Do parents not pay for weddings these days??

[justasking111]

I'm thinking we're a bit behind the times in Wales because we still pay as parents for weddings, now it's money dependant, finances allowing as to how much hoopla there is.

I find it sad whenever folks on here talk of saving up for their own wedding

Am I being unreasonable to think it's the final gift to your child??

I’m really hoping my kids have enough sense to see that a contribution to a house deposit is way more important than a party🤷🏼‍♀️

If a couple wants to get married why should there parents pay for it?

Weddings are all getting bigger and more expensive these days, it seems all about the party and beating the last wedding they went too

Whatever happened to marriage being about two people coming together and getting married because they love each other

The smaller the better for me

Our parents each paid for different parts as they wanted to. The one disadvantage from my pov was that this meant PIL felt they could invite loads of their friends and so I felt there were a lot of people I didn't know there.

I live in the north east and my parents paid for my wedding

Have you done a survey of all 3million welsh people OP? That must have taken some time.

I'm welsh and as far as I know most people's parents don't pay for weddings anymore. Some give a contribution but the only friend whose family paid for everything is English (and family very well off!) - and they got divorced within 6 months!

Compared to years ago:

• weddings are much more expensive
• people get married older
• both members of the couple usually work, so should be able to afford the wedding they want themselves
• parents retire later and have longer mortgages plus have also often contributed to uni etc so less money lying around in a wedding fund

I got married in the 90’s and my parents didn’t pay for the wedding.
They paid for the odd thing, but his parents didn’t.

DH and I got married at the registry office (in a non ‘wedding’ dress) with two friends as witnesses. We just took our families out for a meal to celebrate but didn’t have a formal event.

It was more important to us to focus our time, effort and money on building a home together instead. I wasn’t prepared to fork out thousands for a single day all about DH and I, so I certainly wouldn’t let my parents bankroll it for me.

It is kind of a bit unfair as so much money is sitting in the older generations, due to large increases in property prices!

You would want your parents to sell their house in order to pay for a wedding @GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing ? Madness.

It isn't really 'money' in terms of cash sitting with older generations, it is completely unrealised gain. It hardly makes parents able to afford expensive weddings!

I would hate for my parents to sacrifice to pay for my wedding. I'd much rather they spent it on holidays and meals out and pretty much anything else they want. They earnt it, not me!

My dad's Welsh and didn't.pay or indeed contribute to my wedding 27 years ago. Nor did I expect him to.

"Final gift " - so you don't get birthday or Christmas presents to your married children? Will you only leave your inheritance to the unmarried ones?

Why should my parents have paid for my wedding? I paid myself and never even expected them too

My parents (dad and stepmum) paid for most of our wedding 27 years ago, we were both only 24 and dh was still a medical student when we got married, and I'd been teaching for a term! We were young and didn't live together until the wedding.

Mil paid for the flowers, dh paid for the cars, I paid for the dresses and hair/ makeup, fil paid not a bean, and my mother paid for the honeymoon ( basically as it was a gift to us and not helping my dad out with the wedding cost because things were pretty acrimonious at that point).

It was a pretty typical wedding compared to our friends, church service, sit down meal for family/close friends, then an evening ceilidh with all our other friends invited. There were people at the meal I hadn't seen in years but were invited as family friends. It wasn't at all bad form to have a bigger evening do.

Wouldn't do it like that if we were getting married now in our early 50s, but we were very great fil for our parents help.

Ours paid. We absolutely didn’t expect them to and we had already booked our venue etc by the time they offered so we didn’t go over what we could have afforded ourselves. we wouldn’t have accepted if they couldn’t easily afford it but they were happy to do it. We have 3 daughters so only time will tell if we’ll be able to afford to pay for their weddings! But if we can we will. If not we’ll give them a set sum.

I work in the wedding industry and in my experience this happens less and less nowadays. The parents might give a couple of thousand to the couple or more often now, will pay for something in particular like the photographer or the wedding dress.

Where I do still see parents paying for the whole wedding are typically Asian weddings where they’ve spent years saving for it or more upper class families. In that case the invite usually comes from the Bride’s parents and guests will send their thank you cards to them directly in some cases rather than the couple. What also usually happens in that scenario is that the parents treat it like their own wedding, make a lot of decisions and invite a lot of their own friends regardless of whether they’re actually wanted at the wedding by the couple.

My parents paid for my wedding but my in laws didn’t put anything towards it. I don’t think people expect it of their parents but it’s very welcome if they offer.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

It is kind of a bit unfair as so much money is sitting in the older generations, due to large increases in property prices!

Not always!!

We still had a mortgage!

So we paid a sum towards.

My parents paid for mine. They sold their campervan to do it, which paid for the small wedding, honeymoon and £500 for a bond on a flat. My mother gave my husband £100 to go and choose me a dress himself, which he did.
The wedding was the best gift I have ever had, or ever will. That was 20 years ago.

Final gift to a child?

I hope not. Divorce raetes are 50%, so no way will I spend or encourounge big spending.
I dislike weddings and am cynical about marriage anyway.

I can't image why you would expect someone else to pay for something like this. It is hardly a necessity.

And yes, in-laws contributed too.

And I bought both my daughters' wedding dresses

I got married in 1987 and we paid for our own wedding. Divorced now.

No, our parents never paid.

My Mum gave us a lump sum towards but we paid for everything ourselves. I preferred it that way. If someone else was paying they would have a say in how we had it, I'd rather foot the bill and have it completely how we chose to have it.

@Kelly7889

My parents paid for mine. They sold their campervan to do it, which paid for the small wedding, honeymoon and £500 for a bond on a flat. My mother gave my husband £100 to go and choose me a dress himself, which he did. The wedding was the best gift I have ever had, or ever will. That was 20 years ago.

Did you not feel awfully guilty that they sold their campervan to pay for your wedding? Similarly those whose parents took out loans to pay for them. No way would I let me parents do anything like that.

Haven't read the the thread, but I'm guessing that in ye olden days, when people got married and had babies at close to 20 than 30 as they do now, it made sense for parents to pay for weddings.

Nowadays, if a couple are both nearer 30 than 20, they've been working for long enough to afford to pay for their own wedding.

(I actually think it's the parents of the bride, rather than parents in general that are/were supposed to pay?)

I’ll give a house deposit but nothing for basically a big party.

I keep seeing the house deposit thing. What if they already own their home?

In my case, both me and my husband already owned our own homes when we married. We didn’t need a house deposit.