Not thanked at engagement party

[Whoisunreasonable]

To cut a long story short it was my son’s engagement party recently. Marrying a lovely girl. After they booked the party we were sent details and times, not given anymore info. We turned up and party was very extravagant and fancy. Turned out the brides family paid for the whole thing. We gifted them £75 as an engagement present.

Son made a small speech and cheers with champagne thanking everyone for coming and for presents and then thanked brides parents for all of the efforts they’d put into planning the party and for paying for it. No thanks to any of his side of the family at all. I raised this with him and he didn’t see my problem at all. He told me it wasn’t a wedding speech where he was thanking everyone individually, just a few words and it would be rude not to thank them. AIBU to think he should have thanked us too? It was very embarrassing not to even be mentioned. I asked if he needed me to do anything for the party and was told no as they had vendors doing it.

I noticed this too. And add that whole fuss about not wanting to put the 75 quid in the card because it wouldn't be "safe" and that's why she had to do a bank transfer the next day.

Not safe why? Because OP thinks the future DIL's family, or the couple's friends who they love and trust enough to invite in the first place, will nick 75 quid? That's quite offensive.

We are in a much better financial position now but we want to be fair to all of our children. We gave the next one £75 and son is the final one getting married so we gave the same so nobody felt it was unfair

Have you never heard of inflation?

You should work for the DWP. They haven't heard of inflation, either.
🤣

You are being ridiculous. He thanked them for paying for it, it would have been extremely rude of him not to. You didn't pay for it so nothing to thank you for.

The £75 reasoning is bizarre with a significant age gap.

@gannett to be fair, I have heard of money being stolen at weddings generally assumed by staff, so it is sensible not to leave cash and indeed expensive gifts lying around at a public venue.

I literally quoted the response in my email. Someone else has also put you right above.
I agree with you FGS

"And a special thanks to my mum who insisted I invite my fifth cousin twice removed and their entire bloodline thus making this wedding twice the cost we budgeted for"

Oh for God’s sake! Does it matter? It’s not the wedding. You were thanked for the present. It’s all a big song and dance for an engagement anyway, but stop thinking it should be all about you.

I sort of know where you are coming from. A quick thanks mum and dad for everything would have been nice. I think your son has been thoughtless rather than cruel.

Just try and forget about it and look forward to the wedding.

But it isn’t fair because of inflation. So to make it fair you’d need to work out what £75 the year your eldest son was engaged would be now with inflation, because as you say you could buy a lot more with it then.

You also say that you’re traditional and old school. I’m only 40 and I’d say I’m quite traditional in terms of manners etc and your son and dil didn’t do anything rude at all.

If you are that traditional, it is the bride’s parents who pay and host the wedding, the bride’s parents name on the invite etc.

I think you are using your self descriptor as “traditional and old school”, when really you are rigid and controlling.

It is not up to you to “remind” your son who to invite. It’s their wedding.

You have notions of how things ‘should’ be done, but it’s not your wedding. You think you are being fair to your children by matching gifted money, but it’s not counting for inflation so the eldest children get more than the youngest. It just makes you look tight tbh. I think you are upset they aren’t having an engagement party at home or the pub so you can do a few decorations and not spend any money. And I’m saying this as someone frugal.

If you don’t rein in your comments and ‘advice’ now you are going to find yourself in the cold when grandchildren arrive.

I’m sorry but reading between the lines you sound like hard work to have as a mum. It’s not all about you.

OP 95% of people think you are being unreasonable so I think you have your answer.

You wanted thanks but you said they did thank you via thanking their family.
You said it wasn’t their wedding but wanted the speeches to be wedding like.
You brought it up to your son and he told you that (by which he also implies he did thank you, that they would at the wedding and it was fine) but you still didn’t agree because it wasn’t what you wanted.

You wanted it to be about you. Unfortunately weddings are about the bride and groom. Yeah you raised the kid but it’s his wedding and his engagement dinner.

Engagement dinners are about bringing everyone together and blending families. You have shown that your feelings should be put first above this point.

God help your son if he doesn’t thank you in exactly the right way at his wedding or you may never speak to him again.

This isn’t something to be upset over and it sounds like as you are “losing” your last child you are making it about you.

Just wondering what he would actually be thanking you for at the engagement party? You didn't contribute to the costs of the event, you weren't involved in organising the event, so what would the thanks be for?

Make sure the Best Man knows how you feel so he can sort out a Certificate of Attendance for you at the wedding. If you get an invite after this drama.

But what did you want to be thanked FOR?

He thanked his in laws for the party, and his fiancée for agreeing to marry him.

What did you want a thanks for?

If he has let me help then he could have thanked me for the help at least- I don’t know what else I could have done

From your posts it’s pretty clear why they didn’t want/need your help. It seems you have very different styles and you come across as quite old fashioned and will do things your way. Also you say, you had to keep reminding them of the people to invite to their party. Says it all. Surely, they know who they wanted to invite as opposed to who you wanted to be there, so they likely felt harassed.

