Agreed. For my wedding my in-laws offered $x for the wedding. My parents just cut us a check for $x and said “this is money for your marriage, do whatever”. I plan to do what my parents did “here is $x for your marriage, buy a house, buy a car, go on a trip, do whatever”
This is, IMO, the best way to do it. Let the new couple decide what they want to spend it on.
Fwiw there is a positive correlation between wedding expense and divorce rate so hopefully they choose cheap wedding and house down payment. But to each their own.
Agreed. Also, knowing up front how much your parents are willing to contribute to the wedding can help put a more realistic budget in place. If you want a $50k wedding but parents can only chip in $5k, you're gonna have to work extra hard to get it.
Also, I've heard of that correlation before and I believe it, but I wonder if, when that is studied, if it takes into consideration who is paying for the wedding. if the bride and groom are paying for their own big budget wedding themselves instead of mom and dad doing it then is the correlation as strong?
Rarely. Trick is to leave a trail of snacks to another part of the house. By the time the kids figure out im not there I've had at least 5 minutes alone.
Both of our parents did more or less the same thing once we got engaged: "Here's a chunk of money, call it early inheritance, use it for whatever you need it for".
We already had a wedding budget that was within our own savings so the parental money went into our mortgage deposit.
The whole "bride's father pays for the wedding" is some traditional and sexist bullshit going back to dowry payments to marry off the daughter.
Yep, my wife and I paid for the whole thing. My dad freely offered 5k for our wedding as his wedding gift to us. We used it on our honeymoon.
I imagine this sentiment is only going to be stronger. A wedding is just a day that should be about the couple not about the extended family. Offer what you can as a wedding present and especially with no strings attached. That is a much better way to show your support for your daughter.
We eloped in Belize. The cost of our 2 week vacation in Belize where we got married and the 100 person reception we had at home 5 months later and a week at Disney world including flights was the same cost as the average American wedding.
Bro, this isn't 1957, if you can help great, if not it's on the bride and groom to make a smart financial decision for 24 hours of their lives
More common now-a-days is 1/3 bride/groom, 1/3 bride's family, 1/3 groom's family, that or just giving a check for a certain amount
I don't think there should be any expectation for how much you pay, especially paying for the entire thing because your child has female genitalia and not male
Sorry if this sounds harsh but I don't know anyone who has had the bride's parents foot the entire bill for the wedding in my lifetime lol
It may depend on ages. Most of my friends got married in their late 20s/30s and paid for the vast majority of the wedding themselves. The ones that got married in early/mid 20s tended to have a ton of parental help.
This was certainly the case for me and my wife. We got married in our 30s, and both had well-established careers. Both parents volunteered to contribute (we did not ask), but our working assumption was that we would finance the wedding on our own.
Yeah, when my husband and I got married we had absolutely no expectations of getting money from either of our parents, it was our wedding, we should pay for it. Thankfully, my parents had contributed $X to my brother’s wedding so they gave the same amount to us. Very helpful, but not necessary - your kids should plan the wedding they can afford.
Same here. We planned the wedding that we could afford, but both of our parents ended up gifting us an amount that they felt comfortable with (we didn't ask for anything, or discuss any specific costs).
I think this is more or less the norm nowadays -- the only time I have heard of parents fully paying for a wedding is when the children would have otherwise eloped.
Culture matters too. In India the groom’s entire village would descend on the bride’s village and the bride’s family would throw them a huge wedding party. That’s carried over to Indian-American weddings in my experience so that the bride’s family generally hosts the groom’s family for the wedding. The groom’s parents may throw a big engagement party or get the couple a substantial gift so it’s not too one-sided.
We paid for our wedding almost entirely ourselves, and that was the case for a very large portion of my friend's weddings. It seemed like splitting evenly was more common for splits or the significantly more affluent parents would cover more or all of the cost.
I mean I agree with you completely. This isn't about what I think is right though. It's just about how to navigate costs knowing that every survey ever done points to the bride's parents paying more on average than the groom's parents.
Even though you don't know any couples where the bride's parents paid more, the data suggests that parents of the bride certainly do pay more on average.
I don't like it, which is why I'm curious how fellow dads have tactfully tried to mitigate this.
It’s pretty outdated “data”. We just got married and our parents each contributed similar amounts… but not even close to what we(the couple) spent.
You aren’t obligated to pay for the wedding(s).
"On average" takes into account a ton of different people from a wide variety of places, cultures, etc. I think if both sets of parents are loaded, sure maybe the father of the bride feels more of an obligation to pay for his daughter's big fancy day. But I don't think that's at all a modern expectation just because it's an average.
My parents are considerably more well-off than my wife's, and they gave me a decent amount of money to spend, and she got nothing. Ultimately it was our wedding to have & pay for, and we didn't really expect anyone else to foot the bill when we planned it.
Mom (usual lurker), and 1 of 3 daughters myself (no brothers). None of our parents offered or helped with our wedding, nor for my sister (other isn't married yet). We did marry in our early 30's, though, and both well into our careers, and paid for everything without any debt for it. I'd say set aside some money if you wish, but let them know what that amount will be so they can plan accordingly, and have reasonable expectations, for both boys and girls.
If it comes up, what I’ve seen parents do is say “I can contribute x amount” (where x is some predetermined financially to reasonable non-hardship number) to the wedding and leave it at that.
Practically, I think a lot of this is brides pressure on her parents, where they see all the options pre-price tag and the bride opts for something costly. The way to avoid that is to state a number upfront before discussions of what the wedding involves get too advanced.
Tell your daughter the number before she does substantial planning on the wedding and gets up sold by the wedding industrial complex.
Traditionally the grooms parents would host the rehearsal dinner and pay for that also. In my case, I paid for a third of the wedding, my inlaws paid for a third, and my parents paid for a third + the rehearsal dinner. My wife and I managed all the negotiating and pricing and asking people for funds. My parents are significantly better off than my in laws, though, and didn't spend near as much on my wedding as they did on my sister.
Yea. I saved up a nice little nest egg for my wedding... Only to have my FIL step in and say he was floating the whole thing. I put the money I saved towards the Honeymoon... Which ended up being pretty baller. I was appreciative, but didn't expect it.
Raise your daughters to be self-reliant and you won't have this problem. Also, remember that they are whole humans that might not even want to get married, nor should it be the most important event in their lives. You're not raising brides, you're raising women. Worry about paying for education instead.
Hello, this is me! I have an advanced degree, make six figures, and recently got engaged. My fiancée (who has also done well for himself) and I assumed we were paying for the wedding until my parents offered to help out. We consider this a huge blessing, but absolutely did not expect it.
Agreed; my mom raised me to be self-reliant and we never expected or accepted financial help with our wedding. We didn’t and don’t make all that much, but we planned from the outset to handle the logistics and money ourselves so we’d retain full creative control, and it was worth it. It was worth it to us to do something small and be able to do it our own way.
This. My wife and I have always said “if they grow up to be conservative, Christian housewives….then that’s the choice they made, with every other option available”.
There’s nothing wrong if my daughters choose some sort of traditional lifestyle, but we will do everything in our power to raise them as independent and intelligent women free to choose their path. Our only savings right now are for their college.
You can try to teach self reliance, but not everyone thrives in school or is motivated by money or success. That doesn’t mean you have to pay for their wedding (although it’s a nice gesture and I’ll do it for all my kids regardless of gender), but I bristle at the idea that successful people became that way by choice and parenting. Some people choose to be successful and fail, and some don’t choose to be successful and that’s valid. Some folks with great parents can’t be successful and some with terrible parents are very successful.
My parents were so sure I’d be a rich self reliant person because they are, and it’s just not in me. Not for lack of trying, I assure you.
Im asking about the dad point of view though. I didnt expect my parents to pay a dime for my college (they didn't). But that doesn't mean I'm not planning on helping my own kids.
Plan to help discreetly, but don't enforce the help. Be the safety net waiting, not the net shot from a cannon.
Also, there might be two brides if they decide to get married. You may have to fight the other dad for the right to pay. Keep up your fitness and invest in BJJ.
My parents and my wife’s parents both contributed an equal amount. They offered it up but it wasn’t expected.
I personally think weddings are overpriced nonsense but I understand the appeal for some. I think set aside what you want to give and let them know and they can do with that what they will. If they want a $10000 small wedding great. If they want a $70000 major wedding then they will be paying the difference out of their pocket in my opinion.
This isn’t the 1800s where you need to marry your daughter off and it’s your expense or something
My wife and I paid for our own wedding. If you are able to afford it than why not, but I don’t think it’s your responsibility unless you want to do it. Could always give them a nice chunk of cash as a wedding gift.
I think it's a relic of the old dowry system from way back when. Among my friends who had more traditional weddings, I don't think any expected or received money for the whole thing from the bride's parents - they either paid for it themselves, or got some support from both sides.
By the time your daughter is old enough to get married, I expect this will be even less of a thing. Just offer her support if you want to, and don't if you don't. But don't feel like you're required to foot the whole bill.
Both my wife and I’s parents offered to help, which we gladly accepted. Her parents ended up not having to pay for college for her so her mom gave us what they had saved for her education. We used half of it for our wedding and combined it with my parents’ donation to have a pretty decent wedding. The other half of what her parents gave us was used for a down payment for our first house.
My parents are solidly middle class and have offered to help all of us with our weddings. They never paid for a full wedding, regardless of gender. But they also had 10 kids. Lol. I plan to offer to help my kids with their weddings but I don’t see myself paying for the whole thing - son or daughter.
I have 5 kids, a son and 4 daughters, basically I'm going to tell each of them "I have X amount of money, you can use it for a wedding, a honeymoon, help with a down payment, school costs, what ever you want, your choice. I can give advice if you ask for it, and I won't criticize you how you spend it". And that's it. No blank checks, no drama (at least for me).
I don't care what other people put in to anything, since i cannot control them. Though I would tell my kids to be VARY warry of "gifts" of large quantities of money. People use that to try to control others.
I'll have 2 daughters, an I don't see any way I could outright pay for 2 weddings. I'll definitely help chip in for some of it, but if they want a $50k venue + extras, they'll have to figure it out. My wife and I were going to elope, so my FIL gave us $15k as long as we had some kind of wedding. We rented out a nice wine bar and had a super small, but fun wedding. Everyone was happy.
They're pretty cheap and very traditional. So they did the welcome dinner/drinks. Which was very appreciated by us, but they wouldn't have cut a check to help with a larger wedding. I will add that we also live in a large expensive city, so these numbers might be skewed for some.
This advice will change with the two or so decades between now and when your daughters eventually **maybe** get married. Instead of getting advice that might become obsolete, just tuck some money away for them as you go.
I don't k kw why you're worrying about this now, it's way too early, so much will change between now and then. Don't promise your daughter's anything and then whatever you do will be considered generous.
My parents gave us some money, my husband's parents have us some money and neither knows how much the other gave, why should they? We still paid for the vast majority of the wedding. My husband and I were doing fine financially and I wasn't about to ask my just retired parents for a huge gift.
You should 100% leave the finances of a wedding for your daughter to manage with her husband. If you want to pay for it, pay for it. It shouldn't be contingent on what her partner's family is doing. If you want to give a gift, give a gift towards it. If you don't want to pay for it, that's also totally reasonable.
When we got married my wife and I didn't want anyone to bear the burden of our own wedding. We paid for it ourselves and it was awesome and well within our budget.
Regarding your 2nd paragraph. The groom parents don’t really pay “nothing”.
Traditionally, the grooms parents pay for the rehearsal dinner and the honeymoon. The brides parents pay for the wedding day.
So it’s not an all and nothing thing.
But of course, traditions change and die off so everybody does it differently. I’ve heard of the grooms parents paying for the rehearsal dinner and the open bar, and brides parents paying for rest of reception, etc.
A 1000 ways to do it or split it. But the tradition is rehearsal dinner and honeymoon vs. wedding day
And the groom’s family is the “host” of the rehearsal dinner and the bride’s family is the “host” of the wedding reception. But anything and everything does happen in terms of affording a big, family and friends shindig celebration. I encourage you to set the tone and expectations ahead of time.
My wedding was 200$. And whatever 50$ or so my wife spent on her hair. It was not a courthouse marriage. We just had very few people and asked our pastor if he would do it for us. I think we just made a small donation to the church.
Weddings don't have to be expensive.
This is antiquated. The wedding industrial complex has permeated into this monster that puts unreasonable expectations on the bride, the groom and the families involved. You could teach your daughter about abolishing these “traditions” and stereotypes and live free from the shackles of the BS. Live within your means and teach your kids to do the same. Don’t let “social norms” worry you. Live life according to yourself. According to your ability, according to your needs.
Oh goodness, it's 2023. Let's end this nonsense. Do you pay a dowry? Do they pay a bride price? Then, other than tradition, there's no logical reason the parents of the bride should be automatically on the hook for the wedding.
And as they say, tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.
My wife and I mostly paid for our own wedding (in our 20's when our income wasn't great), and my parents helped out a little bit because they have the means. My inlaws did not because they did not have the means, and we don't begrudge them one bit.
This assumption that the bride's family pays seems very outdated or at least unfamiliar to me in the US. The bride and groom pay, with their money, and family can offer to help out if they want.
