Discussions of Marriage

Parent Cafe
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<p>

Very good point, churchmusicmom! We had a barbecue at our house the evening before the wedding and enjoyed the time getting to know the groom’s family (we hadn’t met before the wedding). We were so glad that we decided to do that rather than going out for a “rehearsal dinner”. </p>

<p>Also, the day before the wedding the groom’s family invited our immediate family to meet their immediate family for breakfast so we could all visit without all the extra people around. That was a really nice time. </p>

<p>It should really be a priority to make the groom’s family feel welcome and included.</p>

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<p>Read Miss Manners on having the wedding you can afford. The important thing in my opinion is to share the occasion with the friends and family you would like to be there. If you have to serve them tea and sandwiches it can still be lovely.</p>

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<p>Since I’m married to a wedding photographer I say have the biggest, gauziest wedding you can possibly afford, and spend the most on the photographer. (Oh so just kidding!)</p>

<p>It sounds like your daughter"s values would be much more in keeping with something tasteful; people who feel the pain of others in developing countries are usually uncomfortable with conspicuous consumption.</p>

<p>As for advice to young man I would just ask if he loves her and is committed to making her happy. I presume a yes will be forthcoming. I would think that’s all that needs to be said. Bear in mind that would never happen in my family so my opinion may be irrelevent.</p>

<p>Congratulations! and congratulations on raising such a wonderful young woman!</p>

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<p>Best advice for D: </p>

<p>“Here is the amount I am willing to put up–have the wedding of YOUR dreams–not your mom’s, your friends’ or your MIL’s.”</p>

<p>Personally, I performed in the wedding of my mother’s dreams–with all of her friends in attendance and few of mine (because they all lived out of town). It’s one of the few times I let that ‘approval’ thingy crawl into my brain. I was trying to make up for the ‘hurt’ I caused by living in sin (and loving it, haha).</p>

<p>Mistake. I shoulda just had a sinful party in Manhattan.</p>

<p>Subsequently I have turned down all requests to be a bridesmaid in a formal wedding–even my sister’s. I’ve been to some rockin’ weddings. Those I like best had the BEST live music that played ALL night.</p>

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<p>P2N;</p>

<p>I second the opinion that since your D is committed to humanitarian causes, she may prefer a simple wedding; she is also likely to have friends and co-workers with the same modest life-style and outlook. And since she will not be earning much, parental contributions toward setting up her new home might be very much appreciated.</p>

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<p>From the to-be-married-in-1.5-months bride-to-be:
I think this is really more of a mom thing, but try to keep mom2noles and yourself from being too “Well! The wedding has to be this way and anything other than this is just not done!” When the bride gets this rhetoric from both sides, it’s very tempting to throw hands in the air and threaten to run off to Vegas. :P</p>

<p>Otherwise, just enjoy the time! As father of the bride, your major duty is to blubber helplessly as you watch your little girl being a grownup. :)</p>

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<p>How long a lead time do you have for this?</p>

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<p>“1. What is an acceptable amount to spend on a wedding?”</p>

<p>Whatever your D and her fiance are willing to spend. Unless parents are wealthy, I don’t see any reason for parents to be footing the bill for weddings now. Unlike the old days, when people lived at home until marriage, virtually no women even completed high school or worked, now, most people who get married are full fledged adults, living on their own and have had college education funded with at least some help from parents. Consequently, I think that parents have done their share of launching their offspring into life, and the offspring should pay for the weddings they want.</p>

<p>Speaking, too, from the viewpoint of a person who got married for the first and only time at age 27, and who paid for my own wedding, and never dreamed of asking my parents to contribute since I was n adult living on my own. I also found that my H and I paying for our wedding meant it truly was our wedding – done our way, not the way that our parents may have demanded if they were footing the bill. We chose to have a very simple, inexpensive wedding outside at a National Park service site that was meaningful to us. We wrote the ceremony ourselves, and had the reception in a church basement. For the reception, we used music that was meaningful to us that we had audiotaped.</p>

<ol>
<li>Should we offer them a lump sum in lieu of a large wedding?</li>
</ol>

<p>Perhaps you could simply offer them a lump sum wedding gift to use as they choose, including to pay for their wedding if that is their choice.</p>

<ol>
<li>General pitfalls to avoid as parents…what is your advice for us?</li>
</ol>

