Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

In Laws refusing to pay for their share of wedding

230 replies

tigersmum · 03/09/2007 11:16

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.

OP posts:
HorseyWoman · 06/09/2007 12:14

You did make assumptionas about their finances:

By tigersmum on Mon 03-Sep-07 11:44:44
its not as if they are short of money. They have been giving us a cheque each month for the past year as they said all their money was tied up in some sort of savings account and to let them know what the final bill is at the end so they could draw out the money so not to lose too much interest, and now they are saying they have paid enough. Its not as if we havnt helped out the newly weds in the past, its what parents do.

PinkChick · 06/09/2007 12:16

i dont think thats an assumption?, shes going off what they TOLD her?!

Tortington · 06/09/2007 12:16

i would fuck the whole thing off - go to the registrars
invite no one

and spend any money on a shagfest honeymoon bonanza
so if you money you actually have is
£55
thats a night in a travel lodge

howver if you have a bit more maybe you could fly to spain for a week.

FOR THE LIFE of me i cannot comprehend why you would entertain this whole debacle with family - then invite them to your wedding
and pretend your happy.

its bulshit in the highest.

HorseyWoman · 06/09/2007 12:18

No one said you were in the wrong. People have just been giving you reasons why they might have about-turned. You have then got defensive with people making these suggestions. But why else would they make the turnaround? It can't just be to hurt their son! It could be jealousy that your daughter now 'has' their son. Your presentation sounds like it had something to do with it, but only because of the comment made by another IL. They are probably envious of your gift to your daughter and SIL, and maybe felt sidelined (not saying they were right to feel that way). Changing their minds is wrong and you did the right thing confronting them in writing, but people wanted to know how much they had already contributed, in order to make a judgement about how unreasonable they were being.

The fact they didn't buy a present would have been superfluous if they had contributed, but if they haven't contributed, a present would have been nice I think.

HorseyWoman · 06/09/2007 12:19

Yes, the fact it is tied up in 'some sort of savings account' (ISA maybe), means it makes sense they were sending cheques from their monthly income instead.

HorseyWoman · 06/09/2007 12:20

Whatever the ins and outs... THEY were wrong to say they would contribute, and THEY were wrong to go back on this.

Original poster
tigersmum · 06/09/2007 12:21

We are just fed up with this sorry mess. We just want the suit hire money from them and we will leave it at that. We will mention it to DD and SIL but not as soon as they get back from honeymoon, we will wait a couple of days as we know this will cause them upset, but feel they have to know why we would not be to happy about meeting the in laws in the near future. Its a little too early to all be best mates. .

OP posts:
monalisasmile · 06/09/2007 12:22

Tigersmum.

Im so sorry if you feel that some of the responses you have received have been more hurtful than helpful.

I can only speak for myself, but hope others will agree that the intention was never to get at you in any way. You posed a question and it is being debated. Its obviously a very sensitive matter to you, so I can understand how you are feeling.

I think the reason some people have become a little frustrated is because the question of how much info the in-laws were or have been given remains unclear.

I can understand your disappointment in that 'the £2,800 we asked them for was nowhere near half, so we thought we were being very reasonable, seing as they said two and a half years ago that they would pay HALF'. I think issue of 'reasonableness' is relative to the overall costings and whether they are aware of the overall costs AS WELL.

I would again say that I dont think it unreasonable to assume that some of the feelings and behaviour on both sides appear that stemmed from greater or lesser assumptions. OK,'they didnt give a wedding present because my DD said so, I did not assume this fact', but I can see that there are a series of very important WHY questions and it is the underlying REASONING that is largely being debated here. Some of us are just trying to consider this from the angle of the in-laws point of view, and what would cause us to go back on an agreement if we were in their position.(Though I would agree that some of it has been quite abrasive).

Yes, they HAVE gone back on their word and its sad that you feel as though you have been personally attacked over this thread. Im sorry that you got more that you bargained for and hope that you were at least able to make a confident decision about how the money issue can be resolved.

fireflyfairy2 · 06/09/2007 12:23

What size of a cheque have they been giving you every month for the past year

Seems to me they don't believe the wedding actually cost what you said it did maybe?