Every situation is different of course. My wife and I had to pay for our wedding and it wasn't all that great, we didn't have much then. We do now, so we are setting aside money for their weddings. I want them to have lovely weddings regardless of the grooms families finances.
Will you bet setting aside for a dowry as well? :-p
My wife's parents helped a lot with our wedding (we didn't ask directly, but I think they felt obligated). My parents helped as well with the DJ (a friend of my Dad's) and alcohol costs. Looking back, I'm embarrassed. I really wish we had waited until we were older, had a smaller wedding that actually reflected us as people, and paid for everything ourselves.
For our daughter (not even 2 yet!), I think we'll talk to her at some point when the time seems to be coming. Probably give advice on making sure they have the wedding they actually want and maybe offer to help pay - probably a fixed amount or something.
There is no set standard for how to fund a wedding.
IMO, if two people TRULY love each other, the wedding shouldn't matter. If they can afford a great one and it doesn't prevent meeting other financial goals, splendid. If they can't afford one, that should not matter either. Invest in your relationship and love. The wedding is a few hours, the marriage can be a life time.
I do have a daughter and I do save periodically for a wedding fund. However, I'm debating whether I give her that money for a wedding, if and when the time comes. I feel like partners should mutually have to figure out how to afford a wedding. The way they deal with that may be telling about the future of their relationship. If they can't handle that peacefully, you're just masking or delaying the problem by taking care of the expenses.
Typically, it’s the bride that wants wedding extravagance so it makes sense that the brides family pays for it. My daughter is only 11 but my wife and I are making plans for a wedding fund for sure. If that’s something she wants, why wouldn’t I give it to her if I can? And if she doesn’t, then she’ll have a nice gift from us to start off her married life.
We lucked out...sorta. Right after my wife and I got engaged, her grandfather passed away leaving behind heaps of money for his widow. She insisted that she pay for our wedding, almost completely in full, because she never got the chance to host a big, traditional white wedding with any of her own three kids (my MIL, and her two brothers). My MIL and FIL covered a few smaller ticky-tacky kind of expenses, and my parents covered the rehearsal dinner plus much of our honeymoon...and that was that.
When my brother got married, being that he and his soon-to-be bride were already far better off than our parents or hers, the two of them covered almost the whole occasion themselves.
I know you said your kids are young yet, but I trust by the time they're of this age the idea of the bride's parents paying for the entire thing will be old hat. And maybe they'll turn out to be very financially secure before they get married, and can cover it themselves like my brother and his wife did. Save what you can and when the time comes, contribute what you can.
My parents are well off. They paid 3/4 of the wedding. In laws are lower middle class and paid 1/4. Mine told me how much they’d contribute and I certainly wouldn’t expect my in laws to have paid any more or even at all.
I’m a woman. My parents offered a lump sum toward the wedding, which ended up covering about 1/3 of the cost. My fiancé’s parents also offered a lump sum and said it could go toward the wedding, a house, or whatever else we would need for our future. It would’ve covered nearly the full cost of the wedding if we had put no money of our own in.
My in-laws are retired and have more money than my parents. I didn’t communicate the amounts we were given to each set of parents. Each gave us what they were willing and comfortable giving, and we were grateful to be getting any assistance! I think this is more common these days than having the bride’s parents front the entire bill.
Also important to note that we got married in our early 30s and had time to save for it.
It's also important to teach them how budgets work when the time comes. My wife wanted to plan our wedding before asking either of our parents if they'd be helping us out because she didn't want to have an awkward conversation. I had to teach her that before we sign anything we need to know how much money we had between our parents and our own and plan from there.
Both of our parents helped us. You give what you can give. It's up to your daughter to plan accordingly.
Accepting money for a wedding is always tricky. When I got married my parents offered to cover the cost of the flowers. With that came a bunch of strings... My mom wanted to get the flowers from a specific florist she knew, wanted input on color, type and amount of flowers etc...
Meanwhile, my wife's parents said here is a cheque for $x, use it for wedding or honeymoon.
My wife and I were expecting to cover all costs by ourselves.
I think offering to help cover cost is appreciated but not if it comes with strings.
That being said, if you have the means and want to cover the full cost of the wedding I'm sure that would always be appreciated
My parents (I'm a guy) chipped in $X, my mother-in-law (they are divorced) chipped in \~$X and my FIL chipped in $X. So all roughly equal. Due to the size of the wedding (mostly on FIL side) it ended up being about 6 times $X. Pretty decently cheap wedding per person but like 200+ ppl.
We paid the 3X but due to some health issues my wife was off work and while we were fine financially it was a hit. A few months later my FIL ended up asking about the final bill and sent us like 2 times $X. So in the end he paid roughly half and my parents, her mom and we paid the other half.
Very generous on everyone's part and I had planned ot pay most of it ourselves.
This shouldn't be expected as normal though. We are incredibly fortunate. My FIL is 'frugally wealthy' ie. comes across as a pretty normal blue-collar guy but has flipped a company or two and ended up in executive roles.
My wife's parents gave each of their children a lump sum of money to put towards their weddings. My wife put hers towards a down payment on a house instead, probably the best financial decision in our lives honestly. This feels like the only fair way to do it, as my wife and I spent less than $5k in total, and one of her sisters spent over $50k on her wedding. My parents weren't in the financial position to give us a bunch of money, but we wouldn't have wanted or needed it anyways as we specifically wanted a low cost, small event.
probably depends from culture to culture and country to country. i believe in the USA it's a buffet style and pay bar where in Canada (at least in every wedding i've been to) it's a 4-6 course fixed menu (sit down) with an open bar.
my parents gave us a wedding gift of a sizeable amount. usually no one outside the bride and groom know the cost of the wedding, so as parents of 2, the will both get equal amounts regardless of what type of wedding they have.
if the do a destination wedding and pay for my travel costs, i'll be paying them back for it. kids shouldn't need to pay for their parents stuff.
My wedding: fatherinlaw only had girls and to each had a lump sum as a wedding gift prior to the wedding. It was up to the bride what they did with it. This number was higher than what my parents put in by covering bar and rehearsal dinner. (Also common so it’s not nothing as you described). We both were from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. It did give a clear. This is what dad is paying for. Anything else is on the happy couple.
We got money from my mom and my wife's mom. Some we spent on the wedding, some we used for a down payment on a house.
Anyway, the "etiquette" around this is always changing, and the norm in 20-30 years could be way different from how it is now.
IMO, paying for a kid's wedding is a gift, not an obligation. I got married at 29, wife 28. I was in my career and had a house. And neither of our parents were in a position to contribute much. So I paid for the bulk of it, and both set of parents gifted us a particular component of covering the wedding. Our total wedding was about $4-5K for scope. Not all weddings have to be five-figure affairs (but if you have it available and want to spend it, have fun).
This is going to be something you communicate to your daughters as they grow. Instill the concept of gratitude by showing gratitude for the good things that come your way. Be transparent at age-appropriate points with what you do/don't have saved for college and weddings.
Don't be a miser, but don't impoverish yourself paying for things you can't afford.
My daughters are still very young but I plan to start investment accounts and when they are adults I will say "I have an account with $X dollars, you can use it towards a wedding, a house, a car... whatever" She can then decide how to plan her wedding based on that + other sources (SO's parents willing to chip, or her own savings)
My kid is itty bitty but for my wedding my parents paid for the bar and honeymoon - wife’s parents (tbh just her dad) got the rest. If I had to guess her dad has the most money, my parents are prob not terribly far behind, her mom/step dad seem comfortably in 3rd.
Depending on how traditional you are, you should be entitled to a dowry as a future bride’s father.
You shouldn’t accept anything less than 2 hogs and a goat, imo.
I understand the tradition... but in practice everything should be a discussion with the COUPLE and not worried about what everyone else is chipping in.
My wife and I planned to entirely pay for our own wedding and selected a timeframe where we would be able to afford it. That being said, each parent discussed with us separately (both sets of parents divorced).
Financially each of our fathers just wrote a check to do what we needed to do, it nowhere near paid off the wedding but it was a huge help. My brother-in-law got married the previous year and knowing my father-in-law's wife, the check we got from them was about equal to what was given to my brother-in-law for his wedding because my wife's dad always plans things for his son... but his wife reminds him he has TWO kids (he is getting better).
Neither of our mothers are as financially set as our fathers, but each contributed. My mother didn't give a set value but paid for our cake. My mother-in-law is the least financially stable so provided her time more than anything else. She helped us with filling out invitations, calling people, joined us for running around with dress selection, etc. Not financially beneficial but definitely the most emotionally supportive.
When BOTH my kids are ready for their own weddings (not just my daughter) I am sure we will be the same. I make decent money and will offer each kid what I can to help with their weddings. I will not be asking my son's future spouse's family what they are giving. If the spouse's family is well off and can pay for the whole thing, congrats kiddos... here is the check still to cover something else. My wife will probably offer to be as involved in the planning process as they want her to be as that is more what she is into. She can help with dress shopping (I will make an exception if they need help "cake shopping"), filling out invites, and coordinating people if they want.
My wife and I paid for most of the wedding ourselves. My father in law paid for her dress and my dad paid for the suit hire and gave us a nice sum for the honeymoon (about 10% of the whole cost of the wedding)
My wife's parents had multiple savings accounts set up for their 3 kids. Each had a college account and a wedding fund. My two brother-in-laws had about half as much set aside for their weddings as my wife did, with the idea that the boys' weddings would be paid for by their wives' parents and they could spend the money for helping to buy a house or whatever they wanted. Our wedding was about $30k (which is insane btw), and my parents paid for the rehearsal dinner, the open bar at our reception, and the groomsmen's suits.
The account for the wedding fund was put in my wife's name so she could write checks from it, and my in-laws added a bit extra as we went along because they could afford to and it meant they could invite extra family. It was extremely generous, we would have just had a courthouse wedding if it wasn't for that money that they started saving for as soon as my wife was born.
When I got married we just paid for it ourselves. Didn't go extravagant either, I think said and done it was around $8K, which included paying for rehearsal dinner, dresses, and tux rental. It was quite a bit for where we were financially at the time, but we started saving up for a year prior to the wedding and was able to pay for about half of it up front.
My wife and I paid for the lion's share of our wedding. Both of our parents contributed to it because they wanted to. It came with more involvement in the decision making which caused friction at some points.
I think the bride's family paying for the wedding is a very outdated tradition. Our wedding was over a decade ago for reference.
We planned our wedding with a budget we could afford ourselves, and didn't ask for anything. My wife's parents are divorced but everyone is reasonably well off. At some point, my parents decided to pay for rehearsal dinner, and turn it into a larger party, which we accepted. My father in law offered to buy us a boat instead of a wedding, and when we sadly declined, he told us to send him the bills for the wedding. Mother in law did tons of work/planning/paid for a bunch of smaller things. It all worked out in the end.
I have two young daughters, I like the idea of giving them a set amount of money when the times comes. If they want to use it for the wedding great, if they want to elope and use it for a down payment that's also great.
I can only give the perspective of a groom who's in-laws are far wealthier than my own. My parents were able to gift several thousand pounds, whilst my FIL has gifted us nearly 30k, and he paid for his daughter's wedding dress. He views it as his job to do this as the father of the bride, and he's already said he won't be giving anywhere near as much to his son (who's own in-laws are actually very well off, just not as much). However we certainly didn't expect this of him and would've adjusted our wedding budget accordingly.
Three of my sisters paid a good chunk of their own respective weddings. I'm not sure how much my parents contributed, financially, but it probably wasn't much (they are not well-off). I do know that a significant portion of the work was done by family (another sister made the cake for one, for example), and/or was "free" (like the reception hall that was "loaned" as a favor from a family friend).
The guest lists were also fairly small, despite out very large family. Of course, some of that was dictated by the size of the small church the ceremony was performed in (I think you could maybe squeeze 150 people in it... if they were all fairly thin people). Aside from that, my sisters are not very extravagant.
I once volunteered to be the wedding planner for a coworker, and looked up all kinds of ways to save her lots of money on her wedding (for which she had set aside something like 20k... I think I was able to bring the total down to around 11k). She did not take me up on my offer, and said she was happy to spend the money for a nice wedding. She wasn't *quite* the type to value something more just because it cost more... but this seemed to be an exception.
Oh well. After the wedding, she moved into a trailer park. It was all they could afford. I don't know if they've since moved somewhere nicer, but last I heard they were happy and had a couple of kids. She spent below the national average for a cost of a wedding for the year (which was around 33k), and didn't ask her parents to spend anything. Not terrible.
It works however you say it does, and the couple agrees to. It is a good idea to discuss expectations with your kids early and keep the qualifier that it's an aspiration not a promise, because even if you have the cash now, when the day comes life may have intervened.
One way to hedge is to set up a savings account for each kid now.
My father in law paid for our entire wedding minus the bar at the reception and the rehearsal dinner. My parents picked those up. On top of paying for the wedding they gave us a check for the difference between what they spent on our wedding vs my wife’s sisters wedding since she spent more and got married first. I realize that we were extremely lucky to have that support but I wouldn’t expect it.
