Or is my mother - paying for the wedding

[Ambivalence]

I know I am about to be flamed here.

Just had a nerve wracking telephone call from my mum. She and my late father were both born in india, and although I am a british born asian, she has very traditional ideas about culture and religion.

I am one of 4 daughters (also have a younger brother), and the first one to be getting married. She has been saving for our weddings since we were born as in indian tradition ( hindu punjabi), the brides parents bear the bulk of the wedding costs.

My fiance is dutch. He has one brother and his brother and my future SIL paid for their own wedding, as is normal in holland, the parents don't contribute anything.

I go to holland with him fairly regularly, to see his family, have known them for years. The parents are divorced, and the father has died ( his new wife got everything, so DF had no inheritance from his Dad).

My mother is now saying that she thinks it is unfair that DF's family are getting away with a "free" wedding, and haven't enquired into our customs or whether anything is expected from them. In most british asian weddings nowadays the couples parents both contribute, and I have seen this with my british asian friends.

She is going to holland in september to meet DF's mum, brother, SIL and their 3 for the first time. She is now saying that she is going to speak to his mum and ask her what she expects to contribute.

I am dreading the whole thing. Actually DF's mum is well off and could afford to help out, but it wouldn't occur to her. They are also under the impression my parents must be minted as they privately educated their kids ( unheard of in holland).

This is just going to be awful. DF just doesn't "get" where my mum is coming from, doesn't understand the cultural importance and obligations for my mum of doing a big wedding, and thinks she is being ridiculous.

Has anyone else negotiated this situation?

To not drip feed, although DF is lovely, and my family all love him, he is not at all financially astute - at 46, he has a grand total of about £2K in savings, no other assets. I was brought up to be a saver, got a mortagge when I was 25 and now have a lot of equity. DF gave up a £40K job in holland to move to be with me and now is earning a pittance ( although he is going for interviews, and I am feeling confident that he will get a £30K job soon). I will always out earn him. So far he is only contributing his half of the bills (£300/ month) and food etc. he says h won't contribute to the mortageg as that is just helping me with my equity - which annoys me as he is happy to live here, rent free ( it is a v nice central london flat!).

i don't have a lot saved up, as all goes in the mortage, service charges, roof repairs etc.

Would it be unreasonable after he gets a new job to make him pay "rent" and use that money as a contribution towards his part of the wedding stuff?

i really don't know what to do, i have tried talkign to him, but he just doesn't seem to want to listen, and I am trying to keep DF and my mum both happy.

Has anyone else been in this situation ?

Right you have two issues.

One is funding your wedding, the other is your financial set up with your partner.

Once you are married, then your house will also be his house, so he should be contributing in line with his salary. Don't you have a joint account?

Your mother needs to wind her neck in. If she wants to contribute to your wedding then she can, but it would be very rude of her to ask your DF's parents - especially when he is 46 years old FFS and can surely earn his own money?

How old are you btw?

I am very confused, you are marrying him but are thinking of asking for him to pay rent? Surely the money is 50/50 when in a marriage, unless you have a pre-nup he would get half your equity if you split up!

I think the problem is you seem to have other issues with DF to do with money so this is just another.

I don't think parents should have to contribute to a wedding unless they offer, in no way would I ever allow my parents to have approached DHs parents to ask about their contribution.

I think you have bigger things to worry about TBH!

I don't get it. You say its tradition for the brides parents to pay, so why does your mum assume dfs parents should pay.
I would tell her about their culture and tell her not to say anything to them. Paying for childrens weddings is not tradition.
As for the other things, you really need everything sorted before you get married. Money and attitudes to money can be very important in a marriage.

just tell your mum that she must not ask his parents to contribute. UNless of course you secretly think they should.

There are huge alarm bells ringing for me regarding your DP's lack of funds. How can a single 46 year old man earn £40k a year and yet have barely any money?

Maybe your DM is thinking the same thing and is actually trying to protect you in some way...

I wouldn't expect to pay for my 46 year old son's wedding! At his mum's age (late 60s, 70s?) I'd want to keep my money for my own retirement.

How old are you, OP?

I think he's totally out of order refusing to help pay for the mortgage. You would be within your rights to charge his rent if he has that attitude.

I think the financial set up with my partner is the main issue. i agree my mother is being extremely rude to consider broaching this with DF's mum, and I am going to have to tell her this. She is very loving, and supportive, but also overbearing and bossy. The big wedding is her thing, to show off to her mates, and also to be fair, she feels she has t show them that she is "not ashamed" that her daughter is choosing to marry out of the culture.

