In Laws refusing to pay for their share of wedding

[tigersmum]

They agreed to pay half the wedding costs and now a week after the wedding they are saying that they have given them enough money in the past, like deposit for the house, double glazing, and they said they would rather but them a new boiler, whats wrong with the one they have?, rather than pay the £2,800 we aked them for which by the way is no where near half as it cost us £13,000. What the hell do we tell daughter and son in law when they get back from honeymoon at the end of the week.

You see, you obviously didn't mind spending all your savings on your daughters wedding. Looks like the other couple did mind.

I would feel awful if I was your daughter. I would hate to think you thought badly of my in-laws & that this would colour your impression of my husband.

The savings were not life savings but money we put away specifically for the wedding as we had two and a half years to save into the wedding fund, good job we saved more than we needed as we had to pay their share. We have not really had too much to do with them over the years, their choice, just not very sociable people, so probs wont have too much to do with them in the future, which suits us, and non of this will cloud what we think of our new son in law. Thankfully.

So are you actually asking them to pay £2800 on top of the monthly cheques they have already paid you? It wasn't made clear from your first post. You still have not said how much they have given you already, yet you say they are saying they have paid enough. How much was the deposit for the house, and the double glazing? Maybe the bank of mum and dad just ran dry. The wedding costs do seem a bit high to me - it's possible it was just too much for them in the end. It certainly would be for me.

If I thought for one second that they could not afford it then we would not have asked them, Trust me they had contributed hardly anything in the monthly cheques and the cost of the wedding could have been a lot higher. You could spend a lot more than £13,000.

If they had a limit on how much they wanted to spend they should have been clear about it before the wedding when changes could have been made instead of leaving it until afterwards when there is nothing anyone can do.

Tigersmum I'm really sorry you've had to dip into other savings to cover their shortfall. That really stinks.

When they agreed to pay half of the wedding costs was a total amount agreed upon? Could they have anticipated paying a lot less than the final amount?

OK tigersmum, fair enough. We know the cost of the wedding was £13,000. We don't know how much the in-laws have paid towards this, because you won't say. Therefore, I can't say whether they have been unreasonable or not. And I'm surprised anyone with the same information can come to any conclusion either. I'd like to hear their side.

I quite agree though that you could spend more than £13,000. You could also spend an awful lot less.

havent' read all the replies...

I don't think parents / PILs should feel in any way obliged to contribite financially to their offsprings wedding BUT if they agree to contribute I would say it is appallingly bad form to then back out after the wedding. How bastardly of them. And what a miserable dispute to have to come back from honeymoon to.

If they agreed to contribute then they should, it is not acceptable to go back on their word. However, I find the idea of families contributing to weddings really odd. We paid for our own wedding, and as much as I hope that in the future I can help ds out with university expenses and deposit for house etc I have no intention of contributing towards what is essentially an extravagent party.

They may have agreed to contribute towards the cost of the marriage..and they probably see the price of the windows & the boiler etc plus the monthly cheques, as enough.

Just because you want to give your dd money etc doesn't mean they should have to.

They might think their son & your dd need to learn to stand on their own 2 feet??

I asked before about the cost of the dresses, flowers etc. I was thinking that if your daughter was wearing a very expensive dress etc the in laws may now begrudge going halves. Lets face it, at a wedding a lot is spent making it a dream day for the bride (and dare I say her mother.)Then with your husband making a presentation during the wedding they may have felt sidelined.

"how bastardly of them"

great line!

Agree totally with cornsilk & fireflyfairy.

God, all this kind of thing makes me a glad I had a tiny wedding, fecked off all the extended family, and paid for it ourselves. What a way to start your married life!

Well, I think they are unreasonable to go back on their word, but I think you are unreasonable for assuming what they can and cannot afford. They could have 50 houses all around the world, but you could never know the financial situation of another person, no matter how much you think the SIL has told you or they have told you. Even if you've seen their bank statements. I think this could well cause a huge rift and would rather have the moral highground that cause my daughter in-law grief for the rest of her days!

Sorry, read that as cause in-law grief for my daughter...

Three grand is a lot to pay for the moral high ground.

maybe their financial situation has changed?

Yes, but I think I'd rather lose out than go through my life having a hellish relationship with my in-laws. That's if tigersmum can afford to pay the difference, though, I guess. Not saying they are right to deny the money, but it may not be worth fighting about.