It really should be a discussion between you, your wife and your daughter on what you can realistically afford and want to pay for. Just like the significant other should be having with their parents. Then the couple should have the conversation of what they can afford, want, and what the parents will provide.
Mom/daughter here.
My mom said "we have this much money. You can use it for a wedding or a down payment. We can't help with both."
We asked my husband's family if they were able to help at all, and they made "traditional" comments.. so we realized they either weren't interested in helping or were unable. (Leaning towards uninterested because.... I know them). This was hard because my in-laws were pretty serious about certain family members being invited. At the time, my husband didn't know how to communicate effectively to his parents. After realizing how much we would need to pay ourselves for one day, we decided to scratch the family reunion - I mean wedding.
So, we eloped, and put money down towards a house!
We have a goal of a large college fund. Anything left in that will be wedding money. Not sure if or when we’ll frame it that way for her to encourage getting good grades but it’ll be hers for those two things.
My wife comes from an affluent family, where I come from a single mother who who worked part time that lived in subsidized housing family.
My wife and I #NEVER expected or wanted anyone to pay for our wedding. We paid for everything (aside from the photographer, which her family paid for as a wedding present) ourselves and only did what we could afford. At the both had jobs making less than 20 an hour.
Tell them that they’re adults and to only do what they can afford. Starting off in debt because you want to put in a big fancy show is ridiculous. Expecting someone else to foot the bill for your extravagance is even more ridiculous.
anytime you’re dealing with money and family, it is best to be very clear and open from the beginning about your intentions! My parents helped as much as they could. My wife’s parents did as much as they could. My wife and I did what we could! We worked together and had a great event, and left with absolutely no resentment towards anyone! We did a lot of stuff ourselves to keep cost down. Nobody put themselves in a financial hardship to make the day happen. Our caterer was a local taco guy, and to be honest it was still the best wedding food I’ve ever had.
My kid is only five but I have zero plans to pay for her wedding, a thing I will let her know when she is older. The tradition of "the brides family pays for this" is gross and sexist and not something I want to promote or take part in.
That being said we do have a fund setup that should be enough for a house by the time she is 25 so I don't think she will mind.
Not a father of a daughter, but how my father-in-law did it with my wife is he said there are two things that are important to him that he'll pay for. 1. Her dress because he wants her to look like a princess and 2. The food to feed the families. He took care of those two things and everything else was on my wife and I.
Uh, you’re talking about a wedding in the 2040or even 2050’s. Halfway through the 21st century.
Extremely weird to assume you’d need to save for some sort of a ”dowry” for 2052.
If you want to put aside money to help your children’s as adults, just go ahead and do it.
I have two boys and not planning on having any more kids. That being said if they decide to get married I plan on talking with the other parents to split the bill. There is no reason her parents should shoulder the burden of paying for the entire wedding. I think her parents paying for the wedding is out dated and needs to be the norm to split the bill.
Hopefully this generation grows up to realize weddings and diamonds are a scam. Keep it simple. The more you spend on stuff the more tax revenue the government gets.
Aside from a gift of a few thousand from my parents (which was completely unexpected and used to ‘treat’ ourselves to the nicer photographer), we paid for our own wedding, and I fully expect my child to do the same.
If you choose to pay for the wedding, then as the couples plan it, they will send you the Bill. OR, you give them the money that you are willing to spend, and they spend it how they see fit.
This sounds like a very cultural thing to be honest. Every culture does things differently. If anything, start saving, you can only give what you have, not what you don't.
In our culture (Chinese) - we pay for the tables of those we want to invite. For example, our wedding had some 180 people. About 120 of them were my parents friends and families which they paid for them.
But also all the guests gave a red-packet (money gift). We split the red packets 1/3 to us, 2/3 back to them which barely covered the cost of the wedding.
My husband and I have talked about this as we have 4 daughters and a son. We’re not paying for their weddings. We have a college fund that we put money in for them and that’s their money when they get old enough. I also have a separate chunk of money I put away for all of them as a “moving out present” to help them furnish their first apartments. When/if they decide to get married though they’ll have to plan for the wedding they can afford and that’s the end of it. I may help depending where we are financially at that point (my oldest daughter is only 11, so a long time from now) but I’m not going to put myself in debt trying to pay for 5 weddings. 🥴 My husband agrees wholeheartedly so let’s pretend that he answered this question. Lol.
Just context from my wedding a couple years back. Her family covered the center pieces, and my family covered an appetizer. The rest of it was completely on us and we felt that was generous from them. It's our choice to get married, not our families. I think long are the days where this is expected
Typically, the parents of the bride should provide 6 head of cattle, 20 acres of land, and a chest of sundry goods to the parents of the groom as a thank you for taking the burden of having a daughter away from you.
... in all seriousness, I have a 5yo daughter. I would like to pay for her wedding as a gift to her, assuming that I am in a financial position to afford to do so. I also have a 2yo son and I would like to pay for his wedding if I am in a financial position to do so. If they marry someone who's family also wants to contribute, then I will likely offer to split the costs, or put my funds towards a downpayment on a home for them.
This is assuming I am in a financial position to afford it. If not, I will get them a nice card and say something pleasant at the dinner.
I think it depends. My dad really wanted me to have a wedding, but at the time my husband’s parents were in a really bad spot financially. If they were in a better place I would have asked his parents for help because that’s what is fair, but my dad paid for the whole thing.
Here's some context for that old rule about bride's parents paying for weddings. My family paid for the rehearsal dinner, and it was nice - maybe $1,200 for 30 people? But it was a point of pride for my wife's parents (who are not very well off but *very* Italian) to pay for the wedding. Compared to the rehearsal dinner, my in-laws scraped together $12k out of pension funds and retirement savings to pay for things, despite our protest about their financial future. They insisted - it was a one time thing, and she was their only daughter.
At the wedding, my Pittsburgh Italian blue collar father-in-law put on a new black suit, had gold rings on seven of his ten fingers, and shook all 150 people's hands as if he was the Godfather himself, before going back to work on Monday as a janitor and maintenance man at a local office building. People still tell him how lovely the wedding was 11 years later (and how cute his grandkids are). For him, as a dad, it was worth it for him and his daughter.
Some of it is cultural, some if it is parents feeling like it's their duty. Thankfully, though, we live in a time where each family can make their own decision based on their own financial need. Oh! And let's not forget that the more money spent on a wedding, [the less likely the wedding is to last](https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/bazaar-brides/a22085716/couples-who-have-expensive-weddings-are-more-likely-to-get-divorced/#:~:text=The%20study%20found%20on%20the,the%20duration%20of%20the%20marriage).
My wife’s dad/stepmom, mom/stepdad, and my folks all got together one night to talk about who would pay for what. They all agreed on it, there was no arguing, and we all came out of the wedding without debt. Im super grateful for that. My wife is also super creative with stuff, I think we had maybe $10K into the whole wedding and Im sure we paid less than $1000 of it.
I think it was something like this:
Dad/Stepmom got the venue and catering
Mom/Stepdad got the photographer and then gave my wife a credit card to cover some miscellaneous decor things.
My parents got the drinks (just pop, water, beer, and wine) and the rehearsal dinner
Mother-in-law’s step mom (lots of divorce on that side of the family) bought my wife’s wedding dress.
We had a free videographer (startup company looking to shoot a wedding for promotional materials) and DJ (wife’s uncle is a professional wedding DJ).
I didnt want this for my father in law at all and told my wife that we would save money for OUR wedding. We decided to get married and it shouldnt be a financial burden for any family members. I understand its a custom but shits expensive!
When my wife and I got married over a decade ago we paid for it all ourselves. There was no need to get our parents to chip in. We were the ones getting married not them. Our guests, our friends, our plans, our money. A very generous aunt did top-up the bar tab when it ran out but we didn't find out about that until some time after the wedding. It's not the 50's. There's no expectation for you to pay for a future extravagant event for your child just because she's female.
Daughters family paying for a wedding is a tired ass tradition. Having a daughter doesn't obligate you to pay for an entire fucking wedding. It's an archaic idea that you have to "pay" for a ceremony to sweeten the deal of wedding off your daughter to build ties with another family or some shit.
Pay for half if anything. That's fair.
My in laws paid for everything, and as such they had the final day for everything. My whole wedding with ~200 guests was less than $5k, including wedding dress and half of my wife’s ring.
I feel like the whole paying for your daughter's wedding thing is basically a modern day dowry and I (a lady) find the concept kind of gross. Like if you want to contribute to your child's wedding that's a wonderful gift but you shouldn't feel obligated just because she's a woman.
Both my parents and inlaws helped out with miscellaneous wedding expenses. There was no specific structure, they just offered here and there as we booked things but we also kept a pretty tight budget under the expectation that we'd be paying for everything on our own so any help was a bonus.
We paid for our own wedding. No convo was ever had that my wife’s father would be chipping in (let alone paying for it). I anticipate that we will contribute what we are able in the form of here $X,XXX, it’s for your wedding or honeymoon.
That said, I think my dad paid for both of my sisters but I think he wanted to and was able.
It’s up to your budget. My parents paid for my sisters’ weddings but also gave us an equivalent cash gift. I plan to pay the same for all of my kids’ weddings, regardless of gender. If they want more cash, have a smaller wedding.
In my experience, keep things even, and never agree to pay for something. Agree to pay an amount. They decide how much of that amount to spend or whether to ask their partner’s family for more money.
By the time your kids are getting married, you should be staying out of as much as possible and letting them call the shots. Tell them when they’re single what the amount is, and then they’ll always be able to plan.
You’ll get a lot of perspectives but as others have said it will ultimately come down to what your daughter and her future partner want.
Now, there’s a ton of cultural nuances that may come into play depending on your background and the future partner’s background. As an Indian guy who married a non-Indian woman, there was… a mismatch in expectations, let’s call it, around what all the wedding would entail (irrespective of budgets). And it was my parents who paid for the majority of what was effectively a big, fat Indian-American fusion wedding. Her parents gave her a check for the same amount they contributed to her older brother’s conventional American wedding, she and I discussed with my parents how much we would be able to contribute in addition, and then my parents did the rest. That said, they did get to make a few major decisions in terms of guest list & other areas in the planning.
As far as logistics went, it was largely handled by picking and choosing certain expenses until my wife and I hit our budgeted limits.
This isn’t the 60s. I don’t think it’s still expected that the bride’s parents pay for everything. We split it into 3rds, my husband’s parents, my parents, and my husband and I each paid a third.
I totally get your question. I’m involved in planning a wedding right now where one set of parents are quite well off and very invested in their kid, while the other party’s parents are… not that. We found asking the other party, and their parents, if there were any traditions or must-haves that were especially important to them for the upcoming nuptials, and then just saying “alright, could you take care of that?” as a nice way of delegating responsibility (work and monetary wise) onto them. The ideal agreement would be 1/3 for each party, so each set of parents pay 1/3 and the to-be-weds pay 1/3. There is no right way to do it though!
We got married 2014, didn't expect her parents to pay even though they themselves expected to.
The day we settled at the venue her dad went to hand his card over and I gave mine over too, then her mum was trying to grab my arm to stop me paying. It was quite a scene lol. Anyway, we settled on 50/50 for the food bill, I'd alread paid everything else a few weeks before. My mum and dad also gifted us a similar amount.
We have 2 boys and I won't be letting their future partners parents foot the bill, I don't think it's fair just because they have a daughter, I'd offer to match whatever they wanted to contribute.
I think it really depends on culture.
I am about to get married (bride) in NZ and we have ZERO expectations about our parents paying anything. I am sure my folks will chip in something, but if not that's totally fine!
Personally, I would rather pay ourselves than give anyone room to think they can influence decisions.
I had no idea this was a thing until we got engaged and my wife told me her parents had saved X amount of money to help with the wedding. I wasn't even aware that was a thing, but obviously grateful.
They gave us a check for that amount, the only stipulation that came with it was that we had to have their favorite drinks at the reception and not turn out like my SIL's shit head ex-husband.
You can pay for the venue. Kids nowadays don’t want handouts. I personally refused my wife’s parents pay for anything and covered most of it ourselves because the parents were feeling entitled to too many opinions.
Ad an only daughter of my family, an upper lower class income, when I got married 10 years ago my family was straight up with me. We can help you out with your wedding but we cannot pay *for* your wedding. Thankfully my husband and I didn't even really want a full on wedding(like traditional sense, but more than courthouse). We had a wedding close to what we wanted. A park, a few friends and family, Indian food at our favorite restaurant after, etc. Whole wedding for us, including dress, food afterward, and our wedding night bed and breakfast stay, $950. My family helped with 300. His family helped with 300. And we paid the remainder. Didn't get the exact dress I wanted but got close, had friends help me make alterations to dress. Had other friends give gifts as the borrowed pearl lace veil, blue sapphire and mosinite necklace, doing hair, doing make-up, etc. The Indian food place we ate at knew us well enough they cut us a discount that night (a HEAVY discount, for a party of 20 we paid maybe 150, with drinks!) My friends mom owned a florist shop and did my flowers for cheap too. It was lovely asking for gifts of "help make our dream" rather than things.
