If you were married in the last 10 years, who paid for most of your wedding?

[Jennasis]

Dh and I got married 4 years ago. We had both the wedding and reception here at our farm. It was lovely...and relatively inexpensive. We paid for the majority of it (around $3k) with my MIL and my parents splitting another $2k.

 

[Pakey]

We have had 2 sons get married in the past 5 years. For both, we gave them a fixed amount of money for their wedding to do with as they wished. One son had a wedding/reception here with 300 guests (bride's family paid for the wedding dress but gave no other money); the other son chose to do a destination wedding in Hawaii for 50 guests (bride's family contributed also). I have no idea how much of their own money they spent on either wedding; we never got involved in the details.

 

[Mom2Nick]

Married 13 years. My parents paid for 100% of the wedding. DH's parents paid for the rehearsal dinner. Dh and I paid for our honeymoon.

 

[Orangeandwild]

I have had three sons married in the last ten years also, and it varied by wedding but we always paid our fair share of it.

Oldest son we paid for the rehearsal dinner and the flowers at the wedding small church wedding with close family only and 50 people reception.

Second son had a huge wedding and her folks paid or the wedding, DS2 and wife paid for the honeymoon and we paid for the rehearsal dinner.

Third son got married on a SC beach, there was no rehearsal or anything. They paid for the wedding part on the beach and we split the cost of the dinner afterwards three ways between the bride and groom, her parents and us.

 

[DisneyBlonde]

DH and I were married 3 years ago, my 2nd wedding, his first. We were mid 40s at the time. We paid for everything ourselves.

 

[daisyyy]

we paid for most of it.... My parents gave us a check a few months before the wedding for $6K. It will be 14 years in October.. (over all I think everything included, dress/ reception / honeymoon / limos / photog / rehersal cost about 28K. It was a nice day.. but looking back now.. I wish I had something small and saved the money. Older / wiser?? But of course most little girls dream of a fairy tale wedding. and want to be the princess. I will let my dds choose what type of wedding they want, and probably just give them a check same as my parents did for me.. Of corse if I hit the lottery, then I will pay for it all..

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I suspect that more people are paying for part or all of their weddings than they did in the past. I think that is for two reasons. First, people are marrying at a later age. That means that they can afford to spend more of their own money and they are more independent of their parents.

Second, the cost of weddings has risen significantly as people have chosen to have more elaborate weddings. In some cases, parents are unwilling to spend that much and so the couple take on more of the cost.

Personally, I have no problem with people spending as much or as little on a wedding as they want. As a financially conservative person, I do find it discouraging to see couples go into debt to finance their weddings. It's their money though.

As for our wedding, it was 16 years ago and cost about $4,000. My MIL, as dictated by tradition, paid for much of it.

I have two sons. I don't intend to spend much on their weddings. I personally think that parents should help fund a reasonable wedding (about $10K for people in my socio-economic group) and if the kids want to fancy it up it should be on their own nickle. Even then, my council will be to save the money...life is expensive.

 

[Handbag Lady]

It is what he wanted. There were lots of things I wanted to scale back and he'd contact the people behind my back and order them. It still makes me smile, which is what he wanted. He had plenty of money so it wasn't like I put anyone in debt or borrowed a dime. Over the years many people have tried to make me feel guilty about letting him spend it on me. So yeah, I'm a bit defensive.

This board is notorious for judging people on everything so I figured I'd circumvent the usual questions.

I am totally on your side. Repeat after me. "GO POUND SAND." It works more often than not. And I'm JEALOUS that you were able to give your grandfather such a terrific gift! Can you imagine the fun he had?



For my wedding 9 years ago, my dad paid $5000. That was the exact amount of the minimum expenditure for my Disneyland wedding. I paid for the photographer and the bridal attendant gifts and DH paid for the officiant. It was kind of awkward with my in-laws, they never offered to pay or host the rehearsal dinner, they didn't know they were supposed to as per my family traditions (although it was mentioned a year in advance), and I was also too kind to mention it as such at the time, and my husband refused to do anything about it at all. So we all ended up at the Lost Bar. Hey, it worked and it got me through a VERY strange few moments.

My dress was another story. My grandfather wanted SO much to buy me my dress. He spent a bucket of cash at my sister's wedding and knew I wasn't that kookie to go around demanding things. So, he gave my dad $1500 as he was in hospice car at the end of his life for my dress. My dad told me this when I was dress shopping. I found this great dress at David's Bridal, and it happened to be during their sale plus I had a $50 off coupon, so it only cost $754. I asked dad for the money and he only gave me $754 and kept the rest. I paid extra for the shoes and the veil, etc.

Ah, well, grandpa paid for my dress in the end!

 

[murcor]

I was 28 and married 11 years ago. Small wedding paid for it ourselves and Honeymooned in Disney

Family provided sandwiches and squares for immediatly after the wedding before we jetted off to Disney

(always enjoyed in the movies when they got married and left immediatly)

Personally, I have no problem with people spending as much or as little on a wedding as they want. As a financially conservative person, I do find it discouraging to see couples go into debt to finance their weddings. It's their money though.

agreed

 

[purplegirl247]

We got married two years ago and paid for it ourselves (a little over $7k, including honeymoon). My dad wanted to contributed but couldn't afford it; DH's family could afford it but didn't want to contribute. Fine by us: our money, our choices. We didn't have to invite anyone/do anything we didn't want to.

