AIBU to think we shouldn’t bail out DSD re wedding?

[4dogs]

DSD is getting married in about a month. She has booked a quite fancy hotel, I think it’s £60 per person, not sure how many she’s invited but quite a lot I think. I had wondered how she could afford it, she has a ds (3), works pt as a cleaner and her bf worked pt as a window cleaner but recently lost his job due to not bothering to turn up. Earlier this year we gave DSD £1k towards wedding and I believe her mother gave the same.

Last night DH’s ex called very upset to say DSD is very stressed, hasn’t the money to pay for it all, needs about £3k and had asked her mum to guarantee a loan, mum said no as wouldn’t be able to pay if DD defaulted. Ex is begging DH to come up with £3k, says it’s their responsibility and she will pay him back half at a few £ a week. DH is worried if she can’t get the money through a mainstream route DSD will end up borrowing from dangerous loan shark types and it will all end in violence.

We probably could scrape the £ together. I have £2.5k which I was maybe going to use for a cataract operation I need. However I feel if we do this then we will need to come up with the same amount of money for each of his other 2 dd’s should they get married and we wouldn’t be able to guarantee we’d be able to get hold of that amount of money again.

AIBU to think DSD should postpone wedding and have a ceremony that she can afford? DH and I got married 4 years’ ago, very low key and didn’t spend a lot, my DS got married last month, again had low key wedding in line with what he could afford.

DH and I are not well off. He started a business earlier this year which is going well but every penny earned is reinvested into equipment for business at the moment. He draws a very small wage and we live off that and my P/T earnings. I have a DD who starts secondary school in September so that’s a big expense looming plus I am
blind in one eye due to cataract and have been wanting to get it fixed but also reluctant to spend £2.5k on myself in case I need it for an emergency.

Should I help DH financially with this or should DSD make more realistic and affordable plans?

I don't think you should help out. I think she needs to have a cheaper wedding.

Personally I wouldn't want a wedding with a huge burden of debt hanging over me.....cheap, cheerful and happy would be so much nicer.

Your sight is of infinitely more value and importance than a party.

DuploRelatedInjury thanks for your comments, you sum things up well. We gave DSD £1k before my DS said he was getting married so I gave ds £1k to be fair. He was not expecting it at all and was over the moon. At first he was going to save it towards deposit for house but I encouraged him to splurge it on something wedding related and they had a honeymoon with it, they had planned to just take a week off and chill out together. I wasn’t encouraging him to be financially reckless, they both have good graduate jobs, have opened home buying ISAs and are financially responsible. I thought they should treat themselves as they’ve done A levels, Uni, Postgrad, now working ... they’ve spent years investing in their futures and imo deserved a good break.

" I assume that they will lose whatever they have paid out. I still think that’s preferable to adding in another £3k for a farce of a wedding that they can’t afford."

I agree.

That's why I don't understand the panic & talk of loan sharks!

So they need to cut their losses & work out a savings plan.

I've been married twice & it was paid for by me & the groom both times.

You have to cut your cloth...

Don't do it. He needs sit her down and explain that people cannot magic up 3k, that things like weddings need to be within budgets and that they're frikking adult for goodness sake.
3k out the business or put of your medical savings for them to sit in a few years when his drinking gets worse, or for them to come cap in hand again when there's an extra couple of kids to feed?? Just no.

Why is your DSD booking an expensive wedding when she's claiming benefit's and work's part time, i certainly wouldn't be bailing her out, her problem she has to sort it out, you know you won't see that money again, myself and late partner gave my DSS £1,500 toward's his wedding he was happy with that, they had a lovely wedding both were working full time and had saved for a couple of year's.

What a difficult situation especially for your husband. I wouldn’t give them any money.

I can't believe you'd put their wedding before your eyes! And I'd count being blind in one eye as an emergency!

Absolutely no way op should you give your savings. This is their mess to sort out. Don't enable it.

PooWillyBumBum I don’t think you sound harsh at all! DH is a soft touch when it comes to his children! We’ve just been talking about it and he is very conflicted, he wants his daughter to have her dream day but knows it’s an idiotic thing to fund given the circumstances and because we may not be able to do the same for our other dc should the need arise in the future. We have always agreed it is important to treat dc the same and not favour one above the others.

Well I've thoight about the thread, its facts and your conundrum op and also compared it to the maturity and general modus operandi of my dd who is 21.

As I see it your dsd is 22, in a potentially abusive relationship with a shirker, has a 3 year old child, a dysfunctional mother and a broken home behind her. You haven't said but I'm guessing she has little or no qualifications and can't have a great deal of work experience. You and your dh are pretty skint and you work part-time.

A wedding contract has been entered into that probably now can't be broken whether the wedding goes ahead or not. You have a severe cataract that needs sorting.

I think I would call a family meeting with dsd, the groom to be and her mother. You need to get absolute clarity about what has been committed to and how much they owe. Between you all, you need to find a way forward in relation to covering the cost and their has to be transparency about how it can and will be funded and how money is going to be paid back, what is to be paid back to whom and when.

There needs also to be a discussion about working and benefit fraud potentially and how they will pay their way moving forward.