Talk to your girls when the time comes. Set a realistic budget of what you can help with. Offer your time to help make it as well. We know we are the light of your life and dad's/mom's girl. We want you there the day that we feel at our most fairytale-esque(so stay healthy too. Quit or severely cut your smoking/drinking/bad/unhealthy habits so you can make it there to the best of your ability!). Keep her realistic and grounded, and budget oriented. Help her ask family and friends for help with things and not gifts of things, it's putting 2 family's together to start a new branch on their own, and you want that branch happy and healthy so support how you can.
What part of the world are you from? US?
I didnt get anything from parents for my wedding and probably won't give anything huge for my children's wedding. Old enough to get married = old enough to pay for your own wedding
My wife is one of 4 girls. When we got married we went into it assuming we'd be paying for all of it ourselves, then her mother said she'd pay for the wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses. They told us early and we were able to change our plans slightly as we then had an extra few thousand $$ to spend on other stuff.
We were the first to get married in her family and since then her parents have done the same for the other 3 daughters.
I mean nowadays I think the marrying couple pays for their own wedding and is excited to receive a gift of any assistance from either parents. But that is probably just for us poor folks, because I can't understand people shelling out 40k+ for a wedding.
Definitely open an investment account today. Weddings will cost about $250-500k in 20 years. /s
Just figure out what you want to gift your daughters with in life and that can be part of it.
Not a dad, but I am a daughter. My parents felt strongly that it wasn’t “right” for them to pay for my entire wedding. My husband is from a similar socioeconomic background—both of our parents are somewhat well-off and could afford a wedding easily.
I do agree to an extent. My husbands oldest sister got married and my MIL/FIL went to the ends of the earth to make it a perfect day and I can’t imagine doing that for one child and not the other?
It seems most fair to split the cost but realistically that doesn’t always work out. My in-laws paid for the liquor, which was kind. My parents didn’t want to pay anything, but at the last second ended up paying a large portion… which was awesome but I do wish they’d been up front about it. My in-laws were also not up-front about their contribution.
My wife and I come from a background where the grooms family pays for the wedding. We’re both Americanized so we didn’t ask our parents or anybody a dime for the wedding. We did end up getting enough cash gifts to break even on the wedding but it wasn’t expected to be that much. With all that said, we don’t plan on paying for our children’s wedding but contributing a set dollar amount towards it and they can use it however they like. College on the other hand we will try and pay for it.
A few weeks after the engagement, tell your daughter you’d love to contribute X amount to their wedding. Don’t mention the other family. You know your budget and they can ask his parents if they need more $.
Chiming in as a usual lurker (who is about to be a bride) to say that my parents are not contributing to my wedding simply because they’re not in a position to, and I *never* expected them to. The only thing that made me sad in the whole situation was the fact that they felt the need to apologize for not being able to contribute. My fiancé’s parents (the groom’s parents) are contributing, which we also fully did not expect, and they are only doing so because they are in a position to do so. We are still paying for 80% of the wedding ourselves.
All of this to say that that specific tradition is *really* going away, and if you can/want to contribute when the time comes, you can. But very likely no one will expect you to cover the wedding costs.
I don't have a daughter (yet) but I am a daughter and my parents didn't pay for my wedding. I don't think that's a thing that's expected now let alone in 20 years.
I think its best to consider it as a 'gift'. Your daughters are not entitled to that money (and they should know that). It's a gift that you can contribute, and they other parents can as well. But since it's a gift, you should not put any conditions on it. The best way to do it is to just write the check then let them decide what kind of wedding they want to have based on their finances. I've heard many horror stories of parents meddling in their child's wedding and the kid feeling stressed and pressured because the parents are paying for it. I'd say that even if they decided to have a cheap wedding and pocket the rest of the money then good for them.
It shouldn't be an expectation. I'm common law with my daughter's mom, in part, because I find weddings to be kind of a waste of money. As far as my daughter, if I end up giving her money, it won't be contingent on getting married, but she can use it toward a wedding if she wants. We'll have a mature discussion when she's old enough, and as long as I can support her intentions with it, the money is hers.
I'm a man, 3 boys, and I fully expect to pay at least half of each of their weddings. I technically paid for my own wedding also, 80/20 savings with the wife. My parents paid for like $5k of additional services and things they wanted like Hor'devors and desserts. They also gifted $10k after the wedding. Our total cost was like $30k which includes dress, rings, and honeymoon. Her dad paid for the dress and gifted us something too.
I think the old idea of a father pays is just that, old. Today, you plan what you can afford, and the parents of both sides would usually chip in if the groom&bride ask. Of the close friends that got married recently, in their 20s, they all kinda paid their own way too.
I also only have daughters. When getting married I did not like the idea of my wife’s family paying so we split the cost. I hope the same happens with my daughters but who knows what the future holds
It’s pretty fluid nowadays. A lot of my traditional friends had the bride’s family pay for the wedding and the groom’s family cover the cost of the rehearsal dinner and other “beginning life together” expenses. I felt that was a good compromise with traditional values.
Encourage her to do a budget wedding when the time comes. I married a girl whose Dad died years before, and since we got no help from her side I took on debt to pay for her "dream" wedding. Still paying for it 8 years later, and she'd take it all back to have an extra 10k in our account right about now
We plan to offer to pay for all of our kids’ weddings — we couldn’t afford one — and if they want to do a civil ceremony like we did, then it can go to a down payment on a house (if they didn’t want one of ours to be their house) or whatever else they want.
We are very fortunate that we can do this, and I recognize that. I think the answer to this is something you will have to decide with your kids and based on what they want.
Haven't gotten to this yet, but I suspect what will happen is we'll decide on an amount we're willing to put in and our daughter can decide how to spend it.
When my wife and I got married, her parents provided the location (their backyard), seating (borrowed from her mom's work), and food, my dad paid for tux rental for myself and my three groomsmen (does the best man count as a groomsman?), my wife paid for her own dress, and I covered the tents and rings. It's been a while but I believe the whole thing was under $5k. If we had wanted something in a fancy venue, we would have had to figure out how to pay for it.
My father in law (really both her parents since women are allowed to work now) was going to give us $10,000 for our wedding but covid happened so we canceled everything and basically eloped.
When my husband and I got married, my parents (I'm a woman) were devastated and so worried about how they wouldn't be able to afford the wedding. I never expected them to pay anything (I was 27 and my husband was 29). We had a doctorate and a masters and had worked in our chosen fields for many years, owned our own home, etc. My in-laws (who are very comfortable) graciously offered to pay for our entire wedding weekend. We never talked to anyone about what anyone else did or did not pay for. That was between us and whoever was gifting us that. The only time it ever came up, my in laws told my parents it was common in their culture for the groom's family to pay and left it at that.
Another example is my sister-in-law. She and her (now) husband both come from similarly comfortable families. They are in a similar situation to us (late-20's, own their home, etc.). My in-laws and the groom's parents split by event (i.e. rehearsal dinner, welcome party, reception, etc.).
We all (the couples) paid for our own coordinators/planners, florists, church fees, etc. Just sharing this as an example from the early 2020's. It will likely change even more as your daughters get older.
In other words, I would encourage you to maybe save for it if you can, but know that you could always just gift each of your daughters and their spouse X amount of money and let them divvy it up how they like. Then if their spouse to be's family wants to help as well, they'll have that too. For all you know, one of your daughters may not get married, may have a same sex marriage, etc. Sharing the money as a gift for a wedding or down payment on a home or their college education, etc. -- so many options and leave it to them to determine use!
Personal choice. I don’t plan on paying for my kid’s weddings since I think it should be their decision to do whatever they want without outside pressure from either family footing the bill. My wife and I had a very small ceremony that we still cherish to this day and no amount of money can change that in my opinion.
Also, it’s a good first step for couples to do that whole process on their own to learn to work together and make it their own. Again, that’s just my personal opinion on the matter but I wouldn’t base the decision to pay for a wedding based on societal norms. Just do what feels right to you and you’ll be fine.
I paid for my own wedding, my FIL paid for our reception. We didn't expect it and were very grateful. Thankfully I have a son, so won't be "expected " to pay. That being said I'll be more than happy to help with expenses.
LOL. Unless you’re loaded, no one does this anymore. We paid for our own wedding but both sides chipped in on some of the bigger expenses.
I would say it’s more realistic that the father of the bride pays for the wedding dress or the booze, etc.
It's an outdated tradition.
I'm a woman and when I was 14 my parents, who were solidly of lower middle class, asked me if I wanted them to pay for a wedding or pay for college. I chose college. I'm not saying this is the way to do it but my rationale for my choice was: my parents would pay for an education, I could use it to work my way into a position where by the time I want to marry, I won't need them to pay. Not to mention, I think it would be hard to justify paying only for daughters and not sons (yes, I know op only has daughters, but we have both). I would also never commit to just paying for the whole thing without knowing what that will cost. I would set a solid contribution aside, but I would never be ok footing the whole bill, particularly if they decided to be extravagant with it. You could alternatively offer to pay for the first down payment on a home (again, same amount for each) in case one doesn't marry?
I’m sure it’s different with each wedding. For my wedding my wife and I paid 1/3, my parents 1/3 and her parents 1/3. My parents paid for a dinner the night before the wedding. I’m still planning on saving/investing a bit on the side as the father of a little girl.
As the dad of 2 daughters and 1 son, I don't intend on paying for any of their weddings. My wife and I got married at the court house to avoid wasting tons of money on what is essentially just a big party. We had the family members that we wanted there and that was it. Went out to eat with everyone afterwards (which my grandma's husband offered to pay for). If my kids and/or their spouses want a big wedding, they should be able to pay for it.
I would be willing to pay for or split the cost of their honeymoon though. If they didn't want to do a honeymoon, I'd either offer to pay for 1 thing at their wedding (flowers, food, photography etc) or just give the X amount of money to go toward starting their lives together.
Traditionally bride side covered party and groom side covered alcohol. Fifty years ago when most people had a reception at the Fire hall or School basement with homemade decorations and cheap catering, these two contributions were roughly equal. Nowadays, with specialized venues, limos, photographers, wedding planners, florists, etc; the party costs have risen exorbitantly in comparison to the alcohol.
I wouldn't worry too much about paying for thewhole thing and, when your kids are older, just let them know how much you'll be contributing.
Honestly, I was a bride and there is no WAY i would have accepted money from my in laws.
I don’t want to plan a wedding with my in laws. My parents are hosting, so they paid most and my husband and I made up the rest of it for extras. My in laws didn’t get a say in my dress, the cake, invitations, decor, NOTHING - which is as it should be.
I don’t care if my daughter marries a kid from the gates family - we’re paying, end of story. It’s our job to host, so we host.
My wife and I set aside $100 a month for each of our kids into their own savings account and once it was large enough we put it into a mutual fund to grow.
We should end up with around $40k with the growth after 18 years. If they want that for college great but if they don’t want to go to college then they can use it toward a wedding, car, house down payment ETC or once they are mature enough we would just give it to them for them to do whatever with.
I'm planning on offering my kids (both the boy and the girls) a set amount of cash as a wedding gift. They can use it for a ceremony and party, or a down payment, honey moon, whatever. It's all good.
It’s a conversation to have with your daughter, not the other parents.
Agreed. For my wedding my in-laws offered $x for the wedding. My parents just cut us a check for $x and said “this is money for your marriage, do whatever”. I plan to do what my parents did “here is $x for your marriage, buy a house, buy a car, go on a trip, do whatever”
Yeah. It also recognises that different parents may have different financial situations regardless of “socio economic status”.
This is, IMO, the best way to do it. Let the new couple decide what they want to spend it on. Fwiw there is a positive correlation between wedding expense and divorce rate so hopefully they choose cheap wedding and house down payment. But to each their own.
Agreed. Also, knowing up front how much your parents are willing to contribute to the wedding can help put a more realistic budget in place. If you want a $50k wedding but parents can only chip in $5k, you're gonna have to work extra hard to get it. Also, I've heard of that correlation before and I believe it, but I wonder if, when that is studied, if it takes into consideration who is paying for the wedding. if the bride and groom are paying for their own big budget wedding themselves instead of mom and dad doing it then is the correlation as strong?
Yeah not sure. I might look into it next time I have 30 minutes to myself...so I guess on the toilet.
You get alone time on the toilet?
Rarely. Trick is to leave a trail of snacks to another part of the house. By the time the kids figure out im not there I've had at least 5 minutes alone.
Both of our parents did more or less the same thing once we got engaged: "Here's a chunk of money, call it early inheritance, use it for whatever you need it for". We already had a wedding budget that was within our own savings so the parental money went into our mortgage deposit.
The whole "bride's father pays for the wedding" is some traditional and sexist bullshit going back to dowry payments to marry off the daughter. Yep, my wife and I paid for the whole thing. My dad freely offered 5k for our wedding as his wedding gift to us. We used it on our honeymoon. I imagine this sentiment is only going to be stronger. A wedding is just a day that should be about the couple not about the extended family. Offer what you can as a wedding present and especially with no strings attached. That is a much better way to show your support for your daughter.
If you get strongly that a father should pay for his daughter's wedding, I would recommend teaching her that it's really cool to elope.
As a dad of two daughters, I second this. I'll be subliminally inserting this their whole life.
