Money 'borrowed'

@Alice19876 - regarding your DH and the work he’s done, perhaps charge them his hourly rate than if they keep insisting, back dated of course!

Tell them you will reach out to their friends for help to pay them back.

After all the hog roast and harpist was about impressing them.

How tacky they are.
You must be cringing op

I'm still reeling at all this, OP. If it HAD been a loan it might have affected the amount you could have got on your mortgage. Plus most loans attract interest - and your parents maybe should have declared that as income on their tax returns. If you accept it was a loan they could now add interest to the pot.

Get your DH to tot up the value of his labour on the work he has done for them - and add interest too!

I'm not seriously suggesting this at all. There IS NO LOAN. Don't even consider it. Even paying them £10 a month would be taken as acceptance of the whole sum being owed and will be real burden for your family. It could also affect your DHs ability to get a loan for his business.

It is not - and never was - a loan. Give them a gift of £100 for spending money on their next cruise, but nothing more.

It's a sad fact that lending money to relatives/friends is a big mistake. It ruins relationships - and I guess yours is now ruined through their fault.

Despite all this, to salvage something from it all, go and talk to them and explain your feelings, apologise if you think it will help, but point out your disappointment re all this and that it may have serious consequences for your relationship with them in future.

Good luck. You sound like a lovely daughter, you don't deserve this awful situation.

And any solicitor will laugh them out of the room.

@MinnieGirl they would indeed and that would be nothing compared to what the District Judge would have to say. One particularly acidic legal buzzard I knew would have sent them away with a flea in their ear for wasting the court's time and he'd have been right.

If there was no paper work saying it was a loan and no conversation about it being a loan , it's a gift. You didn't ask them for a loan they didn't offer you a loan . They gave you a gift and now they regret it for whatever reason

I’m sorry that your relationship with your parents is gone - this had nothing to do with you.
When I got married, my mum really wanted the vintage cars and a very good photographer. My parents paid for that any there was never ever any hint of us to pay it back. Not then, nor ever.
Just like you, we’d have been okay with not having these extras.
Your parents cannot now demand the money back when you didn’t even want what they insisted on having at your wedding.
As others have said, don’t offer anything back at all. It was a gift and there is nothing on record to disprove it.

If OP agrees to pay them back, this implies that she agrees that it was a loan and not a gift. Her parents could then legally take her to the small claims court. As there was never any mention of it being a loan and no loan agreement, she should just refuse to pay it back.

Her relationship with her parents is pretty much dead now anyway. What sort of parents decide, three years after the wedding, that their pregnant daughter with 18 month old twins should pay back the costs of her wedding within a year so that they can go on a cruise?

Disgusting behaviour. I’m sorry op.

Please don’t even consider paying anything back. They wanted the hog roast, harpist and extra guests. Your mum wanted the more expensive dress, and I think you said they paid directly to the suppliers? So you didn’t get the money…. There was no mention of it being a loan at all. They can’t change the terms three years later. They paid for those services. You didn’t ask them it was all their choice. So no way do you owe them anything.

Find your anger. These are your parents, prepared to rip off their only child so they can go on a cruise. Knowing you are pregnant. Knowing you are a SAHM to the twins. Nasty people. Stand firm with your husband. You owe them nothing.

Continue to ignore your mums calls, you really don’t need to hear what she’s got to say at the moment, and it puts you back in control. Give it a few more days. Then answer and if she asks again for repayment tell her you have never had a loan from them. They paid for extra services because they wanted to. You were very appreciative of their generosity but at no time was it stated it was a loan, and you will not be repaying anything. Nothing else to say. If they keep on, just repeat. Mum we’ve had this conversation. There was no mention of your generosity being a loan and we won’t be paying you. And finally…Mum we've had enough of this nonsense. We won’t be paying you any money, please stop asking. And if it still doesn’t stop, then ignore. No way will they take you to court, what would there friends say?! And any solicitor will laugh them out of the room.

Don’t spend time worrying about it. It’s very sad that they would upset you for the sake of a cruise, and that tells you a lot about your parents I’m afraid.

General rule: if a relationship with a friend or family member requires that you pay them money to stop the relationship turning sour, the relationship is already dead. Don't do CPR on a corpse, you cannot buy love.

2nd slightly less general rule: if they can make up an entirely fictional loan agreement history then you can make up any additional terms you like. Eg that there was a 1000 year term on the loan and no repayments are due until 3023. But that's dodgy ground as you'd have to concede the existence of the "loan" to play that game.