<p>Remember that the wedding is the couple’s event, not your event. Go along with their wishes, no matter how strange those wishes are to you unless those wishes involve draining your bank account and you don’t want to do that.</p>

<p>Realize that weddings are stressful for everyone. Consequently, don’t get hung up over trivia. It’s the bride and groom’s day, so don’t get in a twit about things like what the mothers of the bride and groom will wear. Whateer pleases the bride and groom should be fine unless it’s something totally bizarre like their expecting you to fit into a nude wedding. :)</p>

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<p>One bit of advice from a friend who married two daughters this summer–</p>

<p>hire a wedding consultant to coordinate the activities on the actual wedding day. </p>

<p>There are so many details to take care of, so many places for glitches, that a bride or her mother may not be able to enjoy the day if they have to spend it putting out all the fires.</p>

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<p>P2N - Congratulations! </p>

<p>Responding back to your post#11 - My H asked my dad for permission to marry me. H was visiting for the weekend from out of town. I had worked the night shift and was asleep. H asked Dad over breakfast, and my dad wasn’t fully awake yet. Apparently my H worded the question funny - something like “Would you mind if…?” My dad answered, “No” then panicked, because he couldn’t remember how the question was worded, and was afraid he’d said no, H couldn’t marry me. So he amended, “no problem.” We still laugh about it. My only complaint was that my dad told the rest of the family, so when H and I went out that day, and I came home with a ring, everybody already knew about it. So I suggest you don’t tell anybody, and let your D have the fun of sharing her news!</p>

<p>After reading about Mollie’s wedding adventures over the past few months, I decided that when it is my D’s turn (I hope it will be awhile yet - she’s only 18) I am going to sit her down and ask her what the most important things about the wedding are to her - specific details, whether it be when, or where, or reception details, or whatever. Help her get her priorities and/or opinions on paper before the vultures swarm. I have decided my main role after that will be defending her decisions. And I will encourage her that if it isn’t on that list, it doesn’t matter so much, so if someone else has a strong opinion on something else, she will know what areas she can flex on.</p>

<p>I am hoping I have raised her to think of the marriage being more important than the wedding. I really can’t see her as a bridezilla. But I was too far the opposite of one - I spent so much time giving in to other people that sometimes I wish I could get married again to have it my way!</p>

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<p>Aren’t those “Bridezillas” something? I just can’t believe they’re for real. If the universe makes any sense at all, they must have been coached and film-edited to look that bad. Frankly, I’m surprised their fiances don’t murder them before the big day, let alone that the poor schlubs show up at the altar.</p>

<p>There’s the possibility of a wedding here in the next few years. I would personally trade a whole lotta good stuff to see d1’s significant other ask my husband’s permission to marry her. :smiley: Amusing as that would be (if you knew these guys, you’d see why I feel that way), I don’t think it will happen.</p>

<p>A nice tradition from a couple of generations ago was the wedding breakfast. Just a few hours long, it included cake, maybe champagne, a nice brunch-type buffet. It was often held in a church reception hall. I’d like to see that one brought back. Our extended family would think it odd, though. One of the weirder traditions in our family is a full-scale afternoon wedding and reception, followed by a major get-together at the bride’s home for a buffet and drinks. This usually goes on until well after midnight. I feel that this falls into the “glutton for punishment” category.</p>

<p>I don’t sit and watch the many bride shows on television, but I’ll sometimes have them playing in the background while I’m busy. They crack me up! The budget for a recent one was $300,000 (within spitting distance of the cost of two Ivy League educations), paid in full by mom and dad. Bride and groom appeared to be in their early 30s. Wow.</p>

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<p>I am going to throw this one in. In the Chinese tradition, man pays for the wedding. My kids are multi-racial, but in the case, I am making sure they know they are Chinese.:)</p>

<p>My H and I had a very small wedding (or almost eloped) because of family’s opposition to our marriage. It is something that still bothers me. If my D will let me, I would like them to have a proper wedding. If we are to pay for the wedding (which we are prepared to do), I would expect to have the wedding done our way and the groom’s family & friends would just be our guests. I would definitely set a budget for the reception, dress, flowers, etc. If my D wants to spend more than the agreed amt, she and her finance would have to pay for it. My H had said he would offer to give our Ds a lump some to do what they want, including not having a wedding. As a mom, no, they have to have a wedding. The wedding would be for me as much for them. As parents, we have the right to see them getting married in front of our family and friends. </p>

