How much are you a part of the planning? My kids did everything, and DIL picked a difficult evening date (a Sunday). That eliminated most of my family. Maybe, 12 people out of 150. I wasn’t as generous as I could have been. I did make 25-29? Goody bags for travelers, which included some of son’s friends. This cost a few 1000. I also picked a place for the rehearsal dinner (over 100 ) and paid for that. I won’t go into details about my attempt to make breakfast meal.
My widowed GF is paying for her DD’s wedding. She complains of all the costs, but has never set a limit nor just plain said NO. His parents haven’t contributed anything. All the extras look nice, but I doubt people will remember them. And the meals are $250, to start
My point is, get an idea of wedding venues and prices. Add in flowers, photographer, etc. have the young adults think thru if they want many extras or more people. Give them choices, e.g, would you rather have X or Y?
Thanks @bookworm and @cbreeze. We are being consulted on everything, in part because the fiancee hasn’t yet been able to view the site (the farm is in Canada) and in part because she is embracing us as something of her family (and we are embracing her). She went wedding dress shopping with ShawWife (and bought a beautiful dress). But, we are not deciding anything for them; just giving advice.
ShawSon and fiancee figure that the part you take with you are the photos and videos and so they locked up a photographer and videographer as soon as they picked the date. It is the Wild West in the wedding world as there is a two-three years backlog of weddings happening in the roughly two months of outdoor wedding season in Canada, so we apparently got the last tent in the province (or close). ShawSon figures that no one remembers the meals, so he would love to cater from Trader Joe’s (not in Canada) or Costco (but that probably isn’t going to happen). We had asked, in case of a wedding in Boston, a friend who is the owner/chef of several well-known Boston restaurants about catering a wedding. They would but don’t have the staff but there are event staff that you could hire. Don’t know if you could get them to prepare food onsite with any success.
He is the first grandchild and the only male on my side of the family (and like I was, sort of the golden boy who did everything right) so all will show up who can. The Canadian side of the family also shows up. Plus the bride and groom have lots of friends/classmates, so it will be reasonably big. They could keep it smaller if they did it at our house (at most 50, I would think). That would work in COVID but might be awkward considering the number of people who have invited us to their kids’ weddings plus relatives.
You could give them an appropriate (for your family situation) gift amount, tell them they can use what they want for the wedding and keep the change or cover the extra if they spend more. That makes all the decisions theirs.
We gave our son a figure we would contribute and they know that’s it. They are planning a fairly high cost wedding and the bulk of that will be on them ( with contributions from us, the bride’s father and son’s aunt). It is an individual decision. Many couples, unless they are very young, seem to want to do the bulk of the planning, including choosing the venue.
My thought is to give each kid (1D, 1S) the same lump sum. On top of that, I would propose to my future IL’s that any guests of ours (vs the kids’ friends) we would pay a per person rate based on the incremental out of pocket costs (banquet and rehearsal dinner). Up to the kids how lavish or large they want their wedding. Up to each family how many relatives/friends of family to invite.
It’s really a personal decision and IMO if you can afford it and don’t mind then it would be a wonderful thing to do. But as I’ve learned from many re weddings these days, anything goes!
Rarely in this generation also can just the brides parents pay for the full thing, so there is that. Also, many couples are getting married older (like in their 30’s) than in the past, so there is more expectation that they pay for a bigger part of their weddings, but also it seems like they want to do everything themselves without input from their parents. Then there are those who want the parents to pay but have no input. It can get real crazy.
When I got married the first time, my parents paid for everything, told my inlaws they could also invite anyone they wanted. My in laws hosted the pre-nuptial dinner and my parents hosted the brunch the day after the wedding. The second time (since it was only about 9 years ago and I was old, lol) my husband and I paid but only had immediate family at our actual wedding and friends and immediate family at a dinner reception (50 people). When my brothers got married, I know my parents pitched in for the weddings, paid for the prenuptials and probably paid for the brunches. My parents were in the position to be able to help and we have a big family. They also didn’t insert themselves in the planning, which in restrospect is sort of a shock but at the time I’m sure was appreciated.
You just need to do what works best for you. I hope when my kids get married, I can do for them what my parents did for us, but their father and I are divorced and while we are fairly amicable, we may also have totally different views on how a wedding should be, as well as what my kids might want. My husband’s daughter also was married a few years ago and that was a total nightmare along with her treatment of and financial expectations of him (she’s in her late 30’s) and I would never want my kids to treat any parent that way no matter the relationship. So, there is that too.
As for budgeting, these things are expensive. Make sure they get out of their heads the idea that people send gifts at the rate of what their plate costs. Some people think they will get enough in gifts to cover the cost of their wedding. Not! Next, just be realistic. There are things to cut and have a great event, and things definitely not to cut. But at least get a realistic idea of what something costs. You hopefully only have one wedding. I had 3 bar/bat mitzahs and these things are expensive. I fully expect a wedding will cost more money. Of course, no favors for the 100 kids that are there, and no 100 kids but kids meals are cheaper than adult sit down meals, lol. and flowers are more money than the themed centerpieces, but you’re still talking tens of thousands of dollars. You can also just give them a very generous gift and let them do with it what they want.
As far as paying for weddings…parents need to do what they can afford. If you can’t afford to pay for or contribute to you kid’s wedding, then don’t. The bride and groom saving up and having to pay for their own wedding is not the end of the world. They’re adults. And having a small wedding or just having to go to the court house, is not the end of the world either.