If DF and I were organising the wedding, it would be very modest, as our financial pririties are a bigger flat and save up for kids.

I am 35.

I do have issues with my DF and money. I have always been extremely sensible with money, as I have always been told I need to stand on my own 2 feet, so when i started working, i paid off my study loans and then got a mortagage. My parents brought me up to save birthday and christmas money for the future - I started saving for a mortage when i was 8!

DF has never recieved any financial guidance from his family, and has always lived hand to mouth, as has his brother. If he has any finacial problems, his mum bails him out, and he seems to think it is my job to take this role too. he is now earning only £9/ hour in a job using his dutch skills ( he only moved here in march), so i feel bad making financial demands on him when I earn £50K, but I do think in the future we need to sort things out.
DF wants us to sign a pre-nup so he has no claim on this flat, he doesn't seem to realise that in order to buy a family home I will either have to sell this flat, or rent it out and use the rental income towards the mortage on a family home.,

I guess I am annoyed as he never saves anything for a rainy day, ever. Didn't bother to get on the housing ladder ( he always rented), and seems to think it is my job to make all the plans for the future.

he is not stingy, he contributes what he has, but doesn't seem to appreciate that if we want to move - and i am realistic, it will prob be a 2 bed flat, and the 9as yet unborn, hopefully 2) kids will have to share. he has no idea of the ralities of house prices, or child care. My mother thinks he will chnage once he is a father, and become more responsible - i think he needs to start thinking about it all now.

Equally i don't want to nag - he has moved countries, given up his (rented) home, give up a professonal job, his friends etc to be with me. I just don't know how to sort this all out.

I am minded to sign a pre-nup, as i see this flat as an investment for my children's university fees and to give them a deposit for a flat, and want to help them out the way my parents did ( they paid my "parental contribution" at uni, and then gave me a £20k deposit for a flat)

She doesn't say that, dprince, she says often both sets of parents contribute.

'In most british asian weddings nowadays the couples parents both contribute, and I have seen this with my british asian friends.'

OP, can you sit down with your mum and explain that the traditions of your finance's family are different? Personally, I would want my finance to explain to his mum about your mum's idea of tradition too, but it depends on their relationship as to how she would take that, and whether she'd see it as asking for money.

Is it at all possible to break with traditiona completely and say you will pay for your own wedding? That way, at least your mum can't feel it's unfair that she is paying and the groom's family are not, though I can see she might feel upset at not being able to throw a big party.

I do feel it's off to charge your partner rent. After you're married, legally you are financialy no longer separate, even if you keep individual bank accounts for some things or for everything.

If this is someone you want to marry, IMO you need to decide whether his attitude to money is something you tolerate, compromise with, or need to discuss with him and hammer out.

He has savings. He doesn't sound particularly awful with money. It's not as if you're saying he's a gambler with 20k of credit card debt and no history of ever being sensible with money, so I do think it sounds more like you have different ideas of when to spend and when to save, rather than that he's 'bad' with money.

Sit down and talk to him.

Ok, cross posted, yes, it does sound a bit more like he has odd issues with money.

Pre-nups are dodgy legally anyway.

he says he won't contribute to the mortageg as that is just helping me with my equity

wtf?

THe wedding is the least of your problems.

He refuses to contribute to "your" equity?

Tell him fine, he can rent somewhere of his own then!

If he is like this about money now, what will he be like when he has a legal claim on half of what is yours?

I would be dealing with the financial problems wth him before I went any further with the wedding, and that includes him paying something towards the housing costs.

Sorry, I am triple posting, but I didn't take this in:

You're saying his mum bails him out financially, whereas you saved for your own deposit for a house. Then you said your parents gave you a 20k deposit and paid you money at university? I can see you are different in the scale of help you get, but .... are you really that different?

I can see how the culture clash is causing a headache with the wedding funding, but your mum needs to understand that just as her cultural upbringing is important to her, so it the cultural background of your DF's family - in that they wouldn't expect to pay for the wedding.

Also, at 46, I would imagine most people would expect your DF to be pitching in if not paying for his own wedding?! You're how old, OP?

However I agree with the other posters, in that the wedding payment is the smaller of your problems here. You and your DF need to work out your own (or his?) finances and accept that once you're married it shouldn't be a case of 'your equity' and 'his equity'. Personally I think his attitude to not helping with general rent/mortgage payments because it would 'help you with your equity' stinks. I'd be seriously reconsidering marrying a man who thought like this.

