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 ?

Its assumed that parents do make a contribution to living costs, that what grants/loans/bursaries are based on, and the OP is 35 so this would be what......18 years ago?

If your mum wants you to have a big wedding (you say you would be happier with a more modest affair) then she needs to pay for the privilege or accept that the wedding is not going to be what she wants. It would be appallingly bad manners of her to go whinging to your DF's mother for funds for something she alone wants.

I would also think very carefully about this engagement as you seem to have very different ideas about money and that is frequently incompatible with a happy marriage. Personally, I wouldn't want to marry someone who didn't take responsibility for their own finances and relied on the Bank of Mum to bail them out when they overspent - huge alarm bells should be ringing about this in your head.

Having said that, I really hope it all works out for you OP.

Do you honestly think his spending habits will change once you're married OP? Also, what about his comments about 'helping your equity'? How does that fit within what's meant to be a partnership (on 2 levels: he doesn't want to support you in paying off a mortgage & he fails to see the longer term benefit for both of you of this in terms of selling-on/upgrading)?

bogey, I know it's expected, but that's not the same as saying her parents had to. They chose to. That's nice of them, and IMO a perfectly normal thing. I just think the OP is looking at what her family do - the normal paying of money at university, 20k deposit, being willing to pay for a big wedding - and saying these count as her 'standing on her own two feet'.

Who knows if her partner's mum doesn't feel that bailing out her son, who's had two years of depression, isn't the same?

That's all I mean. I don't think one way or other is 'right' - I just think these sound like two people who have very different attitudes towards money and who seem to be making a lot of assumptions about the other person's role and lifestyle.

Ok that is even worse then.

He wants a prenup so that he can continue to be selfish with his money and refuse to contribute to the home that he lives in.

I don't think this man is going to give you what you want - he is 46 years old and clearly very set in his selfish and self-absorbed ways. I would be looking around for another man to marry.

what's wrong with renting? Some people never get on the property ladder and maybe renting was more common in Holland.

So far he is only contributing his half of the bills (£300/ month) and food etc - is he expected to pay half of everything even though he earns far less? Maybe he can't afford to pay towards the mortgage too.

Me and dh have a joint account - he works, I dont - and the mortgage, bills, etc all come out of it. In the past I worked while dh was still at uni so we have had a share of supporting each other.

You were very lucky that your parents supported you through uni and gave you a 20k deposit - not quite standing on your own too feet though.

Does he not earn only 10k less - she's on 50k and he's on 40k?

I'd say with that he should be contributing to the mortgage but not doing it as 'rent' ... that's just odd.

no, he had a 40K job in Holland and gave it up to move here. He now has a job at £9 an hour and is looking for a 30k job

LRD, you make some very good points.

My parents told me to start saving for a deposit when i was 8, which i did. At that time they did not expect to contribute to my university education, as it was the time of student grants, so they said I'd be on my own at 18. By the time I turned 18, university grants had been abolished and parents were expected to pay voluntary maintenance - the government caluculated how much and issued invoices, but it ws voluntary.
My parents very kindly paid this contribution, just as they paid tuition fees for my younger sibs.

I used my savings for a deposit when I was 25, at that time my parents had sen a finacial advisor who suggested thatas my dad was by then in his 70s, that he start to give away his assets to his kids, as he was over the inheritance tax threshold, hence me getting the 20K windfall which helped me get on the hosuing ladder that much earlier. I didn't ask my parents for a deposit.

maybe I am being a bit unfair on him, but I do feel that his attitude towards not wanting to contribute to "my equity" stinks. It is fine now that he only pays his half of the bills and his half of the food, as he is on a low income, but when he gets a beter income, I thik he should pay half - it is not just the mortage, there are also service charges, and I am paying £300 a month the freeholder painting the outside and fixing the roof last year (£10K bill over 3 years), I think if he is happy livin here he should pay half the real costs.

DF is 46, i am 35, his mum is 72 and my mum is 65.

But it's not just about whether he can afford to pay towards the mortgage/bills/whatever - to me it's his attitude that's worrying.

he has only been here since March so give him a chance!

Cross posts with you there Ambivalence!

I'm sorry, but I don't think someone who has been gifted £20k should make a virtue of 'standing on their own two feet'. It's not that it's wrong to accept it - it was a lovely thing for your parents to do, but, really, most people could only dream of such a gift.

You think owning a property is very important, which is fair enough, but I imagine it would have been much harder/impossible without that £20k.

My husband is HP and I am white British. When we married, he paid for the entire Indian wedding as he wanted it to meet his family's expectations (or rather his mum did). My parents and I paid for the smaller civil wedding. We have the same age gap as you.
I think the wedding is a small issue you will work out. I do worry more about his attitude to money and am a bit gobsmacked that he won't contribute to "your equity". It is no way to begin a lifelong partnership. When you have a family, you are going to be carrying a lot of the weight - financial and, I suspect, otherwise. Are you up for that?

