Did your fiancee's family help with the wedding costs? MOD WARNING POST #1 & #31

witchgirl26 · 03-03-2016 11:46AM

SarahMollie wrote: »

I think its the quid pro quo element that annoys people. Its like inviting people on the condition that they contribute to your honeymoon (even though I know this isnt necessarily the intention)

Facts are, most people these days give cash anyhow - so i think its just a bit unnecessary to ask for it even if its dressed up as a honeymoon donation, as some people are likely to be offended.

People want to feel like they're invited to your wedding because you want them there, not because they've paid for their dinner.

Fair enough. I suppose any wedding that I've been at it's been worded in such a way of "if you are considering a gift, this would be appreciated" & not really as a request for money as such.

Anyway on the original topic - I'm not married but I know for my sister's wedding both sets of parents are helping out with the cost. They weren't asked for it but offered & that was accepted. Personally if I was getting married, I'd prefer to pay for it all ourselves as I don't want to put that on my mam that she'd have to contribute.

Malari · 03-03-2016 11:50AM

I'm not sure what the difference is between "gift" and "contribute". Both our parents gave us generous gifts, considering they are all retired and don't have a lot of money. There was definitely no suggestion that the gifts meant they could start making demands or decisions about the wedding.

Interestingly, my parents (and another friend recently) were sort of assuming that they would be obliged to pay for most of the wedding :eek: I guess it's some sort of old-fashioned thing, and I had to put them straight that we were paying for everything ourselves.

SarahMollie · 03-03-2016 11:53AM

witchgirl26 wrote: »

Anyway on the original topic - I'm not married but I know for my sister's wedding both sets of parents are helping out with the cost. They weren't asked for it but offered & that was accepted. Personally if I was getting married, I'd prefer to pay for it all ourselves as I don't want to put that on my mam that she'd have to contribute.

Its admirable to refuse the offer, I'm sure for plenty its very tempting. I suppose everyone should consider their parents circumstances, as I'm sure some can afford it better than others.

I have a friend due to get married this summer, and from what I've seen so far its going to be an expensive wedding (big numbers x fancy venue).

They never asked either set of parents for help, but apparently her fiances parents said to them "not to bother putting our names on the wedding invite" which they basically understood to mean "dont bother asking, no donation forthcoming"

She seemed a bit put out by this because apparently they're very well off and he's their only child, but still its their money I suppose. They're having such a big wedding because his family arent from Ireland, and she felt that if people are traveling, then you have to have a great day to make it worth their while.

thegingerbride · 03-03-2016 04:00PM

Thanks everyone for your replies. It's interesting to see so many different situations occurring in different families. Also that the tradition of the parents paying has been changing over the years but every family has it's own way of engaging with it. I also should have clarified that by contributions I meant they paid for some wedding elements before the wedding rather than a financial gift afterwards.

I found when we gave older relations save the date cards some weren't sure what they were which made me wonder what other wedding 'traditions' we assume are universally normal are just our generations version of a normal wedding. My aunt was married after a three week engagement, my parents after a three month engagement whereas I've been told that my six month engagement is very short!

To ask another question (hopefully keeping on the good side of the mods), other than financial contributions, what role or responsibilities did your fiancé or fiancées family take on? Either by offering or when you asked?

Faith · 03-03-2016 05:48PM

thegingerbride wrote: »

To ask another question (hopefully keeping on the good side of the mods), other than financial contributions, what role or responsibilities did your fiancé or fiancées family take on? Either by offering or when you asked?

In my case, my husband and I worked together equally to plan the wedding, so he did 50% of the work. His parents did very little, by our choice (same goes for mine). We organised from abroad, so we couldn't delegate a lot of it. The mums had one or two very small jobs, because they wanted to be involved, his dad organised a day-after BBQ that we only knew about when he had booked it and my dad walked me up the aisle.

It's really different for every family, though. When my brother got married, my parents said they felt like any other guests at the wedding. It's a sore point for them, but I'm sure from my brother's perspective, he thinks they didn't help out. If we'd been home for the wedding planning, though, I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to keep either mum away.

lazygal · 03-03-2016 08:28PM

We planned and paid for our own wedding. This was a decision we made for myriad reasons, one big one of which was parental interference. Our weddings gifts ranged from small cash gifts to very extravagant items for our home to vouchers and a sizeable minority gave us a card only or nothing at all. We didn't take into account gifts when we planned the wedding, it was done within a budget we had set and paid for with savings.

