Mother has taken our wedding gift money

[coralpig]

Different culture. Yesterday was a cultural/ religious wedding and tomorrow is our legal ceremony. My mum hosted the event yesterday and paid for it. It was fun but entirely her idea and she had control over the guest list etc. This morning she has opened our wedding cards and taken the money inside as she says its rightfully hers. We made a gift list for our new home and some have bought from this and she says we can keep these items but the money is here. I'm flabbergasted. She said it's because they were her guests and her friends and she paid and we don't get to keep them because she's paid a lot and the grooms family didn't contribute.

AIBU? I think this is so unfair. These were cards addressed to us. We are a young couple. We have nothing- still studying. We wanted to save and get married when we could afford it but she pushed and pushed and said she wanted to take it all on.

your mother is in the wrong. as your culture seems similar to mine, i would only send thank you notes to the people who sent presents, then for the second one nominate someone and ask the MC to say please give all cash gifts to.........as the last time the cash was stolen! you can choose to do the second part or not. It would be disrespectful to call her out blatantly.

I would wait for her 60th birthday and give her a beautiful payback.

Probably the same culture, we got married 24 years ago and my parents paid for both the religious ceremony and the legal one. After the religious ceremony I went to my inlaws house and they kept all the money both sides had given us, we are given money after the ceremony and it is put in our laps. They collected it all and kept it all, they even wanted to keep the presents my parents gave to me, but fortunately they went straight to where we were going to live, thankfully not with inlaws. FIL did give us some money to spend whilst we went on honeymoon and then demanded it back as soon as we were back, DH gave him a cheque and said please don't bank it until I get paid but deaf ears, banked it immediately. Needless to say we don't get on and never have in 24 years!

Different culture
This bit is totally irrelevant as regardless of what culture you are from, taking other people's money is stealing even if they are family.

Are you Indian/Pakistani? If so she's right. The gifts are meant for the parents even if they have your names on it.

PersianCatLady - some cultures have so many ceremonies it ends up costing so much that it can make people bankrupt, and so the guests contribute. The gifts have nothing to do with the bride and groom and are meant for the parents paying for that particular event.

It's also payback from all the times she must have gifted other families kids. So yes yabu. Should have paid for your own wedding and arranged for a 'gift guard' like most Indian/Pakistani/Middle eastern weddings.

Astoria797
That is interesting, I did not know that.

What I don't understand now then is that if that is usual in this lady's culture surely she wouldn't be surprised that it has happened?

OP is probably young & not as involved/interested in day to day customs (unless it's her wedding of course!). A lot of this stuff isn't taught, it's learned by attending (and giving) at a lot of events and functions & mixing with people of your culture.

Well the practice may be cultural but they are still subject to UK law. If the envelope was addressed to the couple then it is evidence that the gift was intended for them and not someone else. To take the money would then be theft. If the practice is for the money to go to the parent then the safest course is to address the envelope to the parent to make it clear. ( I assuming the envelopes were all in your mothers house ..... Because if she entered somewhere else to get it you may have other offences) Whether you would actually report your mother for theft however is another matter. What confuses me is why the subject of costs for the wedding had not been clarified prior to this. Discussions about who pays for what should presumably have been sorted long ago. If there was an expectation for the grooms family to contribute then it's a bit late bringing it up now. Is there someone who can mediate this situation for you OP? Perhaps splitting the cash somehow could be agreed. I appreciate that this is galling but possibly a solution to avoid contaminating the rest of the celebrations.