2024 -- and we are still operating under the silliest of patriarchal assumptions, such as a) women need to marry and b) when they do, their parents must pay for the wedding. Also, no sensible child would want their parents to splash out on a fancy wedding if they have any clue a) how much it costs for eldercare in this country, b) the time value of money, not to mention c) how much it will take to buy a house or put their own kids through college compared to what it used to.

Couples should not get sucked into the wedding industrial complex, and neither should parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had my youngest at 38. We have a ‘marriage fund’ for all DC. They can decide to use it for a wedding or a down payment on a house or something else. They know about it and it will be given at the time of their wedding or after 33 if they chose to do something else with that $. It will not be an enormous amount of $ but the cost of a reasonable wedding.

We don't have a "marriage fund" but we do have about $75K for each of our kids to use towards a downpayment when the time comes.

We do not intend to pay for weddings because we believe that adults should pay for their own festivities. We'll likely give them each $5K towards a wedding and they can do as they wish, including eloping. If they want a big party they'll need to pay for it themselves.

The parents' age is irrelevant IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I are in our 50s. When we got married in our 30s, neither of our parents planned to pay for our wedding and we would not have asked them to do so. Ultimately, my parents ended up contributing certain things. We paid for a lot ourselves. His parents invited more than 250 people so he basically told them if that was the kind of list they wanted, they need to contribute (our guest list was 450 total). My guess is we paid 50% and each set of parents contributed about 25%. We did cake and finger foods at the church for hundreds of people and then an actual party later that night that only about 85 people were invited to attend. The fact my in-laws wanted to invite their entire small town of 300 people is now hilarious, but was sort of annoying at the time.

I don’t even think about whether I will pay for my kid’s wedding. Fewer people are even bothering to get married. And we could be dead before she gets married. We will play it by ear.

That's rude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No parent has to pay for the wedding of their children.

+1

Also, I would think most competent adults would be embarrassed for their parents to pay for a wedding, especially if the couple getting married has full time jobs.

I really don’t get this whole strain of “it’s embarrassing to pass wealth from parent to child before death”.

The whole point of a dowry was to pass wealth at marriage but all of a sudden people think it reflects poorly on you as a person if you accept any cash from your parents besides an inheritance? Makes no sense to me (assuming of course the parent has the wealth to share).

Paying for a wedding is essentially a dowry. Think about it.

Yes and so is paying for college but I don’t get why some people think it is embarrassing to have parents pay for those things

How is paying for college a "dowry"?

We value education, so we paid for our kids' college tuition, room, and board.

We do not value large, expensive parties. A big party isn't required to get married - you can get married at the courthouse and have lunch afterwards, or you can throw a bash for 1,000 people at the Ritz. We would support the former, but not the latter. We'll give our kids $5,000 as wedding gifts and they can decide what kind of wedding they want. If they want a big party, they can pay for it.