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- Apr 3, 2004
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...1/3 bride's side, 1/3 groom's side and 1/3 newlyweds?. That's what my DD #1 said...
We paid for our own, which was 12 years ago yesterday. My mother bought my dress, which is tradition here for the bride's parents to do, and my father in law paid for the food & drink as his gift, which turned out to be just over £5,000 & saved us a fair few pennies!
That's how we did it. Our parents would have gone 50/50, we were prepared to pay 100%, so this just worked. This way I was cool with my in laws inviting tons of their friends (had been an issue for previous wedding ls in the family) but them basically paying for their own friends made it truly OK for me. I can see how paying 15 k for people one has never met before might be a source of conflict......1/3 bride's side, 1/3 groom's side and 1/3 newlyweds?. That's what my DD #1 said...
That's how we did it. Our parents would have gone 50/50, we were prepared to pay 100%, so this just worked. This way I was cool with my in laws inviting tons of their friends (had been an issue for previous wedding ) but them basically paying for their own friends made it truly OK for me. I can see how paying 15 k for people one has never met before might be a source of conflict...
My grandma bought my dress.
Posting at the same time. amen to all of this @missyI don't think there are rules these days. Depends on many things. Bride and Groom's age and have they been living on their own?
Lots of couples pay for their own weddings now and the parents can chip in some portion. It varies depending on the couple and their and their family's personal situation.
My parents paid for our wedding and my dress too but that was a long time ago and thinking back on it we shouldn't have let them. They don't have a lot of money and we could/should have taken care of it ourselves. I wasn't really thinking about it too much in those days and we were in the middle of purchasing a home and doing 2 gut renovations at the time so we were short on money too but now I feel guilty letting them pay. They did insist on paying because I remember resisting at first but I gave in too easily now looking back. Greg's mom didn't pay for anything including the rehearsal dinner which if you follow tradition she could have covered that. Which was fine because she was under no obligation to pay for anything. No one owes anybody anything when it comes to weddings and who is paying. The only people who are responsible are the couple getting married. The only problem I had with Greg's mom during that time is that she tried dictating who we would invite to the rehearsal dinner but I squashed that. I said to Greg she's not paying for it so no way is she adding guests to our rehearsal dinner. I think that was fair. We didn't have a lot of money to spend due to the home purchase and the renos we were doing and adding guests to the rehearsal dinner when we were paying was not cool. IMO.
I am in the camp of don't spend what you don't have for something as optional as a "big" or expensive wedding. If you have the money great go for it if you want to but do not go into debt over a wedding. Not a great way (IMO) to start one's married life. A mortgage is the only debt I think is acceptable.
Of course YMMV and there is no one size fits all but I definitely do not think traditional rules apply the same way they once did and I think more brides and grooms are paying for their own weddings at least in part.
Nice to have rich parents ...Ours was old school. My parents paid for the wedding, his paid for the rehearsal dinner.
Nice to have rich parents ...
Thank you, gorgeous lady! We are only just back from holiday this weekend, but did manage to drag ourselves out for a quiet dinner last night. Will get around to replying to your email this week x
in my case 1% her side, 65% his side (me and hubster) and 34% the couple. We paid for the rehearsal dinner too.
LOL 1% on her side.
I have said it before Kate and I will say it again. You are a sweetheart and indeed Kate the Great.
In Chinese culture it was customary for the groom's parents to pay. However my DH's parents were not well-off and we paid for everything ourselves. My parents were slightly miffed because DH's parents not paying means that I'm "not marrying well", but oh well.
We enjoyed being able to say "we are paying for it so we get to decide" anyway!
our wedding was under 200 dollars. Heck I went back to work afterwards
Haha us too. At least our "first" wedding where we unexpectedly eloped 3 months before the big planned event. And Greg went back to work afterwards. I had to go back to the apartment and wait for our furniture delivery as we had just moved in together into a new home the day prior.
We got married at Brooklyn Borough City Hall. It was super romantic and Greg bought me those plastic roses. I protested because it was $20 (that was a lot of money back then ) but he insisted. I have them still. And that wedding at City Hall cost way under $200 including the plastic bouquet.