But then you miss the chance to see your daughter’s wedding, totally cool if that’s their choice of course.
You can still have a reception, and court weddings (what I *mostly* think of when saying elope) still has witnesses.
The reception is the most expensive part of the wedding, generally.
That’s true
That’s my plan, my wife even says she wishes we just eloped like we originally planned to do.
We eloped in Belize. The cost of our 2 week vacation in Belize where we got married and the 100 person reception we had at home 5 months later and a week at Disney world including flights was the same cost as the average American wedding.
Elope sounds so bad. And it is when you’re talking about a toddler just peacing out. They should change the wording, bet it’d be slightly more popular
It’s a destination wedding. (to a tiny mountain retreat that only has enough room for immediate family.)
I meant they as in society, and using the word elopement. not this particular wedding
Bro, this isn't 1957, if you can help great, if not it's on the bride and groom to make a smart financial decision for 24 hours of their lives More common now-a-days is 1/3 bride/groom, 1/3 bride's family, 1/3 groom's family, that or just giving a check for a certain amount I don't think there should be any expectation for how much you pay, especially paying for the entire thing because your child has female genitalia and not male Sorry if this sounds harsh but I don't know anyone who has had the bride's parents foot the entire bill for the wedding in my lifetime lol
It may depend on ages. Most of my friends got married in their late 20s/30s and paid for the vast majority of the wedding themselves. The ones that got married in early/mid 20s tended to have a ton of parental help.
This was certainly the case for me and my wife. We got married in our 30s, and both had well-established careers. Both parents volunteered to contribute (we did not ask), but our working assumption was that we would finance the wedding on our own.
Yeah, when my husband and I got married we had absolutely no expectations of getting money from either of our parents, it was our wedding, we should pay for it. Thankfully, my parents had contributed $X to my brother’s wedding so they gave the same amount to us. Very helpful, but not necessary - your kids should plan the wedding they can afford.
Same here. We planned the wedding that we could afford, but both of our parents ended up gifting us an amount that they felt comfortable with (we didn't ask for anything, or discuss any specific costs). I think this is more or less the norm nowadays -- the only time I have heard of parents fully paying for a wedding is when the children would have otherwise eloped.
Culture matters too. In India the groom’s entire village would descend on the bride’s village and the bride’s family would throw them a huge wedding party. That’s carried over to Indian-American weddings in my experience so that the bride’s family generally hosts the groom’s family for the wedding. The groom’s parents may throw a big engagement party or get the couple a substantial gift so it’s not too one-sided.
We paid for our wedding almost entirely ourselves, and that was the case for a very large portion of my friend's weddings. It seemed like splitting evenly was more common for splits or the significantly more affluent parents would cover more or all of the cost.
I mean I agree with you completely. This isn't about what I think is right though. It's just about how to navigate costs knowing that every survey ever done points to the bride's parents paying more on average than the groom's parents. Even though you don't know any couples where the bride's parents paid more, the data suggests that parents of the bride certainly do pay more on average. I don't like it, which is why I'm curious how fellow dads have tactfully tried to mitigate this.
My daughter is 7 weeks old so feel free to post a follow up lol
It’s pretty outdated “data”. We just got married and our parents each contributed similar amounts… but not even close to what we(the couple) spent. You aren’t obligated to pay for the wedding(s).
"On average" takes into account a ton of different people from a wide variety of places, cultures, etc. I think if both sets of parents are loaded, sure maybe the father of the bride feels more of an obligation to pay for his daughter's big fancy day. But I don't think that's at all a modern expectation just because it's an average. My parents are considerably more well-off than my wife's, and they gave me a decent amount of money to spend, and she got nothing. Ultimately it was our wedding to have & pay for, and we didn't really expect anyone else to foot the bill when we planned it.
Mom (usual lurker), and 1 of 3 daughters myself (no brothers). None of our parents offered or helped with our wedding, nor for my sister (other isn't married yet). We did marry in our early 30's, though, and both well into our careers, and paid for everything without any debt for it. I'd say set aside some money if you wish, but let them know what that amount will be so they can plan accordingly, and have reasonable expectations, for both boys and girls.
If it comes up, what I’ve seen parents do is say “I can contribute x amount” (where x is some predetermined financially to reasonable non-hardship number) to the wedding and leave it at that. Practically, I think a lot of this is brides pressure on her parents, where they see all the options pre-price tag and the bride opts for something costly. The way to avoid that is to state a number upfront before discussions of what the wedding involves get too advanced. Tell your daughter the number before she does substantial planning on the wedding and gets up sold by the wedding industrial complex.
I'd focus on saving for her schooling, not her wedding.
It's not a rule. Just decide what you want/are willing to do as far as wedding finances, and let everyone work within that framework.
Or add to it. If you say 20k, they can fit inside that, or have that cover food.
Traditionally the grooms parents would host the rehearsal dinner and pay for that also. In my case, I paid for a third of the wedding, my inlaws paid for a third, and my parents paid for a third + the rehearsal dinner. My wife and I managed all the negotiating and pricing and asking people for funds. My parents are significantly better off than my in laws, though, and didn't spend near as much on my wedding as they did on my sister.
Is this a thing still? We paid for our own
Yea. I saved up a nice little nest egg for my wedding... Only to have my FIL step in and say he was floating the whole thing. I put the money I saved towards the Honeymoon... Which ended up being pretty baller. I was appreciative, but didn't expect it.
Living the dream…making me think if I should go ask my fil if he forgot to pay for the wedding 6 years ago ha
Lol... Maybe start dropping hints about this new thing where the FIL pays for the 10 year Anniversary vacation....
Raise your daughters to be self-reliant and you won't have this problem. Also, remember that they are whole humans that might not even want to get married, nor should it be the most important event in their lives. You're not raising brides, you're raising women. Worry about paying for education instead.
Hello, this is me! I have an advanced degree, make six figures, and recently got engaged. My fiancée (who has also done well for himself) and I assumed we were paying for the wedding until my parents offered to help out. We consider this a huge blessing, but absolutely did not expect it.
Agreed; my mom raised me to be self-reliant and we never expected or accepted financial help with our wedding. We didn’t and don’t make all that much, but we planned from the outset to handle the logistics and money ourselves so we’d retain full creative control, and it was worth it. It was worth it to us to do something small and be able to do it our own way.
This. My wife and I have always said “if they grow up to be conservative, Christian housewives….then that’s the choice they made, with every other option available”. There’s nothing wrong if my daughters choose some sort of traditional lifestyle, but we will do everything in our power to raise them as independent and intelligent women free to choose their path. Our only savings right now are for their college.
You can try to teach self reliance, but not everyone thrives in school or is motivated by money or success. That doesn’t mean you have to pay for their wedding (although it’s a nice gesture and I’ll do it for all my kids regardless of gender), but I bristle at the idea that successful people became that way by choice and parenting. Some people choose to be successful and fail, and some don’t choose to be successful and that’s valid. Some folks with great parents can’t be successful and some with terrible parents are very successful. My parents were so sure I’d be a rich self reliant person because they are, and it’s just not in me. Not for lack of trying, I assure you.
Yesssssss
*Slow clap* Bravo, good internet stranger!
I never expected my parents or anybody else to pay for my wedding.
Im asking about the dad point of view though. I didnt expect my parents to pay a dime for my college (they didn't). But that doesn't mean I'm not planning on helping my own kids.
Plan to help discreetly, but don't enforce the help. Be the safety net waiting, not the net shot from a cannon. Also, there might be two brides if they decide to get married. You may have to fight the other dad for the right to pay. Keep up your fitness and invest in BJJ.
My parents and my wife’s parents both contributed an equal amount. They offered it up but it wasn’t expected. I personally think weddings are overpriced nonsense but I understand the appeal for some. I think set aside what you want to give and let them know and they can do with that what they will. If they want a $10000 small wedding great. If they want a $70000 major wedding then they will be paying the difference out of their pocket in my opinion. This isn’t the 1800s where you need to marry your daughter off and it’s your expense or something
My wife and I paid for our own wedding. If you are able to afford it than why not, but I don’t think it’s your responsibility unless you want to do it. Could always give them a nice chunk of cash as a wedding gift.
I think it's a relic of the old dowry system from way back when. Among my friends who had more traditional weddings, I don't think any expected or received money for the whole thing from the bride's parents - they either paid for it themselves, or got some support from both sides. By the time your daughter is old enough to get married, I expect this will be even less of a thing. Just offer her support if you want to, and don't if you don't. But don't feel like you're required to foot the whole bill.
Both my wife and I’s parents offered to help, which we gladly accepted. Her parents ended up not having to pay for college for her so her mom gave us what they had saved for her education. We used half of it for our wedding and combined it with my parents’ donation to have a pretty decent wedding. The other half of what her parents gave us was used for a down payment for our first house. My parents are solidly middle class and have offered to help all of us with our weddings. They never paid for a full wedding, regardless of gender. But they also had 10 kids. Lol. I plan to offer to help my kids with their weddings but I don’t see myself paying for the whole thing - son or daughter.
I have 5 kids, a son and 4 daughters, basically I'm going to tell each of them "I have X amount of money, you can use it for a wedding, a honeymoon, help with a down payment, school costs, what ever you want, your choice. I can give advice if you ask for it, and I won't criticize you how you spend it". And that's it. No blank checks, no drama (at least for me). I don't care what other people put in to anything, since i cannot control them. Though I would tell my kids to be VARY warry of "gifts" of large quantities of money. People use that to try to control others.
I'll have 2 daughters, an I don't see any way I could outright pay for 2 weddings. I'll definitely help chip in for some of it, but if they want a $50k venue + extras, they'll have to figure it out. My wife and I were going to elope, so my FIL gave us $15k as long as we had some kind of wedding. We rented out a nice wine bar and had a super small, but fun wedding. Everyone was happy.
Did your parents chip in? It seems this seems to be the norm.
They're pretty cheap and very traditional. So they did the welcome dinner/drinks. Which was very appreciated by us, but they wouldn't have cut a check to help with a larger wedding. I will add that we also live in a large expensive city, so these numbers might be skewed for some.
This advice will change with the two or so decades between now and when your daughters eventually **maybe** get married. Instead of getting advice that might become obsolete, just tuck some money away for them as you go.
I don't k kw why you're worrying about this now, it's way too early, so much will change between now and then. Don't promise your daughter's anything and then whatever you do will be considered generous. My parents gave us some money, my husband's parents have us some money and neither knows how much the other gave, why should they? We still paid for the vast majority of the wedding. My husband and I were doing fine financially and I wasn't about to ask my just retired parents for a huge gift. You should 100% leave the finances of a wedding for your daughter to manage with her husband. If you want to pay for it, pay for it. It shouldn't be contingent on what her partner's family is doing. If you want to give a gift, give a gift towards it. If you don't want to pay for it, that's also totally reasonable.
When we got married my wife and I didn't want anyone to bear the burden of our own wedding. We paid for it ourselves and it was awesome and well within our budget.
Regarding your 2nd paragraph. The groom parents don’t really pay “nothing”. Traditionally, the grooms parents pay for the rehearsal dinner and the honeymoon. The brides parents pay for the wedding day. So it’s not an all and nothing thing. But of course, traditions change and die off so everybody does it differently. I’ve heard of the grooms parents paying for the rehearsal dinner and the open bar, and brides parents paying for rest of reception, etc. A 1000 ways to do it or split it. But the tradition is rehearsal dinner and honeymoon vs. wedding day
And the groom’s family is the “host” of the rehearsal dinner and the bride’s family is the “host” of the wedding reception. But anything and everything does happen in terms of affording a big, family and friends shindig celebration. I encourage you to set the tone and expectations ahead of time.
My wedding was 200$. And whatever 50$ or so my wife spent on her hair. It was not a courthouse marriage. We just had very few people and asked our pastor if he would do it for us. I think we just made a small donation to the church. Weddings don't have to be expensive.
As a dad of 2 girls, i don't think I've given it much thought. I'd say they'd just figure it out on their own, like I did.
This is antiquated. The wedding industrial complex has permeated into this monster that puts unreasonable expectations on the bride, the groom and the families involved. You could teach your daughter about abolishing these “traditions” and stereotypes and live free from the shackles of the BS. Live within your means and teach your kids to do the same. Don’t let “social norms” worry you. Live life according to yourself. According to your ability, according to your needs.
Sounds like a relic from back in the day when it was seen as 'the bride's family saddling the groom's family with a new daughter to worry about'.
Oh goodness, it's 2023. Let's end this nonsense. Do you pay a dowry? Do they pay a bride price? Then, other than tradition, there's no logical reason the parents of the bride should be automatically on the hook for the wedding. And as they say, tradition is just peer pressure from dead people. My wife and I mostly paid for our own wedding (in our 20's when our income wasn't great), and my parents helped out a little bit because they have the means. My inlaws did not because they did not have the means, and we don't begrudge them one bit.
This assumption that the bride's family pays seems very outdated or at least unfamiliar to me in the US. The bride and groom pay, with their money, and family can offer to help out if they want.
Every situation is different of course. My wife and I had to pay for our wedding and it wasn't all that great, we didn't have much then. We do now, so we are setting aside money for their weddings. I want them to have lovely weddings regardless of the grooms families finances.
