Son's wedding

[bdcp]

As for tuxes, my son had his best man and DIL had her maid of honor, that was it. My son and his BM wore suits (DS bought a new one and BM wore one he had). DIL's MOH bought a simple short dress. So, those were not really expenses, but in my experience the bridal party always pays for their own tuxes/dresses. It's part of the cost of being in someone's wedding.

And for the poster who's new DIL asked for the cruise Good luck. We got the best DIL. She is so sweet and she and our son adore each other and so far are a perfect match.

What we are doing for the honeymoon is we're giving them frequent flyer miles for their belated Ireland trip. What they don't know is that we're going to book them in Business class, instead of coach. They had a honeymoon registry so they have money put aside for the hotels/restaurants/tours, etc.

 

[Judique]

Good luck! My elder son had been married about eight years when he and his first wife got a divorce. A few years later he married my current D-I-L. I had met her a few times, but didn't really know her that well. It was her first marriage but my son's second. My son called me and asked if I would pay for the rehearsal dinner and the band for the reception. Since he was 30 y/o and she was 27 y/o, I was sort of surprised. They both had good jobs, making more money than me and my son had already told me her dad was a cheapskate and refused to pay anything on the wedding and that they were going to pay for it all themselves. Her mom did slip them some money (without her dad's knowledge) to help out though. Anyway, I told my son I would pay for the rehearsal dinner and then pay half on the band she wanted (the band was like $1000.00). Anyway, shortly before the wedding this girl called me, told me she had decided on a Carribean cruise for a honeymoon, and it would be this amount. I was speechless for a minute. Again I had met her a few times, but didn't know her that well and this was the first time she had ever called me. She'd apparently gotten my number out of my son's phone. Anyway, I asked her if she was sure they could afford it. She then proceeded to tell me that 'of course' I was expected to pay for it as the groom's parents always pay for the honeymoon and they needed the check ASAP. I was shocked that this girl I had met only a few times would have the gall to just inform me of her honeymoon plans and that she wanted me to write her a check for several thousand dollars plus wanted it immediately. Everything about that phone call just rubbed me the wrong way. I informed her in no uncertain terms that wasn't happening, especially since this was his second wedding. Her response was it was her first though. I told her I knew that and from what my son said, her parents weren't paying a dime on their wedding, even though they had alot more money than we did. We were already paying more than they were, so why was she demanding even more from us. It was our first argument (though not the last) and not a very good way to start off with a new mother-in-law. I hung up on her and called my son, who apologized. He said they had talked about a Carribean honeymoon, but he'd told her they couldn't afford it, so she'd asked him to call me to ask for the money, and when he refused, she apparently decided to do so on her own. Needless to say my first impressions of this girl were not good and I was not expecting 'smooth ground' the rest of the way.

I am chuckling to myself as I say your daughter in law takes the cake for gall! Did you see any of this coming when you met her first?

I've had to pay my share for one wedding and have two more to go. It was expensive but the cost was shared three ways, me, my ex and the couple. Then 'I' started agreeing to pay for extras so I upped my contribution voluntarily because I liked the idea of having certain things like expensive centerpieces and decorations.

The other two will probably get more in terms of cash because things get more pricey as time goes on, but I will be trying to treat them equally.

At least I wasn't asked to pay for the honeymoon!

 

[Darcy03231]

DD#1 is getting married in the spring of 2014 and we have her a set amount. We'll do the same for all the kids when their turn comes.

Unfortunately, she's having an issue with the soon to be in-laws. She wants a small, intimate wedding with about 40-50 people. She only wants close family and friends. Her future MIL gave her a guest list with over 100 people on it. She and DF don't know any of the people on it. Its mostly his parents friends and relatives the DF has either never met or only met once or twice. She's letting DF deal with that.

 

[verleniahall]

Its tradition for the groom's parents to pay for the rehursal dinner and alchol at the wedding, and the brides parents cover the wedding.


I may seem old-fashioned, but I am 100% for tradtiton. I think too many tmies we tend to flow away from it.

 

[LovesTimone]

My DD got married this March,
Here's how we split up the wedding cost. It was a destination wedding in Florida, were we are all from originally.

DD's biological Dad and his Dad - paid for the reception, venue, food, open bar

DH and I paid for her dress and everything that went with it, photographer, flowers, DJ for the reception( he was a very good friend of ours gave us a nice break on cost) - Hair, extra night at resort, Cake and tons of little things. I made all the centerpiece's, table runners, napkin rings, and table squares that the centerpiece's set on. Also paid for the bridesmaids, breakfast and lunch while they were all getting ready.

