Please tell me if AIBU re money

[rumandbiscuits]

I am getting married soon and the wedding has turned out to be bigger than previously expected.
My Dad has given us £6,000
My Mum £1000
My FIL £3000
Myself £5000
And my OH £5000

We still however are starting to run short now that all the final bills have been paid and we are approaching the big day. My OH has recently bought his wedding ring out of his own account (£825) and come to me today and said he wants me to reimburse him out of the wedding account for it but trouble is we don't have enough in there to pay it so will both have to put more money in plus more for other last minute bits. I daren't say it to him because I don't know if I'm being a CF but my family have put in more money than his and therefore want to say can't you just pay for your own ring?

For context he has about £10,000 in savings and is able to put money away every month and I have £18,000 (an inheritance I got from my grandad that has dramatically dropped because I am unable to save due to not earning enough to be able to).

He works full time and earns £3000 a month
I work part time (to look after our daughter the other two days so we don't have to pay for child care) and earn £1000 per month.

The OP is saying she cannot afford this wedding, what the "average person" spends here is utterly irrelevant.

The OP is saying she cannot afford this wedding, what the "average person" spends here is utterly irrelevant

Agreed. ...

Well, I’m late but totally understand all of it from your perspective including the cost of the wedding.

I do think you should pay for his ring, because it’s a gift from you, he wears it every day and men’s wedding bands just cost easily that much.

Glad you’ve sorted out the finances. We keep separate savings and also some together for shared expenses. We are newly married and older. We have guidelines about how much we will spend without discussion.

Jealous of people having a nicer or more expensive wedding! no, I’m not buying that. It won’t necessarily be nicer and there are far more exciting things to spend the money on. No one is jealous of someone who spends almost half their savings on a wedding. People might be a bit surprised they choose to spend so much of a quite low savings pot on just a day.

It's isn't a massive luxurious wedding

Then why the bloody hell have you spent 20k on it?!

Ours cost 1500 including rings, dress, suit, all booking costs, afternoon tea and our honeymoon!

Fwiw we don’t do the pooled money.

Dp has always out earned me on salaried income.

Dp has no interest in financial matters at all

He took what he needed to pay for his commute, lunches and clothing etc the transferred me the rest to pay everyone and do with the money as I saw fit.

He got a yearly bonus which again he transferred to me

Otherwise the joint household bills account, a savings account and then personal accounts for each of you is the fairest.

But that means pooling all money, I.e both of your savings accounts and salaries.

Honestly it is really difficult to get a wedding that costs less than £20k

It really, really isn't

and we aren't getting ourselves into debt to pay for it

That might be the case but without those family donations you wouldnt even be able to afford your wedding.

This is a ludicrous amount of money to spend on a party. Scale back your plans on anything that isn’t already committed

Honestly it's really difficult to get a wedding that costs less than £20k

Don't be so ridiculous. Spending an absurd amount of money is a choice. It's wet very easy to cost a wedding for a fraction of that. It just depends what means more, the wedding or the marriage.

I actually think the wedding ring is more important than the rest of the party as it's the bit that you wear for the rest of your married lives. I'd see where I could make cuts but it wouldn't be on the ring (within reason). But then £20k on a wedding seems high to me. I've been to weddings costing that and more but they're all now divorced and it's the ones in our friendship group that went for cheaper options that seem to be still together. So much focus on the wedding and little thought to the marriage.

I think before I took a view on whether £825 was a lot for a wedding ring and where the money for it came from, I'd want to know how much the OP's engagement and wedding rings cost and whee the money came from for them.

I don't have any figures on cost of weddings but I suspect that there's a big difference between the cost of an average wedding and the average cost of a wedding, especially if the latter really is £32k.

Honestly it is really difficult to get a
wedding that costs less than £20k

😂

I had a wedding with 40 day guests inc wine , champagne and a 3 course meal. 25 more guests in the evening, a buffet, DJ, a professional wedding cake, brand new wedding dress (inc hair / make up), kilt hire for the groom and 2 others, rings and more for £4K.

Loads of the guests told me it was the best wedding they’ve ever attended.

So how much is the wedding band for you? DH and I bought matching ones at the same time. I think his was more expensive as bigger so more gold. I think we both bought them but as it was nearly 31 years ago, I can't remember. Has he bought your wedding ring, presumably costing similar amounts (seems very expensive) so can't afford his along with it or is this £800 for both rings? Traditionally, the bride gives her husband the wedding ring and if he is buying your then that seems ok. I think, if it was me, I'd pay him back but say no more dosh is available. are his eyes generally bigger than his pocket because if he is in to flashy stuff, that needs bud nipping now. Also, how much was your engagement ring? If he spent a lot on that then he might feel that eight hundred for his ring is not a huge amount.

marriage is, ideally, supposed to be life long not just a party day.

Weddings are such a scam. If you want to commit to someone why do u need to pay thousands to DJs photographers florists bakeries etc ?

A marriage really isn’t the wedding, being married is wonderful it’s just such a shame the wedding has been hijacked to make money on.

My advice would be to stop spending more money on this op, you should be able to have a frank discussion about anything especially money with your OH

I can't get over the fact it has suddenly become apparent that you're running out of money. Have you and your OH heard of budgeting?

Op, I’m glad to see that the two of you have talked about finances and are considering a new arrangement moving forward.

Him buying a ring that strained the wedding budget was concerning. It speaks to many of the problems inherent with your current financial setup. I hope that going forward you can find it easier to communicate about finances and build yourselves into a solid team. Money is one of the biggest stresses to a marriage and communication and cooperation are incredibly important.

Savings should be pooled as well. Also, you should be paying for his ring

I'm enjoying this thread. Can someone explain to me how the £20k would add up? I'm guessing (tell me where I'm wrong)

£5k all day for the 'lovely manor house'
£1k gifts for the minister, mother of groom gifts
£2k bride's hair/make-up & that of her bridal party
£1k some kind of conveyance from church to hall for bride & groom
£1k conveyance for others church to hall
£1k bride & groom's wedding night hotel digs
£1k groom & men's outfits
£4k bride & bridesmaids clothes
£1k flowers
£1k cake
£10k = £100/head for 50 guests

That's £28k, easy.

What am I forgetting or wrong-estimating?

Oops, I meant £10k = £100/head for 100 guests.
Maybe should say £20k for 200 guests. Who doesn't want 200 guests?

I will get this thread removed now as can't be arsed with the posters who having nothing better to do with their time than spread negativity and have a pop at someone they don't know online for how they choose to spend THEIR money

I don't think anyone has been nasty though, they just think you're being unreasonable. You did ask. There are a lot of people struggling to make ends meet, feed their family, keep a roof over their head etc and you're asking for advice on how to fund an £825 ring when you've already blown through £20,000. I think that might be where people are coming from and hoping you'll take a reality check. They're not being nasty to you at all.

no way would I be paying out bloody Four thousand pounds for Bridesmaids/Groomsmens clothes ... WTF ?!

Oh and have a fabulous wedding day. Thinking about it, I think you should buy his ring as it is a symbol of so many things, particularly if he is buying yours. I have only taken mine off for operations and still love it.

Oops! I forgot,
DJ £2k
Photographer £4k
£2k for the ring bling
I think I'm up to £46k.