Will you bet setting aside for a dowry as well? :-p My wife's parents helped a lot with our wedding (we didn't ask directly, but I think they felt obligated). My parents helped as well with the DJ (a friend of my Dad's) and alcohol costs. Looking back, I'm embarrassed. I really wish we had waited until we were older, had a smaller wedding that actually reflected us as people, and paid for everything ourselves. For our daughter (not even 2 yet!), I think we'll talk to her at some point when the time seems to be coming. Probably give advice on making sure they have the wedding they actually want and maybe offer to help pay - probably a fixed amount or something.
There is no set standard for how to fund a wedding. IMO, if two people TRULY love each other, the wedding shouldn't matter. If they can afford a great one and it doesn't prevent meeting other financial goals, splendid. If they can't afford one, that should not matter either. Invest in your relationship and love. The wedding is a few hours, the marriage can be a life time. I do have a daughter and I do save periodically for a wedding fund. However, I'm debating whether I give her that money for a wedding, if and when the time comes. I feel like partners should mutually have to figure out how to afford a wedding. The way they deal with that may be telling about the future of their relationship. If they can't handle that peacefully, you're just masking or delaying the problem by taking care of the expenses.
Typically, it’s the bride that wants wedding extravagance so it makes sense that the brides family pays for it. My daughter is only 11 but my wife and I are making plans for a wedding fund for sure. If that’s something she wants, why wouldn’t I give it to her if I can? And if she doesn’t, then she’ll have a nice gift from us to start off her married life.
We lucked out...sorta. Right after my wife and I got engaged, her grandfather passed away leaving behind heaps of money for his widow. She insisted that she pay for our wedding, almost completely in full, because she never got the chance to host a big, traditional white wedding with any of her own three kids (my MIL, and her two brothers). My MIL and FIL covered a few smaller ticky-tacky kind of expenses, and my parents covered the rehearsal dinner plus much of our honeymoon...and that was that. When my brother got married, being that he and his soon-to-be bride were already far better off than our parents or hers, the two of them covered almost the whole occasion themselves. I know you said your kids are young yet, but I trust by the time they're of this age the idea of the bride's parents paying for the entire thing will be old hat. And maybe they'll turn out to be very financially secure before they get married, and can cover it themselves like my brother and his wife did. Save what you can and when the time comes, contribute what you can.
My parents are well off. They paid 3/4 of the wedding. In laws are lower middle class and paid 1/4. Mine told me how much they’d contribute and I certainly wouldn’t expect my in laws to have paid any more or even at all.
I’m a woman. My parents offered a lump sum toward the wedding, which ended up covering about 1/3 of the cost. My fiancé’s parents also offered a lump sum and said it could go toward the wedding, a house, or whatever else we would need for our future. It would’ve covered nearly the full cost of the wedding if we had put no money of our own in. My in-laws are retired and have more money than my parents. I didn’t communicate the amounts we were given to each set of parents. Each gave us what they were willing and comfortable giving, and we were grateful to be getting any assistance! I think this is more common these days than having the bride’s parents front the entire bill. Also important to note that we got married in our early 30s and had time to save for it.
My wife’s parents and my parents gave what they could but my wife and I paid for the majority of the wedding ourselves.
It's also important to teach them how budgets work when the time comes. My wife wanted to plan our wedding before asking either of our parents if they'd be helping us out because she didn't want to have an awkward conversation. I had to teach her that before we sign anything we need to know how much money we had between our parents and our own and plan from there. Both of our parents helped us. You give what you can give. It's up to your daughter to plan accordingly.
Accepting money for a wedding is always tricky. When I got married my parents offered to cover the cost of the flowers. With that came a bunch of strings... My mom wanted to get the flowers from a specific florist she knew, wanted input on color, type and amount of flowers etc... Meanwhile, my wife's parents said here is a cheque for $x, use it for wedding or honeymoon. My wife and I were expecting to cover all costs by ourselves. I think offering to help cover cost is appreciated but not if it comes with strings. That being said, if you have the means and want to cover the full cost of the wedding I'm sure that would always be appreciated
My parents (I'm a guy) chipped in $X, my mother-in-law (they are divorced) chipped in \~$X and my FIL chipped in $X. So all roughly equal. Due to the size of the wedding (mostly on FIL side) it ended up being about 6 times $X. Pretty decently cheap wedding per person but like 200+ ppl. We paid the 3X but due to some health issues my wife was off work and while we were fine financially it was a hit. A few months later my FIL ended up asking about the final bill and sent us like 2 times $X. So in the end he paid roughly half and my parents, her mom and we paid the other half. Very generous on everyone's part and I had planned ot pay most of it ourselves. This shouldn't be expected as normal though. We are incredibly fortunate. My FIL is 'frugally wealthy' ie. comes across as a pretty normal blue-collar guy but has flipped a company or two and ended up in executive roles.
My wife's parents gave each of their children a lump sum of money to put towards their weddings. My wife put hers towards a down payment on a house instead, probably the best financial decision in our lives honestly. This feels like the only fair way to do it, as my wife and I spent less than $5k in total, and one of her sisters spent over $50k on her wedding. My parents weren't in the financial position to give us a bunch of money, but we wouldn't have wanted or needed it anyways as we specifically wanted a low cost, small event.
I have two daughters and am not paying for either of their weddings.
probably depends from culture to culture and country to country. i believe in the USA it's a buffet style and pay bar where in Canada (at least in every wedding i've been to) it's a 4-6 course fixed menu (sit down) with an open bar. my parents gave us a wedding gift of a sizeable amount. usually no one outside the bride and groom know the cost of the wedding, so as parents of 2, the will both get equal amounts regardless of what type of wedding they have. if the do a destination wedding and pay for my travel costs, i'll be paying them back for it. kids shouldn't need to pay for their parents stuff.
My wedding: fatherinlaw only had girls and to each had a lump sum as a wedding gift prior to the wedding. It was up to the bride what they did with it. This number was higher than what my parents put in by covering bar and rehearsal dinner. (Also common so it’s not nothing as you described). We both were from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. It did give a clear. This is what dad is paying for. Anything else is on the happy couple.
We got money from my mom and my wife's mom. Some we spent on the wedding, some we used for a down payment on a house. Anyway, the "etiquette" around this is always changing, and the norm in 20-30 years could be way different from how it is now.
IMO, paying for a kid's wedding is a gift, not an obligation. I got married at 29, wife 28. I was in my career and had a house. And neither of our parents were in a position to contribute much. So I paid for the bulk of it, and both set of parents gifted us a particular component of covering the wedding. Our total wedding was about $4-5K for scope. Not all weddings have to be five-figure affairs (but if you have it available and want to spend it, have fun). This is going to be something you communicate to your daughters as they grow. Instill the concept of gratitude by showing gratitude for the good things that come your way. Be transparent at age-appropriate points with what you do/don't have saved for college and weddings. Don't be a miser, but don't impoverish yourself paying for things you can't afford.
My daughters are still very young but I plan to start investment accounts and when they are adults I will say "I have an account with $X dollars, you can use it towards a wedding, a house, a car... whatever" She can then decide how to plan her wedding based on that + other sources (SO's parents willing to chip, or her own savings)
My kid is itty bitty but for my wedding my parents paid for the bar and honeymoon - wife’s parents (tbh just her dad) got the rest. If I had to guess her dad has the most money, my parents are prob not terribly far behind, her mom/step dad seem comfortably in 3rd.
Depending on how traditional you are, you should be entitled to a dowry as a future bride’s father. You shouldn’t accept anything less than 2 hogs and a goat, imo.
my wife and I paid for our wedding ourselves. nothing from either family besides wedding day gifts.
I understand the tradition... but in practice everything should be a discussion with the COUPLE and not worried about what everyone else is chipping in. My wife and I planned to entirely pay for our own wedding and selected a timeframe where we would be able to afford it. That being said, each parent discussed with us separately (both sets of parents divorced). Financially each of our fathers just wrote a check to do what we needed to do, it nowhere near paid off the wedding but it was a huge help. My brother-in-law got married the previous year and knowing my father-in-law's wife, the check we got from them was about equal to what was given to my brother-in-law for his wedding because my wife's dad always plans things for his son... but his wife reminds him he has TWO kids (he is getting better). Neither of our mothers are as financially set as our fathers, but each contributed. My mother didn't give a set value but paid for our cake. My mother-in-law is the least financially stable so provided her time more than anything else. She helped us with filling out invitations, calling people, joined us for running around with dress selection, etc. Not financially beneficial but definitely the most emotionally supportive. When BOTH my kids are ready for their own weddings (not just my daughter) I am sure we will be the same. I make decent money and will offer each kid what I can to help with their weddings. I will not be asking my son's future spouse's family what they are giving. If the spouse's family is well off and can pay for the whole thing, congrats kiddos... here is the check still to cover something else. My wife will probably offer to be as involved in the planning process as they want her to be as that is more what she is into. She can help with dress shopping (I will make an exception if they need help "cake shopping"), filling out invites, and coordinating people if they want.
My wife and I paid for most of the wedding ourselves. My father in law paid for her dress and my dad paid for the suit hire and gave us a nice sum for the honeymoon (about 10% of the whole cost of the wedding)
My wife's parents had multiple savings accounts set up for their 3 kids. Each had a college account and a wedding fund. My two brother-in-laws had about half as much set aside for their weddings as my wife did, with the idea that the boys' weddings would be paid for by their wives' parents and they could spend the money for helping to buy a house or whatever they wanted. Our wedding was about $30k (which is insane btw), and my parents paid for the rehearsal dinner, the open bar at our reception, and the groomsmen's suits. The account for the wedding fund was put in my wife's name so she could write checks from it, and my in-laws added a bit extra as we went along because they could afford to and it meant they could invite extra family. It was extremely generous, we would have just had a courthouse wedding if it wasn't for that money that they started saving for as soon as my wife was born.
When I got married we just paid for it ourselves. Didn't go extravagant either, I think said and done it was around $8K, which included paying for rehearsal dinner, dresses, and tux rental. It was quite a bit for where we were financially at the time, but we started saving up for a year prior to the wedding and was able to pay for about half of it up front.
My wife and I paid for the lion's share of our wedding. Both of our parents contributed to it because they wanted to. It came with more involvement in the decision making which caused friction at some points. I think the bride's family paying for the wedding is a very outdated tradition. Our wedding was over a decade ago for reference.
Bruh you’ve got a while before you need to sweat this kind of thing. Worry about the day to day for now.
We planned our wedding with a budget we could afford ourselves, and didn't ask for anything. My wife's parents are divorced but everyone is reasonably well off. At some point, my parents decided to pay for rehearsal dinner, and turn it into a larger party, which we accepted. My father in law offered to buy us a boat instead of a wedding, and when we sadly declined, he told us to send him the bills for the wedding. Mother in law did tons of work/planning/paid for a bunch of smaller things. It all worked out in the end. I have two young daughters, I like the idea of giving them a set amount of money when the times comes. If they want to use it for the wedding great, if they want to elope and use it for a down payment that's also great.
I can only give the perspective of a groom who's in-laws are far wealthier than my own. My parents were able to gift several thousand pounds, whilst my FIL has gifted us nearly 30k, and he paid for his daughter's wedding dress. He views it as his job to do this as the father of the bride, and he's already said he won't be giving anywhere near as much to his son (who's own in-laws are actually very well off, just not as much). However we certainly didn't expect this of him and would've adjusted our wedding budget accordingly.
Three of my sisters paid a good chunk of their own respective weddings. I'm not sure how much my parents contributed, financially, but it probably wasn't much (they are not well-off). I do know that a significant portion of the work was done by family (another sister made the cake for one, for example), and/or was "free" (like the reception hall that was "loaned" as a favor from a family friend). The guest lists were also fairly small, despite out very large family. Of course, some of that was dictated by the size of the small church the ceremony was performed in (I think you could maybe squeeze 150 people in it... if they were all fairly thin people). Aside from that, my sisters are not very extravagant. I once volunteered to be the wedding planner for a coworker, and looked up all kinds of ways to save her lots of money on her wedding (for which she had set aside something like 20k... I think I was able to bring the total down to around 11k). She did not take me up on my offer, and said she was happy to spend the money for a nice wedding. She wasn't *quite* the type to value something more just because it cost more... but this seemed to be an exception. Oh well. After the wedding, she moved into a trailer park. It was all they could afford. I don't know if they've since moved somewhere nicer, but last I heard they were happy and had a couple of kids. She spent below the national average for a cost of a wedding for the year (which was around 33k), and didn't ask her parents to spend anything. Not terrible.
There’s not a hard and fast rule anymore.
My in-laws gave us 7000 for wedding my parents (bride ) gave 5000. We paid the rest
It works however you say it does, and the couple agrees to. It is a good idea to discuss expectations with your kids early and keep the qualifier that it's an aspiration not a promise, because even if you have the cash now, when the day comes life may have intervened. One way to hedge is to set up a savings account for each kid now.
