If one side paid for your wedding, did they pay for everyone?

[User09876543217]

Im planning a wedding, my DP is an only child and his parents are very excited and want us to have a huge wedding.

We started looking at places and MIL found an incredible but very expensive place. We agreed on numbers and most details, let MIL know how much the deposit is and she transferred half the amount. DP asked about other half and MIL assumed my parents were covered the other half. They are not. I said that information would have been useful at the beginning, but she assured us this is how it is in most families. We will work it out, it’s not an argument but I just wanted to know others have sorted this.
Thanks.

These days I would expect the couple getting married to pay for everything. If either set if parents want to pay for something specific they can offer e.g. Brides parents might like to pay for brides dress, grooms parents may offer to pay for drinks or cake. Crucially parents do t get to say what they want just because they are paying!

@User09876543217

Is this a joke? So your mother in law (and you I guess as you agreed,) decided you were gonna have a massively expensive wedding - at a massively expensive place. And she transferred half the money to you... So she is only paying HALF, when SHE wants this massive wedding for her precious little soldier.

And then you went to your parents and asked them for the other half without even actually consulting them and asking if an outlandish amount to pay is OK??? Whose idea was this???!? What a horrible thing to do to your parents.

ALSO... Do NOT take a loan out to appease your bloody controlling mother in law. She sounds bloody awful by the way. I hope your DH (to be) always sides with you and not her in life when you're married, coz if not, you're in for a rough ride.

Going back to your actual question ... IMO, it's really grabby and entitled to expect their parents to pay for your wedding. Unless they offer to pay for it, and you know they're properly minted, there's absolutely no way you should expect your parents to pay for your wedding. If they offer and they are NOT wealthy, then say NO. Pay for it yourself FGS.

The bride's family paying for the wedding is a pathetic old 'tradition' that should never have been a thing. Are you also going to stay at home and give up your career and play the little wifey, cooking dinner for your husband and warming his slippers up for him, and taking orders for him? Because a man being the breadwinner and the boss of the household is 'traditional' too.

You're grown ass adults. You're probably going to have a mortgage. You're probably going to have kids. Pay for your own wedding. For the record me and DH paid for ours in its entirety as we could afford it and didn't want to burden our parents, and we are going to pay a third to our DC's weddings... (both of them.) Their partners parents will pay a third - and then they'll pay a third.

Like the other posters who paid for their own wedding on here, Me and DH, invited exactly who we wanted and had exactly the WEDDING we wanted... We only invited 33 people, really close friends and the closest family members ... We did not have the extra 40-ish extended family members we both had that were expecting to come (even though we have fuck all to do with them, see them once or twice a year in passing, and they don't even bother sending Christmas cards.)

The majority of them didn't speak to us for about 5 or 6 years after for not being invited to our wedding. Some never spoke to us again as they were SO enraged at not being invited. It was actually quite a bonus for us to be honest to have these people out of our lives altogether. Acting like you should be invited to a wedding just cause you're loosely related to someone and then snubbing/ghosting them if you're NOT invited is utterly pathetic.

Sorted the wheat from the chaf it did. Me and DH ended up with only the people who are really close and dear to us in our lives.

I would have a break from talking about wedding planning with anyone other than your partner.

you guys go back to the drawing board and decide what it is you want. Then find a venue you love, within your budget and the guest list you want (including family on both sides).
then talk to parents again, say this is what we’re doing, we have budgeted for it but if you’d like to contribute then that would be lovely but this IS the plan.

MIL can be as excited or grumpy about it as she likes but she doesn’t get to insist on a big wedding you don’t want / can’t afford or tell you who to invite at the expense of having the people you want there.

I was very lucky.

My dad paid for my entire wedding, 12 years ago around £18k

DH's parents gave my dad a cheque for £5k a few days before the wedding, it was a nice touch but was not expected.

There was no expectations from us for mt dad to pay but we knew form the start he would but I knew not to go crazy with it and we approved everything before we booked/purchased.

I’ve never heard of this arrangement. Sounds like she’s had second thoughts about paying for it 🤷‍♀️

We paid ourwedding

We paid for both our children’s weddings. We realise we are in a fortunate position to be able to do this. We did not want to have any say in the wedding or guest list.
I think MIL is a CF. She just assumes your parents can pay for the other half. She should keep out of choosing venues.

@greenteaandmarshmallows So you expected someone else to spend heaps?!
MIL chose the place not the OP

When I was wedding planning (didn't actually get married thankfully) my dad told me he contribute £x to spend a wee saw fit. My mum said she would also contribute something. Neither expected any say on where it was or who was invited.
Then DPs parents weren't in a position to, and probably wouldn't have anyway.

Anything we wanted to spend above that we would have paid for ourselves.

If she wants a big white wedding and you don’t care either way then she has to pay for it.

There is no set precedent.

Me and DH paid half and my mum and grandparents paid the other half.

My mum and grandad paid the same amount toward one of my brothers and his wife’s family matched it.

My other brother has just got married and his whole budget was the amount my
mum and grandfather gave.

Therefore important to have quite up front discussions at the get go as individual circumstances will differ.

My Dad gifted us some money which pretty much covered our entire wedding. (£3k)
My gran paid for our flowers as a gift.

