Just looking for people's opion

GrumpyOldWoman

Hi all,
I'm completely clueless on all things wedding related, so I'd like some feedback/ opinions etc. please!
I recently got engaged and we plan on getting married in 2 years time. We don't want a large wedding, just family and very close friends. We want to keep costs down as much as possible. However, my fiance is from America, and he reckons we should pay for his family to come to Ireland to attend the wedding (they're all on the west coast of the States) due to the cost of plane tickets. I'm not too keen on this idea and I think if people are given sufficient notice (and I think 2 years is sufficient notice!) they should be able to save up. All his relatives are working, so I don't see why they can't do this.

Can anyone tell me - what's the etiquette in a situation like this? I would be quite happy to pay for the hotel stay for the bridal party, but I think it's a little excessive to pay for all the aunts and uncles plane long haul tickets so they can attend the wedding, as the wedding could end up costing us a lot more than we can really afford to spend. Also, the whole idea of delaying the wedding for a few years was to make sure that people got plenty of notice so they could make plans.

Am I being unreasonable?

Savman

Jaysis, paying for plane tickets in this climate?? Far, far too big an ask (for you and for them, in fairness).

Sorting out their accomm is a nice touch but anything beyond that is just nonsense unless you have money to burn. The west coast of the states (LA, San Fran etc) is a tricky one to do cheaply, you're looking at €500pp if very lucky, in reality these flights can easily hit the guts of €1k depending on the time of year.

clint_silver

As above, I cant see it in this climate. You could plan the wedding so its a time when the tickets are as cheap as possible but as above, with the timeframes involved, they should be able to save and pay for it themselves, youre under no obligation to.

Gatica

I'm gonna chime in here, I'm in a similar situation as I have a lot of family living abroad. We gave them all an approximate date for the wedding before we'd even booked, like month and year, so they could start planning ahead of time. We've since booked for pretty much the date we wanted.
There's a lot of them and we've no intention on paying for their flights. They're adults with jobs and can look after themselves. We are however taking into account that many of them come from cheaper countries than Ireland, so cost of rooms here would seem very excessive to them. Therefore, we are subsidising their rooms at the hotel by a bit so it's a little more reasonable.
It would be rather unreasonable of family memebers to expect (and I'm not even sure that it's what they expect, but rather what your OH thinks is expected) for a newly married couple to get themselves into debt over their travel costs. Remember, they're also getting a holiday out of this, not just attending "some function" they'd rather not have attended and had their arm bent to do it...

silly

I have to agree with everyone here, I don't think they would expect it really...
How many as there? Does your partner really want to fork out a few grand for these people. Maybe meet him half way and suggest ye pay for just his parents flights???

time42play

I think your OH is the unreasonable one. We paid for my husband's parents flight/hotel to attend our wedding as we knew they were in a bad situation financially. The rest of the family were given advance notice of the dates and left to decide for themselves. All were working and able to save up for it if they wanted to, and we made it very clear that we did not want gifts from anyone who made the trip. In the end we organised free lodging for those who did travel, but they didn't expect it.

kandr10

No way would I pay for people to fly from abroad. Totally unreasonable. The only ones I would pay for would be the parents or parents in law. It's like saying if you have your wedding in Italy or Spain that you have to pay for everyone's flights. Madness.

pancuronium

+ 1 on pay for the parents but out of interest if it was the other way around & you were in the states who would you pay for from your family if anyone?? you don't have to answer just trying to get you to look at it from his point of view........

magneticimpulse

would you consider the wedding in the USA?

Daisy M

Its a crazy crazy idea and I think that anyone who would even take you up on it has no shame!! Your starting married life together, ye will have enough financial problems over the years with mortgages and hopefull if ye so wish children and of course your fiance will want to visit his home on regular occassions. Even if you had the mpney spare in the bank I would advise ye to keep it for a rainy day and there will be plenty of them to come!

Cathmandooo

Would you consider having your honeymoon in America and maybe have a blessing and/or party to celebrate with the American relatives?

Flying the family across is a huge undertaking, unless I won the euromillions it would never be considered.

westies4ever

maybe you could let them know that you arent expecting any presents from them and that their attendance is present enough? It might help smooth things over?

AoifeCork

At the end of the day, outside immediate family and people involved directly in the wedding, it is purely an invitation extended to somebody-if they don't want to or are not in a position to (financially or whatever) accept, there's not much you can do about it unless as stated above you are a millionaire.

Weddings are extremely expensive-let alone adding on a massive massive cost like this one!!!!