Malari · 03-03-2016 09:02PM

In terms of non-financial contributions, both our mothers made cakes! Other than that we organised everything ourselves.

stickybookmark · 04-03-2016 09:05AM

My family did loads of wedding prep as they live in the same county as the wedding. They were heavily involved. His family are 3 hours away so there was nothing they could do. On the day alright his mother took charge of getting 2 of the flower girls dressed & ready (that were on his side). His father gave a (very) short speech and his mother did the offertory procession in the mass along with my mother. His brother as best man obviously did loads on the day....all the typical best man duties like paying all the vendors, bringing the rings and wedding certificate to the church, bringing the wedding certificate safely home afterwards, receiving envelopes & presents from people all day and storing them in his room for us, MCing the speeches, giving the best man speech, making sure the readers had a copy of their reading/POF at the start of the church etc etc.

Oh at one stage during the prep a complaint reached our ears that his mother felt she wasn't involved enough in the prep so we gave her the menu choices to review and took her opinions into account. She still gave out about the food though :-) :-)

anewme · 04-03-2016 09:32PM

Recent wedding I attended was a mature couple, in their forties, i would not say wealthy but a few bob saved all hard earned. It was not flash in any way, but very well thought out and low key and I would say understated with very good taste. They refused any contribution from their pensioner parents, saying they are near enough the pension themselves! The wedding invite requested no gifts required but if people wanted to give something, it was a request to give a small donation to a charity(of a cause close to the heart of the couple). It was very "them" if that makes sense. Lovely couple.

StripedBoxers · 06-03-2016 03:03AM

I am not married or engaged but if I was I wouldn't have either set of parents contribute towards the wedding only because I would want myself and my partner to have full say over our wedding, who we invite, where we have it etc. and from speaking with others who have had parents (their own or in-laws) contribute towards the wedding, they then wanted a say in some part(s) (usually invites) and there was always one or two rows, and generally someone was always left displeased and hearing that always put me off having anyone contribute towards our wedding.

But sure I guess with weddings (and most events) someone will always be displeased about something or other, can't keep everyone happy!

ChewChew · 06-03-2016 08:13AM

We're getting married next year and while our families knew we were in the planning stages we told them after we had the venue booked and date agreed upon. We also had our guest list at around 90% capacity so there was no leeway for interference. Since we booked though, both sides have offered to pay for elements or for us to use the cash they are giving as we please and neither have made any demands or requests and have seen the guest list too! But we have accommodated a few of their friends too which we are more than happy to do!

deisemum · 06-03-2016 02:11PM

I'll be 26 years married next month and a lot of traditions have changed since I got married. Back then the bride's parents tended to pay for the entire wedding but we paid for most of it ourselves. My parents paid for the reception, we had about 75 guests for the meal, my mother made our wedding cake and a friend of hers iced it. Mother in law made my wedding dress, a friend made my veil. His parents gave us a generous wedding gift and couldn't really help out with the planning as they lived the other side of the country. I organised most of it from abroad since we were living away.

Back then wedding invitations were normally sent out between 4 - 6 weeks before a wedding with the RSVP about 2 weeks before the big day and final numbers given to hotel 3 days before the wedding.

shadowcat · 10-03-2016 12:14PM

We got married last year, and husbands parents gave us a very generous gift about 6 months before as their intention was to pay for the reception, but said we could spend it on whatever we needed to for the wedding. I went mental as felt it was far too much and we had already budgeted what the wedding was going to cost and had accounted for the reception, but they wouldn't take no for an answer as it's what they did for his sisters wedding, and wanted to treat their son and daughter the same. We paid for the rest of the wedding with savings and a small loan (as some of what we had saved had to go towards unexpected house problems about 4 months before the wedding) and we deliberately had a small wedding as it was what we wanted and felt able to afford. As people were travelling for the wedding we said we didn't want anything and genuinely felt guests being there was gift enough. Some still gave cash which most ranged between 20 pounds (other half is English and we live in England) to 200 Euro, some gave gifts and a couple of people gave us vouchers. More than a few gave us empty cards which I had no issue with barring one person (and that was for personal reasons because they let on to other people on the day that they were very generous!)

One strange thing that I found on the day was about 3 people asked us what we paid per head! I have never told anyone (including family) what we paid as it's not anyone else's business in my opinion, and my MIL has said on a few occasions since that she had no idea what our wedding cost (but the tone is that she's put out by not knowing). Don't know if this is the done thing now to say how much you paid, but have heard from a few people that they were asked when they got married how much it cost per head, and have been in conversations with people since who seemed to know the price per head of most of the recent weddings they've been to?! Maybe it's just me but I don't like the idea of people judging how good your wedding was based on how much you paid?