My Parents, paid for the rehearsal dinner

DD and her DH paid for their Honeymoon ( Mickeymoon)

Her In-laws, took them for brunch the following morning.

Bridesmaid's, and Groomsmen's - paid of their own wedding attire.

Everyone did what they could afford. Look at your budget, Offer to pay for the rehearsal dinner more traditional route, or maybe less traditional maybe the cake, or just give the an amount to go toward whatever they want. But I would talk to your son and let him know what you can do. Before you talk to the future in-laws.

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

If I remember correctly, "traditionally" the grooms parents pay for the rehearsal dinner and alcohol at the reception.

This is how our wedding was delegated

Thanks for the answers everyone!!

Is it a new thing to pay for the wedding party tuxes?? We always paid for our own when we were in weddings too many years ago to count...

Again thanks for all the advice. Trying to start this adventure on smooth ground

I have not heard of this before. Seems like it would be a sham for the girls if all the groomsmen had their tuxes paid for and the girls had to shell out money for dresses and shoes.

Its tradition for the groom's parents to pay for the rehursal dinner and alchol at the wedding, and the brides parents cover the wedding.

I may seem old-fashioned, but I am 100% for tradtiton. I think too many tmies we tend to flow away from it.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

As for tuxes, my son had his best man and DIL had her maid of honor, that was it. My son and his BM wore suits (DS bought a new one and BM wore one he had). DIL's MOH bought a simple short dress. So, those were not really expenses, but in my experience the bridal party always pays for their own tuxes/dresses. It's part of the cost of being in someone's wedding.

And for the poster who's new DIL asked for the cruise Good luck. We got the best DIL. She is so sweet and she and our son adore each other and so far are a perfect match.

What we are doing for the honeymoon is we're giving them frequent flyer miles for their belated Ireland trip. What they don't know is that we're going to book them in Business class, instead of coach. They had a honeymoon registry so they have money put aside for the hotels/restaurants/tours, etc.

That is awesome! We went to Ireland for our honeymoon too. It was a simple B&B tour with a rental car but we had a blast. We had a planned stay at Dromoland Castle for our last night but when we visited Ashford Castle, I knew we had to do more than just visit. Back then it was around $300/night but once they heard it was our HM, they upgraded us to such a lavish suite. It had stairs that led up to the main floor with full wall fireplace, an incredible canopy bed, and a bathroom bigger than my current living room. The ceilings were probably around 12'. Waterford crystal for anything to drink. Dh is a bull in a china shop and I was afraid he'd break something but he didn't. We didn't bring formal wear which is required for their dining room but kidney pie was on the menu so it's just as well.
We were so glad we did this. Dromoland Castle was nice but a teensy bit of a let down after Ashford.

It was one of the highlights of our trip.

As for paying, both of our parents gave us a small amount which I'd say covered the photographer & DJ. We had a condo we bought together and had been living together for a couple years with joint bank accounts and paid for the rest of the wedding, HM & rehearsal dinner ourselves. We chose a Sunday afternoon to save costs & kept the total invite list to 100 so we could still have something very nice without costing a fortune.

Both of our parents eloped and have no wedding pictures at all. I can't speak for dh but it's something most of my friends had but I didn't. I don't know why that bothered me. I bought my dress off the rack (the sample) which looked brand new.

For my boys, I'd like to give them each a set amount and let them do what they want with it. I love the idea of destination weddings.

 

[MAJPLO]

DD#1 is getting married in the spring of 2014 and we have her a set amount. We'll do the same for all the kids when their turn comes.

Unfortunately, she's having an issue with the soon to be in-laws. She wants a small, intimate wedding with about 40-50 people. She only wants close family and friends. Her future MIL gave her a guest list with over 100 people on it. She and DF don't know any of the people on it. Its mostly his parents friends and relatives the DF has either never met or only met once or twice. She's letting DF deal with that.

I hope they will be able to have the 40-50 people they want. DH and I didn't want to look back on wedding photos and say, "who's that?!?!" Even with a small wedding and limiting the "and guest" invitees there were a few "who was that?" people who snuck in. Hope they can keep it small as they want.

 

[horseshowmom]

DD#1 is getting married in the spring of 2014 and we have her a set amount. We'll do the same for all the kids when their turn comes.