Or were they under the impression that the suit hire & the bar bill etc was added into the cost. (In fact I suppose the suit hire should have been added in, it usually is)

monalisasmile · 06/09/2007 12:24

Gosh, im so bl88dy slow at typing! I started writing my post after reading TM's post of 11:50, so sorry if its already been said, makes no sense, or if you've alerady moved on from those points. x

cornsilk · 06/09/2007 12:30

Tigersmum - I'm sorry if you feel attacked. I was asking if the in laws knew how much the total cost would be when they agreed to pay half. Pink chick said that was further down the thread and they did know so I must have missed that. Hope you get it sorted out.

mistlethrush · 06/09/2007 12:32

TM - can you send them a pointed message to the effect 'will you tell your son or shall we?' ?

fireflyfairy2 · 06/09/2007 12:34

mistlethrush that just sounds like veiled blackmail. Not something I would advise.

HorseyWoman · 06/09/2007 12:40

Well I can only imagine the son is going to be devastated. I can sympathise on the suit hire thing because my aunt and uncle did the same to us. The bar bill is ridiculous.

monalisasmile · 06/09/2007 12:44

I think FF2 makes a good point. Its one thing being given a final share or the overall bill, but without knowing what was included and excluded from that bill then its easy for the ILs to make assumptions. By the way, were your family's suit hire and bar bill included or excluded from your calculations?

From their point of view, I can would have difficulty understanding how a £2800 share of a bill can cause confusion, without having sight of how that figure came from and what it relates to.

On the payment of the honeymoon issue, I can also see how it could be seen as semantics. Assuming that the honeycost was no more that their £2800 share, I would question why it has been appropriated as your separate gift. I understand that you have NOT included that in the overall costings, BUT (unless i missed it among all the posts), there does not appear to have been any recognition of their financial input, only your efforts. It kind of looks like you agreed to do something TOGETHER and in presenting the honeymoon gift your efforts were clearly separate. They probably felt embarrassed about the possible expectation from guests to award their gift at that time.

Original poster
tigersmum · 06/09/2007 13:01

They were given a detailed breakdown of costs and our suit hire was not included in it and we didnt have a bar bill because we paid as we ordered just like everyone else. They also knew about our gift of a honeymoon well before the wedding as they actually offered to give us some cash to change into currency for them, which they didnt do in the end. If they wanted to give them a gift on the day then they had every opportunity do do this. I know that ALL my family who attended beleived that the in laws would be contributing to the day because I made sure I told them that both sets of parents were sharing the cost as we purposly didnt want anyone thinking that we had paid for it all.

OP posts:
fireflyfairy2 · 06/09/2007 13:03

OMG you actually told people you were paying for the wedding... why?

It's not something that has ever came up in conversation at any weddings I have ever been at!!

Original poster
tigersmum · 06/09/2007 13:11

Not at the wedding obviously but family have asked over the past two years if we needed any help with the cost and we said no as we had been saving up and the inlaws would be paying half, so of course everyone ,at least on our side knew.

OP posts:
cornsilk · 06/09/2007 13:12

I ma a bit surprised that your dd discussed with you that they hadn't given them a present.

themildmanneredjanitor · 06/09/2007 13:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cornsilk · 06/09/2007 13:14

No, I wouldn't say at all if someone hadn't bought me a gift.

fireflyfairy2 · 06/09/2007 13:15

Family asked if you needed any hel- paying the wedding...

Sorry, this just sounds unbelievable now. Why would they be interested in who paid for what??

Original poster
tigersmum · 06/09/2007 13:26

Family asked if we needed help with costs as we are NOT as wealthy as people have assumed.
My DD mentioned about not getting a gift from them as both her and SIL were a little surprised that they didnt even get a card.

OP posts:
Elizabetth · 06/09/2007 13:47

I think the people here who are attacking tigersmum need to have a word with themselves or at least a good long look at what they think they are doing.

Tigersmum is the one who has been wronged here to the tune of nearly £3k and the people who are kicking her when she is down are not helping.

If £3k isn't a large sum in your lives then lucky old you, but for a lot of people it's a lot of money. And however important or unimportant you might think the money is, the point is that a promise was made that was broken.

Sorry your every action is being picked to pieces and criticised TM. People seem to be offended for some reason, I can't think why. It's not their wedding or their family after all.

P.S. I'd definitely tell my mum if my in-laws hadn't bought be a present. I bet there aren't many weddings where that happens.

HorseyWoman · 06/09/2007 13:55

My inlaws didn't give us our present (£250 towards the wedding) until about a month later, because they couldn't afford to. No one is kicking her when they are down; they are trying to establish why it happened so they can give adequate advice. As the thread's gone on and certain people have become more defensive and unwilling to listen to what other posters are saying (rather than see that most of us are actually agreeing that the ILs were wrong), people have got very frustrated. I am also ashamed to say that until we got back from honeymoon, we didn't know who had bought what for us.