I was brought up to stand in my own two feet

Yet your parents funded you through uni and gave you 20k towards your flat?

I am also concerned in reading that at 46, this man has no savings. I'm even more concerned that he expects to live for free in your house. Will this change if you are married? How sure are you that he will carry his weight in this marriage?

On the wedding front, it is a clash of cultures. I do think though, that you should not ask people to pay for your wedding. If money is offered, as in the case of your mother, then fantastic, but otherwise you should cover expenses yourself. If this means scaling down the wedding, then so be it.

My mother thinks he will chnage once he is a father, and become more responsible

BIG mistake. BIG HUGE MISTAKE.

Generally the little cracks that you have before the baby comes become chasms afterwards. Babies dont solve problems, they highlight them and if he is unreliable and flaky with money now, how do you think it will be when you are on maternity leave? Or need to pay childcare costs?

I would be postponing the wedding tbh, until this issue is sorted out.

When we got married both sets of parents had an intelligent and open dicussion regarding contributing to the cost of our wedding (with my then DF and me in the room). By being so open and honest about traditions and expectations, everyone knew where they stood and offered what the felt comfortable with. My parents paid for everything (as they wanted and expected to do (perhaps similar to your DM's expectations) and my now DH's parents paid for the bar bill (open bar for 100 people) as our wedding gift. In reality that meant my parents benefitted from their gift (as they were anticipating paying for drinks too) but it was the right thing for all of us to do.

You need to chat to your DM about culture and expectations and your PIL too so they are all primed for a conversation to take place and no one feels jumped on. Whatever the outcome is, is up to them.

I understand that you don't want to have joint finances until you are married. We did the same. I owned our central London flat too but my DF contibuted to the cost of running the household. Maybe don't call it rent but work out what you see is a fair sum to be paid to you on a monthly basis so you are both fairly contributing to the smooth running of the joint household. However you choose to use the money (and of course discuss it with your fiance first) is then your decisions (towards your flat running costs or the wedding). If your DF isn't willing to contribute (especially when he has his new job), I'd be concerned...

I know Df is not being secretive about his money - we were together from when i was 21 to 25 ( lived together then, in a rented flat, we were both on 20K then and he absolutely paid half)

We split up, he moved back to holland a year later, was unemployed for 2 years (was depressed), then retrained in IT and was earning 40K for the last 3 years he was in holland).

He has no money because he fritters it away, at least 3 starbucks coffees a day, £5 on lunch, books, newspapers, magazines, expensive clothes, all food is organic, free range, taste the difference, he has literally thousands of CDs - which is where most of the money has gone, i thin. he never buys anything on sale and never buys anything cheap, so champagne lifestyle on lemonade budget, unsurprising nothing left over.

" If he has any finacial problems, his mum bails him out, and he seems to think it is my job to take this role too."
No. Just no.

Your attitudes to money are polar opposites. And he is coming across as a bit of a manchild. This does not bode well for a happy marriage.

Your mother is an incidental issue. Just tell her she would be being incredibly rude and she's not to do it.

OP you need to get your financial differences sorted out, to both of your satisfaction, before marrying.

I think he's a bit of a dead loss, OP, sorry. You and he seem poles apart in the way you think. You have no reason to believe he'll 'grow up' when he has children. I think you're going to end up feeling like a meal ticket, tbh.

Sounds like the parents HAD to pay a contribution towards the uni fees, and if they chose to give her a deposit after she showed that she could save then surely thats their choice? It sounds like a one off.

It isnt the same as her constantly being bailed out by them because she has no financial sense and lives beyond her means.

If there are all these issues to do with money before you even get married, I dread to think of all the problems you may have afterwards. I also think you should think again about getting married. As others have said the cultural customs quite often apply so this should help things but in your case it doesn't really.

I don't suppose his mother will be happy about paying for the nuptials of a 46 year old man. The easiest thing is if you both save up for a bit longer and pay for your own wedding.

To be honest - and I may be wrong - someone who's been unemployed with illness for two years and earning 40k for three, and has 2k in savings, is not in my opinion doing awful things with money.

It is a concern if he's expecting you to take on the 'role' of bailing him out. Obviously. And that he doesn't seem to understand that things will need to change when you have the children you're planning on having.

But can you discuss it with him? I'm not convinced you're being fair to him.

bogey, I think she's in the UK? I don't think parents have ever 'had' to pay a contribution?