No idea what you wanted thanks for that wouldn’t have been embarrassing. ‘Thanks everyone for coming and your kind gifts. I’d like to call out my mum and dad who have also come and given a gift’? Or, ‘in addition I’d like to thank my mum who offered to help (and harassed us to invite some of you we didn’t want’. Seriously, if you had of been thanked the girlfriend and her parents would have been scratching their heads wondering what the fuck you were being thanked for specific to the engagement party as that’s what his speech was directly related to.

The money thing is also odd. You can’t give someone 75 and then someone 75 years later and claim you have given the same amount. Have you not heard of indexing? If you are fixated on being equal then give amounts of equal value which means you need to use indexing, so they may have received different amounts but they are of equal value, it’s pretty simple.

OP the kind of thanks you are missing are traditionally done in the wedding speeches. I just cannot see how this type of thanks would be have a logical place at an engagement party. You've already said you are quite traditional so you should understand this.

I think maybe you've been blindsided by the extravagance of the party and don't know what to make of it all. Please remember this would have been mostly arranged by his wife to be and her parents: that's how they wanted it, no need for you to feel left out. You offered help (very kind of you) but they had hired people to do it professionally which is how many choose to do it these days if they have the money. You had zero role in the whole thing and feel very out of sorts about it. I imagine that for you busying about with acts of service is a way in which you express you love for your family. However, in your narration of your interactions with your son, you are coming across as somewhat overbearing. He will always be your son but he is about to become a separate family unit with his wife and they will have their own way of doing things which might be alien to you but it's not all about you. Please tread lightly if you want to enjoy a positive relationship with him and his new wife. This type of mithering and fussing does not augur well for future relations.

That's strange thinking. You should give an equivalent amount today not the same amount.Prices have increased enormously. So if £75 bought - for example- a hoover which now costs £250, you should give £250. If you give the same amount, you in effect give less.

So you are agreeing that your deleted response was bitchy and unecessary. Good, because it was.

Thanks for what though?

I get why you might’ve felt left out in the moment and it wouldn’t have hurt him to reference you in some way, but you come across as quite rigid in your thinking - non-inflationary monetary gift, expecting the party to be structured in a certain way, wanting a say on guest list - and I wonder if you are actually that close to your DS and if his non-mention is a reflection of the distance between you? Also, see this as a rehearsal for the actual wedding - it sounds like DIL’s family could be heavily involved and you need to wrap your head around that and make peace with it or risk a fallout.

There’s more to this I’m sure. You say both families are of equal wealth but then the in laws have funded a fancy party with things you didn’t know existed, I’m intrigued as to what that is. plus the £75 having to be the same as the other DC is bizarre if they got married some years ago.

So either you’re a stingy or deluded.

The brush off of your offers of help are probably significant.

You’re heading for trouble. You’re put out because you can see you’re being pushed out in favour of the in laws. Address whatever is going on here, don’t be the pita mother.

We gave £75 as that is what we gave our eldest when they got married. There is quite a big age gap so this was more than a few years ago where £75 got you a lot more and it was all we could afford. We are in a much better financial position now but we want to be fair to all of our children. We gave the next one £75 and son is the final one getting married so we gave the same so nobody felt it was unfair.

Oh for gods sake, your kids probably don’t even remember how much you gave them let alone comparing with each other and keeping tabs. I suppose you do seem to be keeping tabs on who gets thanked etc and everything must. be. exactly. equal so maybe your kids are the same.

Sounds like they didn’t thank her parents for everything they’ve done, ie raising her (maybe I missed it), but thanked them for the party. We don’t raise our kids to be thanked for it tbh. You didn’t contribute to the party, and were thanked for your monetary gift, so sounds fair enough.

I think best thing to do now is draw a line under it and start preparing yourself for your reactions to the wedding. It won't be the type of wedding you would plan, it will probably be along the lines of the party, you probably won't be involved in any planning and you won't be able to add extra guests like you did for the party. You have time to prepare yourself for all this now so there won't be disappointment and disagreements in the run up to, or God forbid on the big day

I have to say this thread is getting me slightly worried about contributions to weddings in the future when and if DS decides to get married.

Our wedding cost £10k 20 years ago, and embarrassingly now in my mind I have this as a set figure of how much a decent wedding should cost, but of course inflation means something on a similar scale would likely cost at least 3 x as much. Plus DS has upmarket taste in DGFs so we wouldn't want to feel like the poor relatives compared to any future ILs.

OP I don't know how much you are planning to contribute to the wedding, but I would suggest for family harmony you give it to them as a lump sum without preconditions or expectations that it's used for a certain thing or demands on who attends.