Having a huge, lavish wedding is not a necessity and parents are not required to pay for a wedding either.
I’ve seen kids who treat their parents poorly and act entitled and the parents still hand over money. I don’t like that and I don’t think it’s healthy. I won’t let myself be treated like that, and my kids know that kind of behavior is not allowed. My kids know any money we give them for a wedding is a gift and they are grateful for it. They know that entitlement is not allowed. That said, every family is different.
I told children I’d pay for wedding or college education, but not both. Fortunately college education came first! We still plan to give them a monetary gift for the wedding. They can choose to apply to a party or save for something else. The money spent on weddings continues to amaze me, so my hope is they will choose the latter.
We did the same. We couldn’t afford a 4 year, live away from home college AND a lavish wedding. My SIL’s brother paid for a very nice wedding for his daughter, but his daughter went to community college for 2 years then transferred to the local state school, she lived at home the whole time. It might’ve been different had she gone away for college all four years, or maybe not. Maybe they have more money then we do, maybe they’re in a lot of debt. Who knows? Every family is different and has different priorities.
Personally, I think paying for college is worth it. I get that some people may feel differently.
Many of us have a limited amount of money to spend on the kids and not work forever lol! So some of us have to make decisions about how to allocate that gift.
My husband and I decided to give our children the gift of a college education. We really did not have the funds for an expensive education and an expensive wedding. Both of our children have no college debt and are doing quite well financially. They have received a great start in their adult life.
I remember years ago on CC a student poster who had quite a bit of college debt. But her parents paid for a lavish wedding. I would have paid her debt but that was the parent’s choice.
If you have money for both and it doesn’t affect your life or future retirement, then you are luckier than me. But I’m a very happy person with the choices I’ve made so far.
Very true! And I know plenty of people who paid for most or all of their wedding on their own with no help from their parents or very little parental help. I also know people who just went to the courthouse who are happily married 40 years later!
Being able to choose between paying for college (any college) or paying for a wedding, is a privilege. For many people, they can’t afford to pay for college at all, forget about a wedding.
Sure, I probably could pay for college and a lavish wedding, but we’d be in debt or have to work until we’re 90 or have to have our kids support us later on…none of us want that.
I feel super fortunate that so far, with two out of three married, neither wanted a lavish, expensive wedding. As parents of the groom we paid for the rehearsal dinner (also not expensive) and gave them a check toward their Honeymoon. With one, since they had the wedding here vs “there” we also sent a check to assist with their expenses. We’d have paid it to go “there” instead, so why not?
I am such a huge fan of this. I call it the, “pile approach,” and it’s also what we did for college for our ds.
BUT, I think it might depend on how much help they want in executing their plans. Do they just want money or do they want money AND help getting everything accomplished and pulled together?
“They” being any generic bride and groom - not specifically meaning the children of @shawbridge
We were very specific when we told our son (over and over) that his education would be our last financial gift to him. His wedding, if he ever has one, is all on him and his bride.
For us at this point it all “ family money”. If we felt we might not be leaving a substantial sum to the kids eventually it might be different and of course we are technically free not to but of course they are going to get a lot of the money eventually and so we just are more than happy to spend it on them now. They already have tidy family trusts. But they never act like it. Last week my younger daughter, a nurse, spent a night delousing a COVID patient ( /s double fun) and now has a mild breakthrough infection. We were happy to be able to send her a big gift certificate for ordering in while she’s isolating. She was ‘worried’ about missing two weeks worth of work even though she’s in great shape. That trust money is invisible to her.
OP here. I appreciate all the replies and discussion. It made me be much less apt to even think about expecting ds to pay for anything on my recent, three-day visit to California to see him. I bought all his meals and drinks as well as those of all his friends who joined us during my time there. It was not an inexpensive endeavor to wine and dine them all, but I was truly happy to do it.
This thread and my mil’s visit in the spring where she stayed with us a week (I stayed in a hotel in California) and only bought dh a sandwich for lunch one day made me inclined to rethink my approach. Her lack of generosity when she visited us really stood out to me. As one of my friends says, “You’re never useless if you can serve as a bad example.”
COVID has greatly affected the ability of one of my kids to work. She also has a significant brain-based psychiatric diagnosis. I have been supporting her even though she is in her late 20’s., and I am by no means wealthy.
Another of my kids has high medical expenses, which I pay, and COVID has affected her progress towards PhD. She teaches undergrads but pay is low. My third works in Silicon Valley and needs no help.
My apartment is small so during COVID I could not offer space, so everyone has rent to pay.
If kid cannot earn enough for food or rent, there is no choice but to help. I keep my own rent and other costs down as low as possible in the meantime.
Just returned from vacation with all three of our kids and 2 significant others. We paid for the Airbnb rental thought the two working kids did offer. This year we wanted to treat. All 3 did bring food items for the trip and each one/couple cooked dinner one night. We went out for a nice dinner one night and both of the two that are working (the 3rd is a health professions grad student that we are still largely supporting living wise) Venmo’d me $$$ at the restaurant - their own idea - to pay for their alcohol. I thanked them for that contribution and they thanked us MANY times for the vacation.
In a case like this I also see “paying” being more than actual $$. They brought food. They cooked. They all chipped in to take our dog for walks. They without prompting unloaded, cleaned up and loaded our car both sides of the trip. Honestly, that type of character is more important to me than $$$!
