My daughter’s fiancé has this fantasy of having a reception in his favorite vacation destination. Why? I’m not sure.
It’s not my party though and I guess as the mother of the bride I’ll be obligated to go. But I won’t feel bad if any of our other family members decide to decline.
To me it feels like a vanity project.
Hopefully the fiance’s favorite vacation destination is one of yours, too.
In this situation, it’s not because it’s a vacation destination (though apparently it is very pretty), but because this is where the groom and his family are located.
One of my kids probably can’t go now, because he just got a great role in a play, and the other one will (hopefully!!) be working at a new job, so maybe the cost will shrink to 4K. Though a nice gift or plus a dinner in their honor might end up being better, thanks for the ideas, all. I think we have time to decide.
How close you are with the niece would also impact the decision. That’s a lot to expect for 1 day, but if you’re pretty close it MIGHT be good to go. If you will see other relatives you don’t see often that could also influence decision.
Also, how much of a family reunion will it be for you? Will you be able to visit with extended family members on the days before or after the wedding?
Most of the extended family members are not able to come, due to the cost, but the immediate family of the bride should be there. I’m hoping we are able to visit with them, and they won’t be wrapped up in too many other activities.
I am thinking the cost would be more tolerable if our kids didn’t come, and they might not be able to anyways. Airline tickets just cost a boatload, and they keep changing the flights around.
I agree! You need to plan to arrive at least a full day before you actually need to be somewhere like a wedding.
If you can’t make an extended trip out of this, I would not recommend going. Send your regrets and a nice gift.
We have attended some far away weddings. But a couple of things.
We no longer pay for our adult kids to come. We hope they can if invited, but we don’t pay. If we get an Airbnb, we will get one large enough for them to stay with us. But no airfare.
We also combine a far away wedding and turn it into a vacation. Last year, we spent a week or so at a far away wedding state, but also visited relatives and two friends while we were there. It was one of our summer vacations. Again…no adult kids (they weren’t invited…this was a friend wedding).
Of course, we would help our kids with airfare if they asked, but they usually make their own plans.
It would be nice to combine into a vacation, but as it stands, we’re going to arrive two days early, and this would never be somewhere I’d choose to vacation. However, reading about it, it does sound like a beautiful place. Odds are, we’ll end up going because we said we would, but I’m flinching at the cost, and airmiles aren’t an option.
I’m just going to say that you are allowed to change your mind. I don’t know to whom you, “said you would go,” but if you decide you would rather not expend that much money, I think it’s perfectly fine to back out. I think you said you had plenty of time. If you do decide not going is the better decision, I do think informing them sooner rather than later is best.
“You know, ________________, when we learned of _______________’s planned wedding in _________________, we were so excited and happy for them and eagerly said we’d love to go! However, putting pen to paper has hit us with a dose of reality, and I just don’t think we can swing it. We hate to miss, but I am sure you understand.”
Just my $0.02. My lives-in-Texas cousin has been pressured by her MOG friend into attending her godson’s wedding which is taking place in California (which is where the godson lives). She and her husband are going to have only one extra day for doing vacation type/non-wedding things. She’s honestly resentful about having to go.
Of course, we are all dying to know the general location!! 
You have to decide if this is a hardship for you and you H in terms of time, $$$, planning/investment. In my world, a few thousand $$ for a spot I don’t want to turn into a vacation and therefore will be a whirlwind (exhausting) couple of days is not happening.
I don’t classify this as a “destination wedding” as the groom and his family are there. That said, unless I was VERY close to this niece, and it was a place on my travel bucket list, I would feel free to decline.
The issue has been since we retired, is that even though we would be considered fairly well off, any significant expenses end up being pulled out of our 401K’s, especially since we jumped in and bought some forestry property, which sucked up all the money from our bank accounts, plus retirement funds. We can usually get by on our pensions, but I still can’t get used to taking the money out of those funds yet. I know that is what it’s for, but when we retired, we planned on not utilizing them for a long time.
I definitely understand. We live solely by drawing money from our IRA accounts for now, since we don’t have pensions. We do have adequate funds in the IRAs to handle this, but in the current market, we don’t want to draw any more than necessary. We have savings that cover things that come up, like when we installed a standby generator, which we considered important for our happiness - but we are careful about what we use it for. Once we hit 70 and start drawing SS, I’m sure we’ll feel better about spending more of the IRA, but who knows … hopefully, the market will have recovered, and we don’t have health issues that require non-insurance expenses. If not, though, we’ll be glad that we thought twice about what was most important for us in terms of expenditures.
Here’s how I’ve started looking at my 401K/IRA situation:
Though I am not required to take RMDs just yet, I look at the RMD income I would have to take. That puts me with a lot more when added to the pensions - and higher tax bracket. So why not spend more of it now, while I am healthy and mobile and able to enjoy myself.
I remember reading the phases of retirement spending are: go-go, slow-go, no-go.
You can’t take it with you. Is this trip going to risk you running out of money in 30 years? Spend your kids’ inheritance and enjoy spending time with your family.
YOLO!
No, I doubt we’ll run out unless we really mess up, especially with supposedly solid pensions. It’s just the act of taking the $$ out of the 401K’s is painful, and if we take it out of the 401K, there’s taxes, then there’s the option to take it out of the Roth, which is the last thing we should do, but I’ve been taking little amounts out of my Roth because it’s so easy and this is going to be a terrible tax year.
Like @kelsmom mentions, not drawing anything more than necessary in this current market is a strong consideration. And now we have four new credit cards with 0% interest and zero balance transfer fees for two of them, so we can delay paying taxes on 401K withdrawals another year or so. Never thought we’d be playing the credit card shuffle again.
We’ve definitely been doing things that are fun (Spain in April and France in May), but I guess the struggle for the retiree is always, “Do I want to do/purchase something that will come from my retirement funds?” I don’t know when you ever get used to it!
My husband has a strong sense of responsibility. My kids, not as much. My husband’s family, not at all. I guess my decision might hinge on our relationship to that family member.
For me the question is, do you want to make a sizable expenditure on an obligation?
I get the feeling that this age is the one to do things. Go places. Be!
But is an obligation a fair use of your resources? When there are other things you want to do with that money?
If the trip can come out of your normal budget, then the answer is easy. It’s when it’s not.
And to be perfectly honest, will the relationship with those relatives be changed if you decide not to attend?
All very good questions. I think the answer likely will be that we will go, the kids will not. Much cheaper, and both of them will likely be occupied. Less of a hassle with us booking two rooms, people coming from three different destinations, and we can probably do this without withdrawing money from our funds.
We get the most interesting scenarios on cc.
This is what stood out to me … “when we retired, we planned on not utilizing them for a long time.” I wouldn’t change my retirement plan to spend $4k on basically a one-day wedding trip, but maybe I’m just not there yet.