<p>Congratulations. You must be very happy and proud.</p>

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</p>

<p>In my experience, that kind of wedding is driven by the social and professional obligations on the parents. They have to put on a certain style of event and invite all the people who expect to be invited or risk losing their standing in the community and even financial harm. </p>

<p>The chancellor of my alma mater lost his job when it was revealed that he had the U pick up the tab for all the people he didn’t want to invite to his daughter’s wedding but really had to because of his job. He might have got away with it, except that the people with his fate in their hands had been revealed to all and sundry as duty guests!</p>

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<p>Paid for my whole wedding, honeymoon and downpayment on a house at age 24.
Lived frugally for 3 years after graduating and saved money.
My parents had four other kids at home, my mom was a stay at home mom.
Would much rather have had her at home with us than working and saving money to pay for our weddings.
I am the mom of four sons. My advice is that it is the groom’s wedding too.
So often it becomes a bride thing, I think because parents of bride are so often paying.</p>

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<p>" I would expect to have the wedding done our way and the groom’s family & friends would just be our guests… The wedding would be for me as much for them."</p>

<p>I disagree with this kind of thinking. If you still feel deprived of a proper wedding, I think you and your H should throw yourselves an anniversary celebration or recommitment ceremony and do it exactly as you wish.</p>

<p>I think that your kids should have the kind of weddings that they want. </p>

<p>What you wrote is an example of why I think that brides and grooms should be responsible for paying for their own weddings: S/he who pays calls the shots.</p>

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</p>

<p>I would think that this way of thinking can get marriage off on the wrong foot! I would think that you would want to include your future son in law and his parents on the decsions. The issue would not be the flowers you choose, or the dresses, and I doubt that the groom would even care at all, but wouldn’t you want to begin to develop a nice warm relationship with your daughter’s new family? Your comment to me sounds well meaning, as well as self serving, but most of all very controlling. The controlling issue can really lead to problems, JMO. Perhaps I am wrong, and frankly, I hope that I am wrong.</p>

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<p>I already told our children that any weddings will be their responsiblity, reminding them that we are giving them the gift of their college education debt free. I don’t think most prior generations paid for large weddings plus huge college expenses! Like everything else, so much has become commercial. However, we hope to give them a nice $$ wedding gift (obviously that amount can vary widely). They can apply it toward a party, a trip, or something for their future home…their choice. That’s our current plans anyway, which may change by the time the issue is at hand.</p>

<p>We’ve been “hinting” to them for years, how great a trip wedding might be. (Where you use the $ on a nice cruise for example, and invite your closest family & friends to join you for a time. The guests’ gift is their expense to join the couple, their company, and hopefully some great memories.</p>

<p>Frazzled…we had a brunch reception right after a morning wedding. Loved it. Much more informal w/ no drinking (except for a champaign toast). Since we were both living away from our childhood homes, it was also much more according to our planning wishes, without any pressures from family.</p>

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<p>I think it’s kind of unfortunate that paying for a wedding (or anything, I guess) is seen as a source of control over the outcome.</p>

<p>My parents and my fiance’s parents are contributing almost equally to the wedding, and at times there’s been an element of too many cooks spoiling the broth – it’s very difficult to plan a celebration that’s going to be equally agreeable to all sides involved, and the whole thing runs the risk of becoming a wedding-by-committee. </p>

<p>I don’t mind adding elements that the parents want (we are having a unity candle because my MIL wanted one, my mom and grandma picked favors, etc), but on major stylistic decisions, I think there just has to be, with apologies to Bush, a “decider.” And I would hope that the decider could be the engaged couple, regardless of the percentage of the bill they’re footing.</p>

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<p>P2N - please let us know what the young man says if and when he talks to you!<br>
Years and years ago I wanted my now-husband to seek my dad’s blessing before we told the rest of the world. It came down to the last night of the college vacation (we were both still undergraduates) so it was a now-or-never situation. Dad enjoyed skeet shooting and re-loaded his shotgun shells to save money. I sent H out to the garage to talk to Dad, who had picked that night to reload a bunch of shells. H came back in… “I can’t ask him now, he’s sitting there with a bag of gunpowder on the table!” I sent him back out. This went on for quite a while before we figured out that Dad knew quite well what was going on and thought the shotgun and shells added some humor to the event.</p>

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<p>Great responses…have we heard from any dads yet?</p>