thinking about how much to keep aside for weddings, 3 offspring 1 d 2 s

[Juneday]

having been to first family wedding in many years I was chatting about the cost, who pays for what and how subject is broached, it feels like that DH & I will have at least one to pay towards in the next 2 years - do I assume the old rules no longer apply - brides parents pay for most of it and grooms make a contribution? Some still seem to have huge affairs and the parents invite their own friends too, others it is all about the bride and groom, family and a few friends. Obvs depends upon other things too such as religion being a bit part, size of family etc. So based on chats so far £20K from brides parents, 😩 including dress? and offer what if you are parents of the groom? Thought and own experiences would be great.

Parents paying for a wedding made sense when young people married at 18 and were living at home. In UK today I would have guessed that most people marry later (late 20s/early 30s) and already have jobs and incomes and maybe already living together. Different times. Is there really still an expectation that parents pay?

DM and MIL made different tiers of our wedding cake and another relative helped design our wedding invitations. Much more personal than just throwing vast sums of money at the couple. I would rather give couple money towards a house if had that sort of money spare.

If parents have retired it’s possible the couple have more income than their parents. DH and I were in that position so certainly wouldn’t be wanting parents to have been paying out when we had more income than them.

This is what my dm did.

Wedding or house deposit. No brainer teallly.

l eventually got married at a grand cost of 400 quid 20 years after the house.

I have no idea how much ( if anything), DD's dad. Has contributed but I paid£1000 for her dress,veil, etc plus a further £500 for a pianist that she had set her heart on but was realistic enough to know she couldn't afford it. I have just her though.

If you feel you want or need to contribute towards the cost of a wedding, you pick a figure you are happy with (anticipating x 3). And when the time comes you advise your DC of that amount, and they can work with it.

@WhereAreWeNow despite my 3 having reasonable jobs, they have student debt payments (I didn’t), compulsory pension contributions (a good thing but I didn’t in two jobs) when went on maternity leave 31 years ago to have first child I was earning what child number 3 started on 3 years ago despite her having a science degree and me just a few O levels. My first flat with DH cost 2.5 times our joint income in a London Borough in our mid 20s (albeit we had both been working 7 or 8 years by then). DD couldn’t afford anything in London … would be 10 times joint income! So I am happy to help even though none ever ask!

For goodness sake, you don't have to pay for your kids wedding! If you want to help out and can afford to contribute then why not but you're not obliged. Anyone can get married for around £75 these days so finances need not be an obstacle. Why not discuss it with them now? Set any expectations straight?

We are paying for our DD’s wedding with some generous contributions from the groom’s parents. It’s costing around £25k. The couple are mid 20s and we are much better paid. We are happy to do this and it’s worked out well. We are happy and willing to pay for our DS wedding in due course but he doesn’t have a partner at the moment.

I think everyone should do what suits them best! This suits us.

Dh paid for the cake for his dd...but didn't pay stamp duty on their house. Much better use of money

We gave them the deposit to buy a house, but told them that we couldn’t do both. It was deposit or wedding (plus much smaller amount towards the deposit). They all chose the large deposit.

When/if they do eventually get married, we’ll make a contribution like paying for the photographer or flowers or something.

We contributed to costs in quite a traditional, old fashioned way.
We paid a sum to our son to help him pay for flowers, drinks, church fees, cars, reception music, pizzas and accommodation for groomsmen the night before wedding.
About 5000.
He paid for his suit and honeymoon.
We paid some accommodation for overseas relatives.
I estimate that bride and her family paid twice that.

Similar for our daughter. We paid the majority of reception meal, accommodation, church decoration. About 15000.
She paid for her dress. We subsidised accommodation for all. Her husband and his family generously paid for drinks, flowers and more.

@user1492757084 why did you pay such differing amounts? What difference did their genitalia make in how much you contributed?

Why would you consider gifting your sons different (less) to your daughter?

I’m a MOTG - we’re splitting the cost of his wedding next year 3 ways with the happy couple and the parents of the bride.

I have 33,000 each set aside per two children. It’s for wedding/ house/ combination. Their dad (who I am no longer married to) will match anything I give but if I give 0 he will match that too despite making 5 times my salary. Neither is engaged dd is employed with a very good salary while DS is in graduate school. so I will continue to grow this money until one of these events occurs.

I imagine that's sometimes how it works out. We paid just under half towards DS's wedding. DS and DIL had the wedding they wanted. We contributed more than expected because we are better off.

DD's wedding will probably cost the same and we will be prepared to pay all of it but will accept a contribution from her bf's family if they offer it. As we offered towards DS's.

My DIL and her family paid for what they always dreamed of paying for in their home town. Not our decision.
Not our decision that SonIL and family wanted to be so generous either.
The difference in gifted amount was made up for in other house purchase gifts.

I would consider money towards a house deposit to be a better gift quite honestly.

It really is a “how long is a piece of string” question as there are so many variables. What I would say is to be open with your DC as to how much you will be providing and that you should treat all of your DC equally. You should also be open as to whether they can use the money for another purpose if they choose to have an elaborate wedding - for example, are you offering them each £5k for a significant life event and they can choose whether that is spent on a wedding or as a deposit or for a holiday of a lifetime or can it only be used for a wedding?
Also be realistic whether there are any strings to your gift. Do you expect to have a say in the guest list. And be very clear about this. You might presume that various family members or godparents would obviously be invited but they might feel differently regardless of whether there is a cash element or not.

I would imagine we’ll pay for our daughter’s weddings and gift the same amount to our sons. Which is “the old rules” not what you describe in your OP. I would imagine £10,000 would more than cover it, but weddings seem to attract crazy mark ups that I wouldn’t engage with.

So much is down to personal circumstances. In my case I had no parental support when I got married so I wanted to reverse that for my DD. Absolutely not writing a blank cheque but also being realistic about how much everything costs.

We got married in 2019 and my dad paid 2k for my dress (only 2 parent as mum died when I was a teen). MIL paid for our toasting champagne and his Nan paid for our cake but we paid the rest ourselves plus honeymoon.