It's too late imo to just let them suck it up and a discussion about funding the wedding should have taken place many months ago.

Re the surgery and cataract, go to the gp and very calmly state you wish to be on the waiting list before there is any deterioration in the other eye as you are nearly blind in the one already affected. Note clearly that if you end up on sick leave the state and nhs will lose your tax contributions and have to claim benefits. If still a no, write to the CCG and copy your mp.

Sorry op but I think dsd sounds incredibly vulnerable and I think the more support and love given now will be more helpful to her in the long run and help her to pull her life back together when it will inevotably fall apart.

My heart breaks for you all but actually I think you and your dh will have to be the mature ones here and pick up the pieces because this could have been averted with some sound intervention and planning many months ago.

That is very selfish behaviour from DSD. If she is incapable of organising a wedding within their own means, what else are they going to NOT afford in the future because of mis-budgeting.
No, you shouldn’t give her £3000 even if they were surplus to requirement. It is a lot of money really towards the wedding and you already contributed £1000 which was very kind and generous of you.
It is a wedding, not a deposit towards a house.
If she is mature enough to get married she should be mature enough to budget for her own wedding. It will be a good lesson she learns about life: only touch what you can afford and be prepared to wait until you can afford what you need/want. No negotiation.

Not a penny more. Your sight is precious.

MrsGrammaticus I couldn’t agree more! Why people have stressy weddings they can’t afford is a mystery to me. And it never seems to bode well for the actual marriage! I don’t think groom will leave her, he’s done well for himself out of getting her pregnant, they have a lovely housing association property and he lives off benefits and cash work. What DSD sees in him is a mystery.

I'm so glad to hear you are not giving your savings towards this wedding. I just wanted to point out something though - you said you needed it for your cataract operation because you are blind in one eye but didn't want to give your savings towards this wedding in case you need it for an emergency. Your eyesight going IS AN EMERGENCY!!! You are blind in one eye! If that doesn't define an emergency then what does???! Book your surgery now and sort out your eyesight. Also your DH should not be bailing her out as clearly he can't afford it.

My post might have come across as a bit harsh towards your DSD, but she needs a short sharp shock at this stage in life in order to remember no be considerate when it comes to resources in the future, otherwise the marriage itself might not survive on financial disagreements and won’t be able to afford a divorce.
She needs to bite the bullet and re arrange the wedding plans, people who attend will completely understand (and I doubt any of the people attending would be disappointed or critical) and better to feel slightly foolish and embarrassed now rather than have to deal with a lot more stress later when she can’t afford more important things.

If the groom doesn’t care enough about the wedding to work to fund it why should anyone else?

We had the wedding we could afford at the time. It wasn’t flash but it was great. We are still married 19 years later. It’s not the wedding that makes a marriage; it’s the couple - unfortunately your DSD appears to have picked a good wedding over a good partner.

God, dont give her any more money for a wedding. She's marrying a deadbeat arsehole, start saving to help her out when she gets divorced.

I don't think you are obliged to give anything you can't afford. Your sight comes first. It's lovely that she's getting married, but a big wedding is not an essential of a marriage: beyond the actual ceremony, it is basically a party to celebrate the marriage. People should not need to go into debt or sacrifice essentials to fund a party, however important the occasion that it celebrates.

Honestly, they have to grow up at some point. Your SD has put himself in a impossible position by commiting to a party she cannot afford, your DH is doing the same, he doesn’t have the money but doesn’t want the princess to go without her dream day. Both are unreasonable positions, more so when the groom is a leach so going ahead with such wedding is just a fancy way to chain such waste of space to the neck of your SD so they can drown together.

If she was my DD I would be going out of my way to convince her to postpone the wedding, hopefully in that time she could also appreciate that it might be better not to go ahead with it at all.

Getting married to a cocklodger is a stupid mistake even if they had a string of children together. It is cheaper to let whatever they have paid be lost than keeping throwing money into the relationship from hell.

No. You and her mother have provided £2k between you which is plenty for a nice wedding if your expectations are sensible

No, you shouldn’t, you have given them the contribution you could could afford.

I still don’t get why you need to pay for your cataract op and why it isn’t on the NHS?

This might be a psycho-speculative .....but I do wonder if DSD realises in the back of her mind that she's in a slightly less than fairy tale relationship with this guy and is kidding herself that a whistles and bells wedding might make it all beautiful? Clearly she's an adult and has to forge her own way in life for better or for worse, but be cautious OP that she doesn't take other people down with her too. Please pull back and limit the damage that could be done to you and your family.

Do not give her the money (put your foot down with DH as this will impact your marriage) and for God's sake, get your eye paid for and sorted. That should be your priority atm.

Absolutely don't give any money from whatever source towards her wedding! They'll probably be getting divorced within a year or so anyway. You're going to have to tell your DH very firmly how you will react if he bails her out.
Re cataracts, I was lucky enough to have mine done before the NHS tightened up the rules and mine weren't that bad, but I was shocked how much clearer my eyesight was after having even just the first eye done. Some places will give you interest free credit to pay for the op. Book to have your worst eye done asap @4dogs