Unfortunately, she's having an issue with the soon to be in-laws. She wants a small, intimate wedding with about 40-50 people. She only wants close family and friends. Her future MIL gave her a guest list with over 100 people on it. She and DF don't know any of the people on it. Its mostly his parents friends and relatives the DF has either never met or only met once or twice. She's letting DF deal with that.

My daughter had a similar problem. Both she and her (now) husband wanted a small, intimate wedding with about 50 people. She would never have dreamed her in-laws would be a problem (she and SiL dated long term, and she knew them well), but they sure became one.

DD and SiL selected a venue that they liked, and we were told it could hold a maximum of 75 people (indoors). As the guest lists were discussed, the grooms parents came up with more and more people. The groom tried to reason with them and commented that he didn't even know these people, but they kept saying, "You have to invite so and so, they'll give you a nice gift!"

After discussing the guest list further and expanding it to the 75 limit to try to accommodate them (even giving up some of our half of the guests), they actually went to the venue and asked the lady themselves if that was all it could hold (like we were making it up). My daughter was absolutely livid when she found out (and so was their son).

They had had an exceptionally good relationship prior to the wedding (and do again now), but it took quite awhile for all of us to get over their unacceptable behavior.

It is unfortunate that some parents cannot seem to grasp that the wedding is for the bride and groom and that THEIR wishes should take precedence (assuming, of course, that those wishes are reasonable if they aren't paying for it themselves).

 

[pryncess527]

DD#1 is getting married in the spring of 2014 and we have her a set amount. We'll do the same for all the kids when their turn comes.

Unfortunately, she's having an issue with the soon to be in-laws. She wants a small, intimate wedding with about 40-50 people. She only wants close family and friends. Her future MIL gave her a guest list with over 100 people on it. She and DF don't know any of the people on it. Its mostly his parents friends and relatives the DF has either never met or only met once or twice. She's letting DF deal with that.

This is almost exactly how we ended up with a destination wedding.

 

[mrsclark]

DH and I got married in 2007. We paid for the entire wedding ourselves out of our savings (we didn't touch our retirement accounts of course)! When we got married I was 24 and he was 28. The wedding was exactly what we both wanted - we, of course, wanted input from our family but we got the final say on our day because we paid for everything!

We paid for the dresses/tuxes for our moh, best man, one bridesmaid, and one groomsmen because we didn't in anyway want our wedding to be a financial burden to them. We wanted them in the wedding to share the day with us because they are special people in our lives and didn't want finances to get in the way of that.

 

[Leshaface]

Got married in 2006 and my parents payed for all of the wedding and his parents paid for the rehearsal dinner and our honeymoon.

When my brother got married in 2010, his wifes parents paid for the wedding and my mom paid for the rehearsal dinner and honeymoon (WDW/DCL to boot!).

I'm fully expecting to do the same thing for our children in the future

 

[Woth2982]

My family is very traditional in the wedding sense, plus my mother is a type A control freak. When she got married she paid for everything herself along with her parents. She didn't want to relinquish any control to the in-laws, which she felt she would have to do if she accepted money from them (my dad's mom offered to pay for the flowers). To her it was her day and she wanted it the way she wanted it. Again this is very personal. I have a sister and a brother, none of us are married, nor engaged, but when it does happen it will be interesting to see how it goes with my brother. My father has already said he would help pay for a wedding for my sister and I, but he said would give us $10K to just elope since it would save him $20K lol.

 

[horseshowmom]

Weddings are interesting for sure. I always heard that they bring out the worst in people but never realized how true that could be.

My husband and I chose to go to the church and be married on our own (just us). I've never regretted it. I told my daughter that we would give her the set amount for a wedding (as I mentioned before), but that my preference would be to give her the money to go on something worthwhile. It was her choice though. She chose the wedding, but now she says she wishes she had taken the money. The wedding was nice, but it was a few hours and gone.

 

[reginaastralis]

DF and I are planning on getting married next fall. My parents don't have the money to contribute anything, and I'm assuming we might get a bit from his mom (a few thousand, which calling it a "bit" makes me uncomfortable.) DF and I are paying the rest ourselves.

I'm on the team of pay what you can, and only what you're comfortable with. I'm sure your son and fdil will be having a discussion pretty quickly about what they want and what their budget is, if they haven't already. Then it's up to them to find out what they can afford, and they shouldn't assume in their budget that any money is coming. Like I said, we know DF's mom will give us something, but the budget is that we will get nothing, and anything more than $0 is awesome.

Our overall budget is going to be around 16k and that's for Disney. I'd like to just elope, but DF is the one who wants the big wedding. What an expensive compromise.