Sorry, slight cross posts, but I think my main point still stands.

that's why we have a joint account though - then no-one can quibble about who pays what because it all comes out the same big pot

I think the fact that the OP was helped financially at university and with money for a deposit is neither here nor there. There is a world of difference between that and repeatedly getting your parents to bail you out through your 20s/30s/40s.

The current situation where the OP's DF is earning very little is clouding the issue to an extent, because he can't really afford to contribute to the same level that she does at the moment.
His attitude stinks though, absolutely stinks. I could not marry someone so shortsighted.

This worries me, Ambivalence. No savings at 46? And the way he lives, spending money left and right as you describe, "having champagne tastes" is something that adds up to a real problem for your marriage. This is how he lives his life- how he likes to live his life. It would be a really difficult thing that he would struggle to change even if he wanted to change it, because it would require a change in the way he thinks about life. DOES he want to change the way he lives? Because if he doesn't, it sounds like it would be a massive problem for you, and if you are earning more you may start to resent it.

Think about it. Down the track do you want to be approaching retirement, worried about how you will fund your retirement and thinking that you could have had a comfortable retirement if only your DH had not insisted on wasting £100/week or so for the last 30 years just on coffee, never mind all the other stuff? How would that make you feel? I do think that a simular way of thinking about money and financial security is really important in a relationship. Your OH doesn't seem to know how to save- he seems to have just accumulated his savings by accident. It's just money he hasn't managed to spend his way through yet, not money he has deliberately put aside on purpose.

And that business about "not contributing to your equity" was a weird thing to say by someone who wants to share your life.

Haven't said anything about the wedding as I think that's the least of your problems.

Just think a bit further than the wedding. When you are on maternity leave how will you cope financially? Do you intend to send your kids to private school? Does he agree with this? Are you going to go part time? Just check you are both on the same wavelength for the future.

I believe renting is the norm in Holland rather than owning your home is here now, so don't see his renting his home as anything to be concerned about.

OP, you were a couple when you were aged 21 through to 25, then you split up. Why did you split? And why did you get back together? And what has happened to you both in the intervening years, what has shaped your and his attitudes? Very nosey I know, but I have a feeling there are some answers in there that could be relevant to your current situation.

I've seen a lot of threads on here suggesting that the fairest way of doing finances in a married couple is that all bills are divvied up in such a way that both parties have the same amount of spending money for themselves left over.

If you're on 50k and he's on about 15k then applying that algorithm would probably leave you paying the mortgage and all bills and maybe giving him an allowance. So I'm not sure you can complain about his current contributions, especially if he took a huge financial hit to be with you. To be reviewed if he gets a better paying job (though to be fair if he was on 40k and then gets 30k, that's still 10k a year he's sacrificed for the relationship - that's worth something).

Renting I suspect is anothe cultural differnce. I don' know much about Holland, but in Germany renting for families is normal (shrinking population > flat or falling house prices > not obviously a wise investment, maybe ?)

If he's 46 and he hasn't grown up yet I'm not sure he never will.

The pressure of marriage and children will make it worse.

Are you absolutely sure you are compatible and that your differing attitudes towards money won't be a problem in the future?

It's a lot easier (and cheaper) to have these conversations now rather than after you are married.

Yes, the £20K gift meant that i was able to buy a flat a good 5 or 10 years before my savings would otherwise have allowed me to ( infairness though, I had saved £20K myself by the time i was 25: i worked for 2 hours every day after school in the sixth form, saturday jobs, holiday jobs, worked every saturday at uni and had been saving all my birthday and xmas money since childhood).

I never expected the help at uni, but it was kind of my parents to do so, I did not expect a cash gift towards a depsit for a flat. I was always told once I was 18, I was on my own. I am surprised my mum wants to pay for the wedding, i had expected DfFand I would have to save up and pay for it ourselves.

It is very kind of my mum to do this, but it also of course means the guests will mostly be her friends, and we are limited on who we can invite/ have to do things her way. being pragmatic though it is just better if she has the wedding the way she wants, as she cares about it more than we do.

I have never asked for or recived a bailout from my parents, just unexpected gifts.

Another thing- this will put you in the position of always having to be the "sensible one", the "fun killer" in the family as against your OH being the "fun one". When your child wants the latest set of trainers or a game or something else that he doesn't actually need, and there isn't space in the budget for it this month, your OH sounds like he will go ahead and say yes, taking it out of money put aside for retirement or for replacing the washing machine or something sensible. It will happen again and again and you will have to argue about it each time.

Do you always want to be the "bad guy", the one saying no?

A man with a different approach to money would share financial responsibilities, using this kind of situation to teach your child about saving up for what you want and being responsible. It doesn't sound as if your OH would do this, or even if he can- he doesn't seem to have been taught this himself.

In your shoes, I'd rent out your house and buy a new one together once you had both saved a deposit. Keep your own house completely separate from his finances. The next house can be a shared house and your flat can be your pension in the future.

About the wedding I think you can only advise your parents that the expectation is different in Holland. Ask your parents to give less to you for the wedding maybe? If your parents are determined to talk about money with his parents, let them. During the meeting though say that you have no expectation of any money what so ever.