SarahMollie · 10-03-2016 12:40PM

shadowcat wrote: »

One strange thing that I found on the day was about 3 people asked us what we paid per head! I have never told anyone (including family) what we paid as it's not anyone else's business in my opinion, and my MIL has said on a few occasions since that she had no idea what our wedding cost (but the tone is that she's put out by not knowing). Don't know if this is the done thing now to say how much you paid, but have heard from a few people that they were asked when they got married how much it cost per head, and have been in conversations with people since who seemed to know the price per head of most of the recent weddings they've been to?! Maybe it's just me but I don't like the idea of people judging how good your wedding was based on how much you paid?

I'd say i know roughly the cost per head of the weddings I'm going to this summer, well the ones in Ireland at least. Going to 2 abroad, so don't know how that works out, but in Ireland I think even if I hadn't been told its always pretty easy to at least figure out approximately the cost.

Some of my friends are getting married, and just through research of various venues and chatting about the various packages, I think its pretty easy to estimate the cost, even if you don't know for sure.

Penny Dreadful · 10-03-2016 12:46PM

thegingerbride wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your replies. It's interesting to see so many different situations occurring in different families. Also that the tradition of the parents paying has been changing over the years but every family has it's own way of engaging with it. I also should have clarified that by contributions I meant they paid for some wedding elements before the wedding rather than a financial gift afterwards.

I found when we gave older relations save the date cards some weren't sure what they were which made me wonder what other wedding 'traditions' we assume are universally normal are just our generations version of a normal wedding. My aunt was married after a three week engagement, my parents after a three month engagement whereas I've been told that my six month engagement is very short!

To ask another question (hopefully keeping on the good side of the mods), other than financial contributions, what role or responsibilities did your fiancé or fiancées family take on? Either by offering or when you asked?

`

In general keeping with how they do things they managed to be late!

I was at home in my parents house getting ready and my husband's parents were supposed to arrive at our house to get changed and have some photos taken by the photographer before leaving for the Church.
The photographer was leaving the house early enough to get to my parents house and take pre church and wedding prep photos.
My soon to be in laws arrived just as she was leaving and expected food and drinks to be ready for them too.
My poor husband was fit to be tied.
Its how they do things though. We went to one of his cousin's weddings a year earlier and they managed to miss the entire ceremony they were so late.
Now I just lie to them about when things are meant to start and tell them its an hour to 90 minutes earlier than the event actually is.

esforum · 12-03-2016 12:40AM

I wouldnt say my parents paid for anything, they just gave us a very nice deposit into our bank account which happened to cover the entire honeymoon.

My wives family on the other hand forked out for various aspects as we went along so in the end they had paid about 4 grand out overall. Some of it we wouldnt have bothered with, some was a case of the wife going to pay for the flowers as an example and the father handing over his card and waving her off. That was nice an all but there was one or two things that we had specifically said no to and he went ahead and did them. Words were had later in life but with her family its just water of a ducks back, they just float through life.

I wouldnt advise planning a wedding thats reliant on help as not only could you get stuck if the help doesnt arrive but its a stressful aul business without also worrying that you cant actually pay someone

Penny Dreadful wrote: »

In general keeping with how they do things they managed to be late!

So Im not the only one, my wife had to wait in the car for 15 minutes because my family hadnt arrived. Sadly they are wise to my fibs about relivent times so still manage to be late.

ShaShaBear · 12-03-2016 09:32PM

We're getting married in September and my mother and two siblings are splitting the cost of the cake. Hubby's folks have offered to give us the cost of something as well, but we told them to leave it until the day (and plan to have everything covered in any case). We agreed more in the hopes of having two things to organise taken off our caseload rather than getting financial help.
We'd definitely be refusing any substantial cash gifts. They know my family are splitting circa €300 between the three of them as a gift to us and I would expect them to stay WELL under that as there are only two of them!

Keane2baMused · 12-03-2016 10:35PM

We are paying for our own wedding entirely.

My own parents also paid for theirs back in the day.

Gatica · 13-03-2016 07:49PM

We got a generous gift from both sets of parents. They both gave their gifts before the wedding in case we wanted to use it for the wedding. There were no strings attached and no expectations. It was very generous and kind of them. However, we saved for long time for the wedding and had planned to pay for it all ourselves, so there was no issue of need on our part. It was nice to have some money for a rainy day, as we paid for the wedding ourselves, and lived like hermits to save for it.

deisemum · 14-03-2016 11:50PM

Back when myself and my friends got married guests traditionally gave a gift close to the value of the meal so that may have been why people ask how much the meal cost especially if they're older and used to that guideline.

Did your fiancee's family help with the wedding costs? MOD WARNING POST #1 & #31

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