I think what you need to ask yourself is:

Would daughter and SIL have scaled down the catering/dress/decor/flowers etc if they weren't promised the 3k, or would they have found the money elsewhere?

I know our budget was not really set in stone, but then we paid for ours ourselves so we pleased ourselves. If we had needed another £500 for seats, we would have found it.

If it is the case that you would have found the other 3k to do the things whether promised by in-laws or not, then I think you need to find that 3k now and let the SIL decide how he behaves around his mum. I'm just guessing that the caterers won't care who pays for it until it isn't paid...

Ive only skim read the responses, so apologies in advance if this has already been said.

I think that the issue about what could have or would have been said or done is irrelevant at this time. I really do sympathise with your position tigersmum and I dont think it is easily resolvable.

My instincts would also be to take the moral high ground and leave the ball in their court, BUT I strongly feel that it may strengthen your position and give you better peace of mind if you take that stance following a dialogue (or attempt at) with the in-laws.

It is possible that the reason they have decided to renege on their agreement is likely to be based on assumptions that they have drawn. You stated that they declined your daughters offer of involvement in the plans. Could it be that they have assumed or interpreted the honeymoon presentation as YOUR daughter obtaining her wishes at THEIR expense? And perhaps more painfully, at THEIR expense, but in YOUR (and your DH's) name? I can kind of understand that they may feel put out that the gift was from you and your DH and no the parents collectively. Particularly if there was nothing to indicate that THEIR significant financial input. Please dont take this as an accusation, im just trying to be objective, so its just a thought.

Maybe they have rationalised their decision to themselves on the basis that they have and will continue to provide on-going financial assistance (hence the reference to the boiler), whereas they may view your contribution as a one-off?

Do they know that the total bill exceeded £13k?

I think that unless you and you DH are able to speak to the in-laws, nothing will actually be established and ill-feeling on both sides will continue to fester and possible escalate. I think meeting up with them will give both sides the opportunity to get things off their respective chests and enable the opinions on both sides to be aired and discussed. There is still chance that you may still disagree, but that's not the point im trying to make. If they STILL refuse to honour their agreement, I think then that is the time to take the 'moral high ground stance'.

Sorry to go on, but I just think that this could escalate into something really ugly and both sides may sadly end up hurt. Badly. If your daughter and her husband are blessed with a child, what may happen at the christening? What will happen at Christmas? will there be a determined effort to keep both in-laws apart? I just feel that in these situations its important to attempt to UNDERSTAND where the other party is coming from, even if you dont actually AGREE with it.

Hope that makes some sort of sense. But I say this coming froma large family where these kind of situations have dominated inter-sibling conflict.

The bride's parents usually pay, don't they and most people try to avoid such expensive weddings unless it's very very clear who is paying I suppose. Anyway difficult situation. Legally it is presumably whoever booked and whose name the invoices are in. Also may be you can sort it out - let them know it was £13k and if they really will not pay half that or even the £2800 then may be they could lend it to their child for 5 years or something like that.

Just needed to say that the honeymoon was our wedding present to them both and NOT part of the wedding costs so are not asking them to pay for the honeymoon.

Did you do a public presentation of the honeymoon at the wedding tiger? If so I too feel this might have angered them.

I think there may be a misunderstanding there, perhaps when they agreed to pay part of the expenses they had not anticipated what the final cost would be. TBH if my father/mother/friend were to tell me to do whatever I wanted for my wedding and then let them know how much it was... well, unless I was Paris Hilton, I guess I would take that offer with a pinch of salt, first because they are very likely not to have idea how expensive some ridiculously unnecessary things in weddings may be.

It seems to me that if you really need to claim £2800 back with so much vehemency, you have clearly overspent. TBH it is far far cheaper to accept that money as a loss than to give your daughter the inmense diservice of family problems.

I would back off, that money is not that important, and I'm telling you this as a person who started planning the wedding looking at MIL as a good friend, but the chain of events that have derived from those initial problems is so discusting that you wouldn't believe it. This has brought DH and me a lot of pain, and has almost ruined our marriage, it has separated the family, the few family gatherings we had been to were so tense that you could cut the air with a knife. Happy ocassions that should have been filled with joy like my pregnancy and the birth of my son were pestered by stupid things resurfacing all the time. We were not seeing much of her lately but after grossly oversteping the mark last week... I will consider myself lucky if I don't see her again in the rest of my life. And believe me, you have to get through lots of rubish to get to this point.