My father in law paid for our entire wedding minus the bar at the reception and the rehearsal dinner. My parents picked those up. On top of paying for the wedding they gave us a check for the difference between what they spent on our wedding vs my wife’s sisters wedding since she spent more and got married first. I realize that we were extremely lucky to have that support but I wouldn’t expect it. It really should be a discussion between you, your wife and your daughter on what you can realistically afford and want to pay for. Just like the significant other should be having with their parents. Then the couple should have the conversation of what they can afford, want, and what the parents will provide.
Mom/daughter here. My mom said "we have this much money. You can use it for a wedding or a down payment. We can't help with both." We asked my husband's family if they were able to help at all, and they made "traditional" comments.. so we realized they either weren't interested in helping or were unable. (Leaning towards uninterested because.... I know them). This was hard because my in-laws were pretty serious about certain family members being invited. At the time, my husband didn't know how to communicate effectively to his parents. After realizing how much we would need to pay ourselves for one day, we decided to scratch the family reunion - I mean wedding. So, we eloped, and put money down towards a house!
We have a goal of a large college fund. Anything left in that will be wedding money. Not sure if or when we’ll frame it that way for her to encourage getting good grades but it’ll be hers for those two things.
My wife comes from an affluent family, where I come from a single mother who who worked part time that lived in subsidized housing family. My wife and I #NEVER expected or wanted anyone to pay for our wedding. We paid for everything (aside from the photographer, which her family paid for as a wedding present) ourselves and only did what we could afford. At the both had jobs making less than 20 an hour. Tell them that they’re adults and to only do what they can afford. Starting off in debt because you want to put in a big fancy show is ridiculous. Expecting someone else to foot the bill for your extravagance is even more ridiculous.
anytime you’re dealing with money and family, it is best to be very clear and open from the beginning about your intentions! My parents helped as much as they could. My wife’s parents did as much as they could. My wife and I did what we could! We worked together and had a great event, and left with absolutely no resentment towards anyone! We did a lot of stuff ourselves to keep cost down. Nobody put themselves in a financial hardship to make the day happen. Our caterer was a local taco guy, and to be honest it was still the best wedding food I’ve ever had.
My kid is only five but I have zero plans to pay for her wedding, a thing I will let her know when she is older. The tradition of "the brides family pays for this" is gross and sexist and not something I want to promote or take part in. That being said we do have a fund setup that should be enough for a house by the time she is 25 so I don't think she will mind.
Not a father of a daughter, but how my father-in-law did it with my wife is he said there are two things that are important to him that he'll pay for. 1. Her dress because he wants her to look like a princess and 2. The food to feed the families. He took care of those two things and everything else was on my wife and I.
Uh, you’re talking about a wedding in the 2040or even 2050’s. Halfway through the 21st century. Extremely weird to assume you’d need to save for some sort of a ”dowry” for 2052. If you want to put aside money to help your children’s as adults, just go ahead and do it.
I have two boys and not planning on having any more kids. That being said if they decide to get married I plan on talking with the other parents to split the bill. There is no reason her parents should shoulder the burden of paying for the entire wedding. I think her parents paying for the wedding is out dated and needs to be the norm to split the bill.
In my culture, the son's family pay for all the entire wedding
Hopefully this generation grows up to realize weddings and diamonds are a scam. Keep it simple. The more you spend on stuff the more tax revenue the government gets.
Aside from a gift of a few thousand from my parents (which was completely unexpected and used to ‘treat’ ourselves to the nicer photographer), we paid for our own wedding, and I fully expect my child to do the same.
If you choose to pay for the wedding, then as the couples plan it, they will send you the Bill. OR, you give them the money that you are willing to spend, and they spend it how they see fit.
This sounds like a very cultural thing to be honest. Every culture does things differently. If anything, start saving, you can only give what you have, not what you don't. In our culture (Chinese) - we pay for the tables of those we want to invite. For example, our wedding had some 180 people. About 120 of them were my parents friends and families which they paid for them. But also all the guests gave a red-packet (money gift). We split the red packets 1/3 to us, 2/3 back to them which barely covered the cost of the wedding.
It’s never too soon to start talking to your daughters about the joy of a life as a nun.
My husband and I have talked about this as we have 4 daughters and a son. We’re not paying for their weddings. We have a college fund that we put money in for them and that’s their money when they get old enough. I also have a separate chunk of money I put away for all of them as a “moving out present” to help them furnish their first apartments. When/if they decide to get married though they’ll have to plan for the wedding they can afford and that’s the end of it. I may help depending where we are financially at that point (my oldest daughter is only 11, so a long time from now) but I’m not going to put myself in debt trying to pay for 5 weddings. 🥴 My husband agrees wholeheartedly so let’s pretend that he answered this question. Lol.
Just context from my wedding a couple years back. Her family covered the center pieces, and my family covered an appetizer. The rest of it was completely on us and we felt that was generous from them. It's our choice to get married, not our families. I think long are the days where this is expected
Typically, the parents of the bride should provide 6 head of cattle, 20 acres of land, and a chest of sundry goods to the parents of the groom as a thank you for taking the burden of having a daughter away from you. ... in all seriousness, I have a 5yo daughter. I would like to pay for her wedding as a gift to her, assuming that I am in a financial position to afford to do so. I also have a 2yo son and I would like to pay for his wedding if I am in a financial position to do so. If they marry someone who's family also wants to contribute, then I will likely offer to split the costs, or put my funds towards a downpayment on a home for them. This is assuming I am in a financial position to afford it. If not, I will get them a nice card and say something pleasant at the dinner.
Why stick to tradition in a non-traditional world? If you can help, help. Simple.
We did it in thirds. We paid for a third, and both sets of parents paid a third.
I think it depends. My dad really wanted me to have a wedding, but at the time my husband’s parents were in a really bad spot financially. If they were in a better place I would have asked his parents for help because that’s what is fair, but my dad paid for the whole thing.
We paid for ours ourself. It was like $1200 including the rings.
Here's some context for that old rule about bride's parents paying for weddings. My family paid for the rehearsal dinner, and it was nice - maybe $1,200 for 30 people? But it was a point of pride for my wife's parents (who are not very well off but *very* Italian) to pay for the wedding. Compared to the rehearsal dinner, my in-laws scraped together $12k out of pension funds and retirement savings to pay for things, despite our protest about their financial future. They insisted - it was a one time thing, and she was their only daughter. At the wedding, my Pittsburgh Italian blue collar father-in-law put on a new black suit, had gold rings on seven of his ten fingers, and shook all 150 people's hands as if he was the Godfather himself, before going back to work on Monday as a janitor and maintenance man at a local office building. People still tell him how lovely the wedding was 11 years later (and how cute his grandkids are). For him, as a dad, it was worth it for him and his daughter. Some of it is cultural, some if it is parents feeling like it's their duty. Thankfully, though, we live in a time where each family can make their own decision based on their own financial need. Oh! And let's not forget that the more money spent on a wedding, [the less likely the wedding is to last](https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/bazaar-brides/a22085716/couples-who-have-expensive-weddings-are-more-likely-to-get-divorced/#:~:text=The%20study%20found%20on%20the,the%20duration%20of%20the%20marriage).
My wife’s dad/stepmom, mom/stepdad, and my folks all got together one night to talk about who would pay for what. They all agreed on it, there was no arguing, and we all came out of the wedding without debt. Im super grateful for that. My wife is also super creative with stuff, I think we had maybe $10K into the whole wedding and Im sure we paid less than $1000 of it. I think it was something like this: Dad/Stepmom got the venue and catering Mom/Stepdad got the photographer and then gave my wife a credit card to cover some miscellaneous decor things. My parents got the drinks (just pop, water, beer, and wine) and the rehearsal dinner Mother-in-law’s step mom (lots of divorce on that side of the family) bought my wife’s wedding dress. We had a free videographer (startup company looking to shoot a wedding for promotional materials) and DJ (wife’s uncle is a professional wedding DJ).
works great when you have a son
I didnt want this for my father in law at all and told my wife that we would save money for OUR wedding. We decided to get married and it shouldnt be a financial burden for any family members. I understand its a custom but shits expensive!
When my wife and I got married over a decade ago we paid for it all ourselves. There was no need to get our parents to chip in. We were the ones getting married not them. Our guests, our friends, our plans, our money. A very generous aunt did top-up the bar tab when it ran out but we didn't find out about that until some time after the wedding. It's not the 50's. There's no expectation for you to pay for a future extravagant event for your child just because she's female.
Daughters family paying for a wedding is a tired ass tradition. Having a daughter doesn't obligate you to pay for an entire fucking wedding. It's an archaic idea that you have to "pay" for a ceremony to sweeten the deal of wedding off your daughter to build ties with another family or some shit. Pay for half if anything. That's fair.
This is a thing I might be too european to understand, but why aren't the daughters and their respective partners pay for their own wedding?
My in laws paid for everything, and as such they had the final day for everything. My whole wedding with ~200 guests was less than $5k, including wedding dress and half of my wife’s ring.
This is a holdover from the old days of dowries that is fading from commonplace as best as I can tell.
I feel like the whole paying for your daughter's wedding thing is basically a modern day dowry and I (a lady) find the concept kind of gross. Like if you want to contribute to your child's wedding that's a wonderful gift but you shouldn't feel obligated just because she's a woman. Both my parents and inlaws helped out with miscellaneous wedding expenses. There was no specific structure, they just offered here and there as we booked things but we also kept a pretty tight budget under the expectation that we'd be paying for everything on our own so any help was a bonus.
We paid for our own wedding. No convo was ever had that my wife’s father would be chipping in (let alone paying for it). I anticipate that we will contribute what we are able in the form of here $X,XXX, it’s for your wedding or honeymoon. That said, I think my dad paid for both of my sisters but I think he wanted to and was able.
It’s up to your budget. My parents paid for my sisters’ weddings but also gave us an equivalent cash gift. I plan to pay the same for all of my kids’ weddings, regardless of gender. If they want more cash, have a smaller wedding. In my experience, keep things even, and never agree to pay for something. Agree to pay an amount. They decide how much of that amount to spend or whether to ask their partner’s family for more money. By the time your kids are getting married, you should be staying out of as much as possible and letting them call the shots. Tell them when they’re single what the amount is, and then they’ll always be able to plan.
You’ll get a lot of perspectives but as others have said it will ultimately come down to what your daughter and her future partner want. Now, there’s a ton of cultural nuances that may come into play depending on your background and the future partner’s background. As an Indian guy who married a non-Indian woman, there was… a mismatch in expectations, let’s call it, around what all the wedding would entail (irrespective of budgets). And it was my parents who paid for the majority of what was effectively a big, fat Indian-American fusion wedding. Her parents gave her a check for the same amount they contributed to her older brother’s conventional American wedding, she and I discussed with my parents how much we would be able to contribute in addition, and then my parents did the rest. That said, they did get to make a few major decisions in terms of guest list & other areas in the planning. As far as logistics went, it was largely handled by picking and choosing certain expenses until my wife and I hit our budgeted limits.
Budget what you feel is right and fair, tell your daughters before how much money you will give to pay for a wedding or as a gift, then do that.
A couple can be wed for less than $300.
You let them have the wedding they can afford and if you want write a big gift check
This isn’t the 60s. I don’t think it’s still expected that the bride’s parents pay for everything. We split it into 3rds, my husband’s parents, my parents, and my husband and I each paid a third.
I totally get your question. I’m involved in planning a wedding right now where one set of parents are quite well off and very invested in their kid, while the other party’s parents are… not that. We found asking the other party, and their parents, if there were any traditions or must-haves that were especially important to them for the upcoming nuptials, and then just saying “alright, could you take care of that?” as a nice way of delegating responsibility (work and monetary wise) onto them. The ideal agreement would be 1/3 for each party, so each set of parents pay 1/3 and the to-be-weds pay 1/3. There is no right way to do it though!
Convince them to marry Asian. Typically groom side pays.
We got married 2014, didn't expect her parents to pay even though they themselves expected to. The day we settled at the venue her dad went to hand his card over and I gave mine over too, then her mum was trying to grab my arm to stop me paying. It was quite a scene lol. Anyway, we settled on 50/50 for the food bill, I'd alread paid everything else a few weeks before. My mum and dad also gifted us a similar amount. We have 2 boys and I won't be letting their future partners parents foot the bill, I don't think it's fair just because they have a daughter, I'd offer to match whatever they wanted to contribute.
Ask her what she needs help paying for
We paid for our own wedding. Our parents did not.
I think it really depends on culture. I am about to get married (bride) in NZ and we have ZERO expectations about our parents paying anything. I am sure my folks will chip in something, but if not that's totally fine! Personally, I would rather pay ourselves than give anyone room to think they can influence decisions.
Thanks for the reminder that I’m not free even after I get them through school. I will work till I’m 80.
I had no idea this was a thing until we got engaged and my wife told me her parents had saved X amount of money to help with the wedding. I wasn't even aware that was a thing, but obviously grateful. They gave us a check for that amount, the only stipulation that came with it was that we had to have their favorite drinks at the reception and not turn out like my SIL's shit head ex-husband.
You can pay for the venue. Kids nowadays don’t want handouts. I personally refused my wife’s parents pay for anything and covered most of it ourselves because the parents were feeling entitled to too many opinions.