His family paid nothing.
We paid the final bar bill which was also very little.

My parents and DPs parents each gave us 3k. We paid the rest (about 3k)

PIL gave theirs freely, my mother didn't, in hindsight and I wish we hadn't taken it

That’s weird, and why is she so involved. Our parents both contributed but we paid most ourselves. We assessed how much we could afford in total before we started planning.

I work in this field, most couples pay for themselves, if parents chip in it’s usually brides side who make a payment. Grooms parents frequently want to fund welcome drinks at a couple hundred quid and welcome all guests in - which imo looks cheeky, when brides parents have paid a big chunk of £5k £10k or all of it!

Great decision on both your parts.
Don't let her dictate what she wants.
Have the wedding you both want...start as you mean to go on.

So MIL expected the other parents to pay for a venue that she found- that may have been out of their budget too? You need to bring this back to the beginning- your partner needs to talk to his parents about being realistic! Before any planning starts who is happy to pay for what - that is then your budget and that’s what you stick too!

MIL can be as excited as she likes but this is your wedding and has to be within your budget - she must assume other parents will pay!!!

My parents paid for ours, they are quite traditional though- they transferred me a lump sum and I paid for the wedding from that. From memory my PIL contributed to the big meal the night before; all our guests came the day before as we got married abroad so had a big dinner that evening and I think from memory my parents paid half and PIL paid half of that. The payment for that wasn’t really organised in advance though, they decided at the meal they would pay as a gesture! Our parents’ are in quite different financial situations though and his parents would never be able to pay for something on that scale. If your MIL is offering to pay for the whole thing that’s nice but doesn’t sound like she is! I find it odd she assumed your parents would automatically be paying half- I know traditionally the brides parents are more involved financially in weddings but if she was offering half that strikes me as odd. Just be honest with her and say our budget doesn’t stretch that far! Also it’s your wedding- make sure anyone that contributes is not lobbying you into something you wouldn’t choose! X

We didn't contribute to DCs weddings but gave money for house deposits and other things over the years. Everyone is different

We started looking at places and MIL found an incredible but very expensive place. We agreed on numbers and most details, let MIL know how much the deposit is What made you assume MIL was paying for everything? Because she found a venue you might like?

He who pays the piper ....

@DelphiniumBlue

This is no longer true according to the MN collective.

I had a thread about my daughter's wedding a while back and I was informed many times that just because we were paying, in full, for the whole 'bash' that we are not allowed any choice/influence in the proceedings. The money is a gift and therefore we need to 'butt out'.

Like the OP we have about a dozen family members invited to our daughter's wedding next year (small family) and her partner has invited over a hundred family and friends - even though there is zero contribution from his parents.

As you said, when I got married my parents paid for my wedding and it was their name on the invites and their choice of guests with input from the groom's parents. Of course I chose my bridesmaids and the dresses but very little else. We (my husband and I) invited a selection of our good friends to the ceremony and wedding breakfast, and more to the evening event. There was no one left out, or anyone there who I didn't want to be there - it was a magical day.

Nowadays, it's none of our business! We seem to have missed out both ways. That is - we weren't the 'drivers' of our own wedding (out of respect to my parents who paid - we were very grateful) or have any input with regards to our daughter's.

My husband is still 'stinging' that our names are not on the invites whilst being tens of thousands poorer.

We're 'involved' by the fact that we know the details as we've been told. We've refrained from interfering. I'm wondering if this is why I don't feel remotely excited about having to organise my 'mother of the bride' outfit. Also starting to feel that I'll only be there for childcare purposes and miss the evening party due to 'minding' the babies. (My daughter keeps asking me who will watch the children in the evening. If that's not a hint, I don't know what is.)

OP - pay for your own wedding. It's less stressful.

Whose wedding is this!?! It must be very hard for you both - but it really isn’t her day so you need to do whatever you both want and if you don’t want to invite all these people she has told - please don’t x

My parents said “we will give you £6k and pay for your dress”. Which was clear and super helpful - covered the venue. They also had some guest requirements that were a bit painful (too many), but didn’t get involved in specific choices about anything. FIL paid for groomsmen’s suit hire. We covered the rest. (Early 2000s)

I paid probably 90% of my daughter’s wedding. I have no idea whether her in laws paid for anything. I had no input whatsoever into the guest list. I wasn’t asked and wouldn’t have suggested inviting anyone.

My side of the family gave us a budget of how much they would contribute toward the wedding and we could use it for whatever wedding things we needed to. It was very generous and covered everything. The only stipulation was that it was for the wedding. They also gave us a very generous cash gift that we could spend on anything we wanted.

My partner’s side didn’t offer anything but we weren’t expecting them to. It was our wedding and we were (obviously) delighted to receive anything but no expectations.

We both made a list of people we wanted to attend the wedding. We did invite more extended family from my side because I added them to my list. I had to remind my partner that if he was going to invite one cousin, he’d probably need to invite the sibling as well!

The only niggle I had at the end (that I’ve never voiced out loud to anyone!) is that none of his family gifted us jointly. They came, they ate and drank and danced. They had a great time, they wished us many congratulations. But there was not even a card. Rather bizarrely about one month before the wedding his aunty gave him a jumper and said that’s your wedding gift. And it was! I’d presumed it was a joke.