Honestly OP you don’t need legal advice, there is no signed agreement, there is no loan.

I wouldn't give them a penny, of course it wasn't a loan.

I'd actually want to see how far they would go to get it back.

Their actions from now on will be very telling if you do nothing OP.

Don't pay them. This is a really shitty thing for them to do. If your relationship is affected it's their fault not yours.
It's clear from what you say that it was originally a gift - including them wanting to upgrade things that cost more.
You say it is your word against theirs - you're right. They have no proof they lent you the money because they didn't. Stand your ground. They'll either see sense or not.
Personally, my relationship with them would already be affected by their behaviour. Don't go into debt over it as well.

Say you can't afford to pay it all and you'll pay them back at so much a month (whatever you can afford) while stressing you were sure it was a gift or you wouldn't have spent so much and they must realise you are not earning anything at the minute. Is it worth falling out with your parents completely by saying you're not going to pay it back at all? And/or negotiate about how much extra you spent because of the 'gift' and deduct that from the 'loan'. £100 voucher as a wedding gift from your parents sounds pretty miserly!

@Alice19876 It struck me yesterday that maybe you have always gone along with them for a quiet life and never really put your foot down, for fear of falling out with them. If that’s the case, it was always going to have to happen sometime, now that you are married and a parent yourself. If it wasn’t this, it would be something else: if you have been trained by them to be a pleaser, they are used to getting their own way with you. Better put your foot down now than have them decide they are moving in with you to be their sole carer at a later point (or some other crazy thing). Best of luck, it’s painful but it has to be done xx

How many properties have your parents got? If they are struggling to live, especially with another cruise to fund, perhaps they should consider selling one to avoid harassing their only child for money?

So sorry OP, how unbelievably stressful and unexpected for you. Clearly, legally, they don’t have a leg to stand on. But it’s so sad that this will have a - probably irreversible - impact on your relationship. Insane behaviour from them.

Guess you'll need to invoice them for the free labour, or at least remind them that he never charged for it!

Can you retrieve any text or email message exchanges - which might well evidence the truth (that you chose x but they wanted to upgrade to y for example?).

And that the wedding dress you chose cost x but they offered y - and you can remind them of the exact dialogue at the time.

How shocking of your parents, more especially considering you have toddlers and are dealing with pregnancy too.

OMG... so they've had free labour out of your DH and they've got the absolute bare arsed cheek to demand the pair of you pay back their 'gift' (which was it seems only ever a means to control your wedding in the first place and invite who they wanted and show off...)...

Fuck me, it just gets worse and worse. Tell them to fuck right off! Please do not give them the steam off your piss!

I once lent money of about £1000 to my sibling who I trusted with my full heart and would not have dreamed of making it hard for me to get back the money. Unfortunately I had to ask for it back after two years. I needed it for a house deposit (and sibling knew I needed it desperately and still dug their heels in even though they were working full time this entire time. They could have repaid a little bit at a time. I blame myself though in this.

It was discussed it was a loan but being family it wasn’t as business-like with contracts drawn. It was very naive and silly of me and I blame myself for my trusting nature. I got it back and I would never lend money to anyone again unless I had a full drawn out contract. Just no.

I think you need to be very firm with your parents and tell them you were never given to understand that this was a loan to be paid back to them: your parents' actions at the time the wedding was being planned were all in line with it being a gift which they leveraged to have things they wanted in the wedding. Had they made it clear at the time that it was a loan to be repaid, then you would have had sole control over where the expenditure went so that you could adhere to a budget that you could afford to repay in the future. As it is you dipped into your own pockets to fund things edged out by your parents' preferences (guests/harpist/dress) etc. So with their contribution now termed a loan rather than a gift, the wedding has now cost you way more than you budgeted. Why on earth would any loving parent fuck their child over in that way?

This hasn't come out of the blue by the sounds of it: I'd look long and hard at how they've treated you in the past and any other questionable behaviours they've exhibited before now.

Give them short shrift and tell them that you both know it was a gift at the time and that you do not want to hear another word from them on the matter.

Why on earth are you assuming they’re boomers ? I’m a boomer and did whatever I could to help out my children. It’s only on MN that boomers are responsible for all the ills in the world. Everywhere else they’re just lucky to have been born into a time of relative economic stability, and benefited from it.