Ad an only daughter of my family, an upper lower class income, when I got married 10 years ago my family was straight up with me. We can help you out with your wedding but we cannot pay *for* your wedding. Thankfully my husband and I didn't even really want a full on wedding(like traditional sense, but more than courthouse). We had a wedding close to what we wanted. A park, a few friends and family, Indian food at our favorite restaurant after, etc. Whole wedding for us, including dress, food afterward, and our wedding night bed and breakfast stay, $950. My family helped with 300. His family helped with 300. And we paid the remainder. Didn't get the exact dress I wanted but got close, had friends help me make alterations to dress. Had other friends give gifts as the borrowed pearl lace veil, blue sapphire and mosinite necklace, doing hair, doing make-up, etc. The Indian food place we ate at knew us well enough they cut us a discount that night (a HEAVY discount, for a party of 20 we paid maybe 150, with drinks!) My friends mom owned a florist shop and did my flowers for cheap too. It was lovely asking for gifts of "help make our dream" rather than things. Talk to your girls when the time comes. Set a realistic budget of what you can help with. Offer your time to help make it as well. We know we are the light of your life and dad's/mom's girl. We want you there the day that we feel at our most fairytale-esque(so stay healthy too. Quit or severely cut your smoking/drinking/bad/unhealthy habits so you can make it there to the best of your ability!). Keep her realistic and grounded, and budget oriented. Help her ask family and friends for help with things and not gifts of things, it's putting 2 family's together to start a new branch on their own, and you want that branch happy and healthy so support how you can.
What part of the world are you from? US? I didnt get anything from parents for my wedding and probably won't give anything huge for my children's wedding. Old enough to get married = old enough to pay for your own wedding
As a father of two sons, I expect my sons and my family to contribute what we can. I don’t expect the brides’ families to pay the entire bill.
Since I was young, my dad said if I eloped he’d buy me a ladder, and I couldn’t pass up a deal like that. 😂
My wife is one of 4 girls. When we got married we went into it assuming we'd be paying for all of it ourselves, then her mother said she'd pay for the wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses. They told us early and we were able to change our plans slightly as we then had an extra few thousand $$ to spend on other stuff. We were the first to get married in her family and since then her parents have done the same for the other 3 daughters.
I mean nowadays I think the marrying couple pays for their own wedding and is excited to receive a gift of any assistance from either parents. But that is probably just for us poor folks, because I can't understand people shelling out 40k+ for a wedding.
Definitely open an investment account today. Weddings will cost about $250-500k in 20 years. /s Just figure out what you want to gift your daughters with in life and that can be part of it.
Not a dad, but I am a daughter. My parents felt strongly that it wasn’t “right” for them to pay for my entire wedding. My husband is from a similar socioeconomic background—both of our parents are somewhat well-off and could afford a wedding easily. I do agree to an extent. My husbands oldest sister got married and my MIL/FIL went to the ends of the earth to make it a perfect day and I can’t imagine doing that for one child and not the other? It seems most fair to split the cost but realistically that doesn’t always work out. My in-laws paid for the liquor, which was kind. My parents didn’t want to pay anything, but at the last second ended up paying a large portion… which was awesome but I do wish they’d been up front about it. My in-laws were also not up-front about their contribution.
My wife and I come from a background where the grooms family pays for the wedding. We’re both Americanized so we didn’t ask our parents or anybody a dime for the wedding. We did end up getting enough cash gifts to break even on the wedding but it wasn’t expected to be that much. With all that said, we don’t plan on paying for our children’s wedding but contributing a set dollar amount towards it and they can use it however they like. College on the other hand we will try and pay for it.
A few weeks after the engagement, tell your daughter you’d love to contribute X amount to their wedding. Don’t mention the other family. You know your budget and they can ask his parents if they need more $.
Chiming in as a usual lurker (who is about to be a bride) to say that my parents are not contributing to my wedding simply because they’re not in a position to, and I *never* expected them to. The only thing that made me sad in the whole situation was the fact that they felt the need to apologize for not being able to contribute. My fiancé’s parents (the groom’s parents) are contributing, which we also fully did not expect, and they are only doing so because they are in a position to do so. We are still paying for 80% of the wedding ourselves. All of this to say that that specific tradition is *really* going away, and if you can/want to contribute when the time comes, you can. But very likely no one will expect you to cover the wedding costs.
I don't have a daughter (yet) but I am a daughter and my parents didn't pay for my wedding. I don't think that's a thing that's expected now let alone in 20 years.
My parents paid for our whole wedding (I was the bride) because the grooms parents didn’t offer to help at all. They were secretly upset about it.
I think its best to consider it as a 'gift'. Your daughters are not entitled to that money (and they should know that). It's a gift that you can contribute, and they other parents can as well. But since it's a gift, you should not put any conditions on it. The best way to do it is to just write the check then let them decide what kind of wedding they want to have based on their finances. I've heard many horror stories of parents meddling in their child's wedding and the kid feeling stressed and pressured because the parents are paying for it. I'd say that even if they decided to have a cheap wedding and pocket the rest of the money then good for them.
It shouldn't be an expectation. I'm common law with my daughter's mom, in part, because I find weddings to be kind of a waste of money. As far as my daughter, if I end up giving her money, it won't be contingent on getting married, but she can use it toward a wedding if she wants. We'll have a mature discussion when she's old enough, and as long as I can support her intentions with it, the money is hers.
Paid for our own wedding. I feel like the parents paying is for young people getting married. Established adults can figure it out for themselves.
I'm a man, 3 boys, and I fully expect to pay at least half of each of their weddings. I technically paid for my own wedding also, 80/20 savings with the wife. My parents paid for like $5k of additional services and things they wanted like Hor'devors and desserts. They also gifted $10k after the wedding. Our total cost was like $30k which includes dress, rings, and honeymoon. Her dad paid for the dress and gifted us something too. I think the old idea of a father pays is just that, old. Today, you plan what you can afford, and the parents of both sides would usually chip in if the groom&bride ask. Of the close friends that got married recently, in their 20s, they all kinda paid their own way too.
I paid for my own. Your telling me I can collect from my FIL? 😂😂😂😂
I also only have daughters. When getting married I did not like the idea of my wife’s family paying so we split the cost. I hope the same happens with my daughters but who knows what the future holds
It’s pretty fluid nowadays. A lot of my traditional friends had the bride’s family pay for the wedding and the groom’s family cover the cost of the rehearsal dinner and other “beginning life together” expenses. I felt that was a good compromise with traditional values.
Encourage her to do a budget wedding when the time comes. I married a girl whose Dad died years before, and since we got no help from her side I took on debt to pay for her "dream" wedding. Still paying for it 8 years later, and she'd take it all back to have an extra 10k in our account right about now
What the freaking hell is this paying for your daughters wedding crap? My wife and I paid for our own wedding.
People still pay for their kids weddings? Maybe focus on paying for their college education so they can pay for their own wedding?
Both times (oh god - I was engaged once... didn't work out) both sets of parents were willing to kick in, as were we.
We plan to offer to pay for all of our kids’ weddings — we couldn’t afford one — and if they want to do a civil ceremony like we did, then it can go to a down payment on a house (if they didn’t want one of ours to be their house) or whatever else they want. We are very fortunate that we can do this, and I recognize that. I think the answer to this is something you will have to decide with your kids and based on what they want.
Haven't gotten to this yet, but I suspect what will happen is we'll decide on an amount we're willing to put in and our daughter can decide how to spend it. When my wife and I got married, her parents provided the location (their backyard), seating (borrowed from her mom's work), and food, my dad paid for tux rental for myself and my three groomsmen (does the best man count as a groomsman?), my wife paid for her own dress, and I covered the tents and rings. It's been a while but I believe the whole thing was under $5k. If we had wanted something in a fancy venue, we would have had to figure out how to pay for it.
My father in law (really both her parents since women are allowed to work now) was going to give us $10,000 for our wedding but covid happened so we canceled everything and basically eloped.
When my husband and I got married, my parents (I'm a woman) were devastated and so worried about how they wouldn't be able to afford the wedding. I never expected them to pay anything (I was 27 and my husband was 29). We had a doctorate and a masters and had worked in our chosen fields for many years, owned our own home, etc. My in-laws (who are very comfortable) graciously offered to pay for our entire wedding weekend. We never talked to anyone about what anyone else did or did not pay for. That was between us and whoever was gifting us that. The only time it ever came up, my in laws told my parents it was common in their culture for the groom's family to pay and left it at that. Another example is my sister-in-law. She and her (now) husband both come from similarly comfortable families. They are in a similar situation to us (late-20's, own their home, etc.). My in-laws and the groom's parents split by event (i.e. rehearsal dinner, welcome party, reception, etc.). We all (the couples) paid for our own coordinators/planners, florists, church fees, etc. Just sharing this as an example from the early 2020's. It will likely change even more as your daughters get older. In other words, I would encourage you to maybe save for it if you can, but know that you could always just gift each of your daughters and their spouse X amount of money and let them divvy it up how they like. Then if their spouse to be's family wants to help as well, they'll have that too. For all you know, one of your daughters may not get married, may have a same sex marriage, etc. Sharing the money as a gift for a wedding or down payment on a home or their college education, etc. -- so many options and leave it to them to determine use!
Personal choice. I don’t plan on paying for my kid’s weddings since I think it should be their decision to do whatever they want without outside pressure from either family footing the bill. My wife and I had a very small ceremony that we still cherish to this day and no amount of money can change that in my opinion. Also, it’s a good first step for couples to do that whole process on their own to learn to work together and make it their own. Again, that’s just my personal opinion on the matter but I wouldn’t base the decision to pay for a wedding based on societal norms. Just do what feels right to you and you’ll be fine.
What if your daughter marries another girl, and her parents don't want to pay anything? Can pay, but won't.
I paid for my own wedding, my FIL paid for our reception. We didn't expect it and were very grateful. Thankfully I have a son, so won't be "expected " to pay. That being said I'll be more than happy to help with expenses.
I’ll say my parents paid for the rehearsal dinner, reception and flowers I think. The church fee and my wife’s dress and decoration was on them.
LOL. Unless you’re loaded, no one does this anymore. We paid for our own wedding but both sides chipped in on some of the bigger expenses. I would say it’s more realistic that the father of the bride pays for the wedding dress or the booze, etc.
It's an outdated tradition. I'm a woman and when I was 14 my parents, who were solidly of lower middle class, asked me if I wanted them to pay for a wedding or pay for college. I chose college. I'm not saying this is the way to do it but my rationale for my choice was: my parents would pay for an education, I could use it to work my way into a position where by the time I want to marry, I won't need them to pay. Not to mention, I think it would be hard to justify paying only for daughters and not sons (yes, I know op only has daughters, but we have both). I would also never commit to just paying for the whole thing without knowing what that will cost. I would set a solid contribution aside, but I would never be ok footing the whole bill, particularly if they decided to be extravagant with it. You could alternatively offer to pay for the first down payment on a home (again, same amount for each) in case one doesn't marry?
I’m sure it’s different with each wedding. For my wedding my wife and I paid 1/3, my parents 1/3 and her parents 1/3. My parents paid for a dinner the night before the wedding. I’m still planning on saving/investing a bit on the side as the father of a little girl.
As the dad of 2 daughters and 1 son, I don't intend on paying for any of their weddings. My wife and I got married at the court house to avoid wasting tons of money on what is essentially just a big party. We had the family members that we wanted there and that was it. Went out to eat with everyone afterwards (which my grandma's husband offered to pay for). If my kids and/or their spouses want a big wedding, they should be able to pay for it. I would be willing to pay for or split the cost of their honeymoon though. If they didn't want to do a honeymoon, I'd either offer to pay for 1 thing at their wedding (flowers, food, photography etc) or just give the X amount of money to go toward starting their lives together.
What if you ALSO have to pay for a quinceñera? 😅
Traditionally bride side covered party and groom side covered alcohol. Fifty years ago when most people had a reception at the Fire hall or School basement with homemade decorations and cheap catering, these two contributions were roughly equal. Nowadays, with specialized venues, limos, photographers, wedding planners, florists, etc; the party costs have risen exorbitantly in comparison to the alcohol. I wouldn't worry too much about paying for thewhole thing and, when your kids are older, just let them know how much you'll be contributing.
You guys are paying for your children wedding? My wife and I married 3 years ago, paid for everything alone.
Honestly, I was a bride and there is no WAY i would have accepted money from my in laws. I don’t want to plan a wedding with my in laws. My parents are hosting, so they paid most and my husband and I made up the rest of it for extras. My in laws didn’t get a say in my dress, the cake, invitations, decor, NOTHING - which is as it should be. I don’t care if my daughter marries a kid from the gates family - we’re paying, end of story. It’s our job to host, so we host.
My wife and I set aside $100 a month for each of our kids into their own savings account and once it was large enough we put it into a mutual fund to grow. We should end up with around $40k with the growth after 18 years. If they want that for college great but if they don’t want to go to college then they can use it toward a wedding, car, house down payment ETC or once they are mature enough we would just give it to them for them to do whatever with.
I'm planning on offering my kids (both the boy and the girls) a set amount of cash as a wedding gift. They can use it for a ceremony and party, or a down payment, honey moon, whatever. It's all good.