Talk to your finace-show him the possible figures you're looking at and try and make him see sense. If his family really really want to be there-they will be there (assuming they're not all struggling disastrously to keep their heads above water with money).

watna

I live in NZ and am getting married in Dublin. My fiance is from South Africa. We told everyone 18 months in advance when the wedding was to give them time to save (I feel like 18 months is quite a long engagement and if we were living in Ireland I wouldn't have waited as long to have the wedding). About 15 people are flying from NZ and 5 or 6 from SA (including my future father in law). Not a chance in hell would I be paying for anyone, I simply can't afford it. When we did the save the date we specifically said we didn't expect people to fly out for it and that we would understand if you couldn't but that we were giving as much notice as possible. I've been overwhelmed by how many of our friends are making the journey.

However, after the wedding in Dublin we are flying back to NZ via SA and having a blessing and reception there, as most of his family wouldn't be able to afford to fly to Dublin. I think that's a fair compromise as we're taking that expense on ourselves, as well as organising two weddings to accomodate everyone. I know his family were quite touched by that. It makes more sense for two people to fly to them, instead of lots of people flying to us

It's been suggested in this thread already but I think something like that could be a good idea? His family can choose whether or not to fly out for the wedding, with no pressure because they know you'll be over to see them anyway. Some of your friends/family might even come with you to the States. Some of my friends and family from Ireland are going to come to SA with us and they're all tacking on a holiday afterwards. You could take a honeymoon in the States as well as having a ceremony maybe? Weddings are so expensive that if you have to pay for flights for all his family I can't see you being able to afford much. A lot of people think we're mad for having two ceremonies and flying around the world but imo, a wedding is the joining of two families and I wanted all our relatives to be able to share it with us. Having two ceremonies was the only way to ensure everyone could celebrate with us.

I'd imagine once your fiance saw the price of wedding receptions, as well as the cost of flights he might realise that it's putting a lot of financial pressure on yourselves. How many people is he expecting to fly out to Ireland?

feest

Hi OP,

I'm an American and married my Irish husband a few months back in Dublin. I had a lot of guilt over giving my family the decision: pay loads to attend our wedding or don't join us, so I can understand where your OH is coming from. Unless you have a serious wedding budget though it's not realistic to pay for everyone to join you (you know this!).

I can echo other suggestions to choose a month when it is cheaper to travel. For other reasons we had our wedding in July which meant high flight costs.

If there are close family members who aren't so well off financially, help out where you can/are comfortable. We offered to pay for half of my brother's flight costs; he was thankful though he refused the offer. In turn we picked up the costs of his accommodation.

For all guests we hosted a "welcome" drinks reception the night before our wedding and a BBQ the day after. Yes, this added to our costs but it also relieved guests of some costs and made our "big day" more than just one day that they were travelling so far for. This also helped to mix the family, as it was their first time meeting each other.

We were also really thorough and prepared a wedding website full of fun things to do in Dublin (apart from our wedding!) and helpful information for guests travelling in, including negotiating bulk rates at a range of hotels/prices. Plus if guests are travelling together many US airlines will give a discount on flights for groups of 10 or larger (not sure if Aer Lingus do this as well). We tried to make it as easy as possible for guests to join us, and most of these were at no cost to us.

Like another posted mentioned, we also had a party in my hometown about six weeks after our wedding. A note was included in our wedding invitation about the second party so guests could make their own decisions. We didn’t do anything “wedding-y” at the second party, but it gave guests a chance to wish us well and look at our wedding pictures.

In the end, we had around 20 people join us from the US with a total wedding of just over 60. The people that were there had an amazing time and are still talking about their time in Dublin and how fun our wedding was. We missed the attendance of some dear relatives (some of whom could definitely have afforded the journey, but just didn’t fancy travelling such a distance), but they made their own decisions and life goes on.

Hope it works out for you!

iloveboots

I'm Aussie and my Irish OH and I are getting married in Ireland next July. We have decided to have only a very small wedding - about 30 guests. Both our immediate families and very closest friends. As we will be spending significantly less on a reception we will be in a position to subsidise fares for my Aussie friends. I know my family will not accept any offer to subsidise their flights. In fact, I'd guess that my parents would be expecting to pay for part of the wedding so it will be us refusing money from them! Between our own house and OH's parents house we have enough space to accommodate everybody so there is not expense there.

IMO offer to subsidise fares for people who you really want to be there on the day and who probably couldn't afford to be without financial help. Everybody else has plenty of time to save up if they want to!

dulpit

I know a few people who have travelled to weddings (in Europe, some because there was a European getting married, others because they wanted a cheap wedding in sunny Spain) and in all cases the guests had to pay their own way...

That's what I would expect, provide accommodation but nothing else...

catch me if you can

you should be paying for his parents tickets and accomadation. everyone else should sort themselves out or not attend.

Gatica

I don't think you have to pay for the parents' tickets if they can afford it themselves. Most parents would be understanding enough of that. Naturally, if it's too expensive for them, then you'd definitely need to help them out as much as possible, as I'm sure you'd want them there for the wedding.

Balmed Out

god no.
either get married there and have a blessing here or vice versa. You get to wear the dress twice and have two weddings without any divorce. Thats what all my mates who live abroad or have another half living abroad have done.