 

[PinkRhombus]

22 Years ago

My parents paid for our wedding. His parents paid for the rehearsal dinner. My husband paid for the honeymoon.

My DH was taking about this last night. He said, "I glad we only have to pay for 2 rehearsal dinners for the boys and one wedding for our daughter." I tried to explain to him how times have changed. It's going to be interesting in about 10-15 years when our children start getting married.

This is the way ours was handled 10 years ago. Most of the ones we've been to recently have been the same.

The only thing different in one is the parents of the groom sprang for the honeymoon, also (I think it involved a lot of frequent flier miles changing hands)

 

[Piecey]

I did.

It was $340 That included a DVD, picture package, the chapel fee, flowers, "live music", and a few goodies with the chapel name on it.

DH covered the $50 cash tip for the pastor and the fee to get the marriage license.

We got married in Las Vegas.

 

[Disney Doll]

My parents paid for most of it...reception, invitations, flowers, photo/video etc. My in-laws paid for the band and the rehearsal dinner. My in-laws also gave is an engagement party and me a very lovely shower. I think I may have paid for my dress.

Basically, my father said "We have saved X amount of money for your wedding. Whatever you don't spend, we'll give to you to start your life together". That's a pretty big incentive in deciding whether or not you really need the swan ice sculpture.

 

[bumbershoot]

We were engaged for quite awhile, and things got paid over time, so I can't say that some person paid for it all...we put down some deposits then money from elsewhere would pay the rest, etc.

But officially, my dad paid for most of the wedding. When we told him we were engaged he told me immediatley that he wanted to pay. OK, no problems! Then hubby and I ran into some roadblocks, got unengaged and had some counseling, and before we got engaged again, this time hubby asked my dad for his blessing. I think, because he did it that way, that's why my dad renewed his offer...I'm not sure he would have if we had simply announced it again. Anyway, so my dad paid for most of it. I did have a gift from my stepdad that paid for my gown.


But when we have the renewal, which I've planned since *during* the wedding (I was trying to please everyone but myself, sigh), we'll pay for it all, obviously.

 

[pixiegoose]

We got married 3 years ago, when I was 22 and DH was 24. My parents paid for pretty much everythinhg. My godmother paid for the photographer (she was/is in poor health and couldn't come to the wedding, so she wanted to make sure there were greeat pictures for her to see) and DH's parents did the groom's dinner (cookout at a local park), which was like pulling teeth to get mil to confirm on. My parents also gave us a set amount for the honeymoon and we paid anything over it. We also paid for the attendant gifts.

I would have been fine with a smaller wedding (or eloping with a few close family/friends) as long as I got my poofy wedding dress! However, DH's uncle did that about 15 years ago (destination wedding in Hawaii) and his family still hasn't "forgiven" him for it. And our wedding let my mom plan the wedding that she wanted but couldn't afford when she got married.

 

[Kimberly815]

We got married in January 2007 and we paid for it. We budgeted and saved and skipped out on plenty of things we might have liked.

My parents paid for our invitations as a gift. (My Mom wanted me to pick out at least one thing without worrying about the cost. And boy did I love those invitations!) My MIL paid for the crown and veil that matched my dress (which I paid for) as a gift because I wasn't going to pay a premium price for them even though they were perfect (It just wasn't in the budget!). My MIL also paid for my DH's wedding clothes (no tuxes at our wedding) as a gift. So there were a few things that our families kindly 'gifted' as the planning went along, but mostly just us!

 

[Angrypenguin]

DW and I were married 4 months ago (!) at WDW and we paid for it ourselves. Although, my parents did give us a very nice gift. I think all in all, after everything, including staying at WDW and photog and all that, we spent just over 20k.

 

[1PrincessMomma1]

My Dh and I got married 13 years ago and we paid for everything except the cake and invitations which my mom paid for and my wedding dress my aunt paid for. We covered bridesmaids dresses also because they were only 17 years old( I was a young bride) .

 

[Chris2597]

My parents paid for everything except the alcohol at my wedding 33 yrs ago...I think the entire wedding was no more than 1200-1500. Fast forward 28 yrs our oldest dd got married and we paid for the dress, reception dinner, food, and alcohol, invitation and postage, reception favors, my mom paid for the cake and grooms cake, DD paid for the flowers, DD's hubby paid for the limo and DJ. DD and her new dh also paid the photographer. He provided about 6 hours of photos and a "proofed disc" with signed over copyright. We made our own albums from the disc.I am sure there were other small incidentals that we paid for but I can't remember everything. I think the total amount we paid was around 7k. The entire wedding cost was probably about 12k which includes their honeymoon. We are in wedding planning mode now for youngest dd. We are splitting the cost in about the same way with youngest dd except we are splitting the photographer cost 3 ways.

 

[kathymc]

My parents gave us $10,000 to spend on anything we wanted and we spent it all on the wedding in 1997. I think we had to kick in like $250.

We paid for our honeymoon.