to want to thump DH for giving his sister £1200 withing consulting me?

[howdidthishappenthen]

DH's sister is getting married in March. She can't afford the wedding she wants but is cool about that, and just getting on with it. We're totally brassic and selling worldly possessions on Ebay to make ends meet BUT may be richer in a couple of months if/when we manage to sell the house. So I suggested to DH last night that IF AND WHEN we sell the house, it'd be nice to give his sister some money to help her out.

TODAY he calls to say he's just promised we'll pay for her photographer @ £1200. I am effing livid. He has apologised, but not grovelled in abject submission (which is what I think is called for, frankly). I am also v put out that I am now the horrible meanie on this, when it was me that suggested we make the offer in the damn first place! Views pls ladies?

Accept it and move on. Grovelling abject submission a bonus IMO. It's been done, you can't go back on it, you'll have to suck it up.

But bring it up at all available opportunities when he disagrees with you. ie...."Well I think we should paint the bathroom apple green." "Well, we'd better go with what you think, hadn't we, otherwise you'll just go behind my back and give your sister £1200, won't you?"

I would be fecking livid too. But I don't see there's much you can do about it.

YANBU ( well, to be displeased, maybe not thump) - as you'd already made a generous suggestion he has no excuse for not having discussed it with you properly.

TBH I'm a bit at £1200 for photos - I know I'm out of touch with weddings but that seems like an awful lot.

Maybe would be best to accept that at least you're giving her a very nice wedding present that she will appreciate, never forget, and won't ever get 'recycled' !

you need to get to the bottom of why he has done this when you are struggling.

YANBU - and a thump may be in order .

@ £1200 for photos!!!!!

I wouldn't pay that for mine, let alone someone elses [tight arse emoticon].

Even when you do sell your house, can you afford to just give away £1200?

Second the thump.

If your SIL is getting married within travelling distance of Southampton I can recommend a cheaper, excelent photographer that we used (got married in Dorset btw).

I'd start selling all his things now. Especially electricals...

£1200 is bonkers. If you can't afford the wedding you want, surely you'd divert some of that £1200 elsewhere? £1200 seems like a 'no expenses spared' wedding cost to me.

I know. It's £1200 because he's just booked the the same photographer we had at our own wedding a couple of years ago when we were both earning and when our mortgage was half what it was now, and we consciously decided to put a big part of the budget into this because it was important to us. I had anticipated when I made the suggestion that we would give her cash (between £500-1000 depending on what we could afford at the time) so she could choose how to spend it on what was important to her at her own wedding, but there you go...

AND (and I know I'm milking it here, bear with me..) I've already cheerfully agreed to lend her my entire wedding outfit for the day (shoes, jewellery, wrap, veil - the lot bar the dress) to cut down on what she has to buy, AND I haven't mentioned a WORD about the fact she's set the date 2 weeks after I'm due to give birth to DD2 (her venue is a 12 round trip for us). Can I apply for my halo on this one yet?

£1200 is OK provided that you get stunning pictures and fab prints. It is not OK if it secures the services of a so-called "professional" photographer who plans to deliver 800, not entirely focussed, slanty images passed off as "reportage".

Having said that, while it is very kind of your DH to meet the costs, it'd have been rather more reasonable to discuss the precise detail with you first. Only I'd find £1200 a tad eye-watering to be honest. Especially if I found out after the event, so to speak.

I am in the middle of a photography course at the moment and I'd do it for the cost of printing the pictures, for practise and my portfolio if she's near Portsmouth!!!!

Although at the moment I can only print to A3.

I do have quite a good eye, or so I have been told by photographers agents.

id be right rount boot the chemist buying a party pack of disposible cameras

although not to this scale - i seem to find myself in the ops circumstances frequently.

dh on sunday mid convo re: his mum & Dads anniversary present and what we were going to get them " wellwe (he and BIL) decided let dad keep the money we lent him as a present for the wedding anniversary"

"that's nice, when were you going to discuss this with me?"
"i thought i told you"

exactly the same - i feel the meanie - when i suggested giving them some money when we got paid because they are eternally skint.

so in short

thump him

YANBU
And £1200 to spend on wedding photos is too much, when the rest of the wedding is going to be much less fancy.

Can you talk to her and say that while you are happy to help them out, and that you were in fact the one who suggested it, that you feel that spending so much money on a photographer is really a bit silly. And can she think of anything else that she would rather have the money for.

You could perhaps say that you will give them say, £500 but if/when you sell the house will gladly help out a bit more.

It sounds like you get on with her fairly well? So could you phone her and explain that although it was your idea to give them some money, your dh has been an idiot and you can't afford this much, and you can't afford anything right now. You're only going to resent it, otherwise.

And she is probably wishing she could have the money and a cheaper photographer, anyway.