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Then might an asian son in law could help. In most east asian country, the groom’s parents suppose to pickup most wedding tab.</p>
<p>Most of the weddings I’ve been to lately have been shared by both the bride and the groom’s families. A few of them still go the traditional route…bride’s family paid for everything except the rehearsal dinner…that was also what happened for my wedding over 31 years ago.</p>
<p>When the time comes, I expect my kids and their potential spouses to pay for most of it, but we would help some. After all, we paid all their college costs so they don’t have debts.</p>
<p>zixxa, I really meant to speak generally about what’s buggin’ me lately about some weddings. Your wedding sounds absolutely wonderful to me. SOunds like your D has picked up your values, too. </p>
<p>I meant to suggest the possibility of having an affordable wedding, so that it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing, mega-blast versus elopement, offered to the couple. </p>
<p>Weddings have been held in public for centuries in most cultures, so there must be some reason that’s important. I regret when the cost of parties or expectations price famlies out of thinking they can do anything nice for their kids. I also don’t want people to sneer at a budget wedding, either. I wouldn’t want to host one and then get that kind of feedback. Anyway, I haven’t been to a recent wedding that strikes a good mid-ground. The wedding magazines surely don’t point you in that direction!</p>
<p>We paid for our daughter’s Rice education and are joyfully paying for the majority of her upcoming June wedding to a wonderful young man. She paid for her own dress (reasonably priced) and the kids are paying for their own honeymoon. Due to a jerk father of the groom (divorced from the mom), we will likely also be paying for a very informal but fun rehearsal dinner at our home on our deck.</p>
<p>Our daughter is an Aspirant to the Episcopal priesthood, and the church ceremony is very important to her and her fiance. Her parish priest from Houston will fly to Tennessee to officiate along with our parish priest (at our expense). We are happy to pay for a celebratory party (country western) for our family and friends following the ceremony. I never for a moment regarded this as an imposition or in any way NOT a gift that we should give our daughter as she starts her new life. The kids have decided on their priorities for the reception (music the main one- we found an awesome band) and have been extremely cognizant of costs. We have opted for quality without being extravagant. We are all happy and excited (except for jerky father of the groom). Mother of the groom has been to visit us twice and we had a lot of fun shopping for our dresses and having a shower for my daughter where she (the mom) got to meet a bunch of my friends and co-workers.</p>
<p>This whole thing is such a pleasure and and an honor for my husband and me that I don’t give much thought to the expense, even though I will probably work until I’m 80!</p>
<p>Huge waste of money IMHO. My parents paid for one average-size wedding for the first sister who got married, but out of the three remaining sisters, two of us are cheap as dirt and one is a hippie, so I don’t think there will be any more requests for weddings like that. My fellow tightwad sister was the second one to marry, and she invited 20 people to lunch & a civil ceremony at a lovely restaurant. I thought that was about right. Did I mention that I’m cheap?</p>
<p>I love black-tie blowouts when other people throw them, but unless I were Bill Gates’s daughter, I think I’d have a fatal stroke if I saw a $50,000+ bill for a product with a four-hour shelf life. I’d be thinking, we could RETIRE A YEAR EARLIER if Dad wrote us a check instead!</p>
<p>MOWC – your D’s wedding sounds absolutely lovely and your attitude spot on. Can we virtually attend?!</p>
<p>I had one bridesmaid and told her what color my flowers would be, sent a photo of my dress and told her wear whatever she liked. My dh had one best man. Our housemates ushered. I’ll confess that while I found my dress in a second hand store it wasn’t much cheaper than new ones were at the time. I felt like Katherine Hepburn in it though. We had a pretty nice meal at the Caltech faculty club and a fair number of guests.</p>
<p>I wish ALL my CC friends could be with us! It is going to be SO much fun! The band is incredible (one of the neat things about living in Music City) and we are all going to be wearing cowboy boots with our dresses and tuxes. </p>
<p>One place my daughter cut back was to only have a maid of honor and one bridesmaid (sister of the groom) and the groom will have the equivalent (best man and one groomsman). That cuts down on the hassle-factor tremendously. </p>
<p>Daughter and her fiance are both performing musicians (and by then he will be a brand new doctor (med school graduation is the week before the wedding) and the wedding favors will be a CD that they are making.</p>
<p>well, that’s one way we could participate – we could all download the CD from I-tunes! It sounds wonderful.</p>
<p>My husband and I got married for about $10,000 less than the average cost of a wedding in Boston, but getting married in the city was still not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. </p>
<p>We didn’t have anything too over-the-top, but we did want to have a pretty day to remember – that’s what we wanted, and that’s also what our parents wanted, so they were happy to pay. Each set of parents paid for about 40% of the wedding, and we paid for about 20% ourselves, plus the honeymoon. Maybe it was materialistic, but we had a beautiful, joy-filled, memorable day with the people who mean the most to us in the world.</p>
<p>MOWC, It does sound great! We’ll just need to wait and hear about the wedding!</p>
<p>My H and I also had a very small bridal party. I also told the 2 bridesmaids and maid of honor to pick what they liked. I just gave them the colors I had chosen. Also, I bought a sample dress and wore that. My parents were very happy about that, and I was very pleased with it. A real sample dress could cost 10% of what the actual retail price should be (this was my situation anyway)!</p>
<p>P3T- loved all your hints & ideas, it is obvious you have seen it all.</p>
<p>It probably depends on whether your kid gets married right out of school vs years later. My nephew is almost 30, his parents gave him a lump sum to use toward whatever he wanted.</p>
<p>I would in no way support the bacchanalias I see on TV, they are crazy. On the other hand my wedding was 300 people, designer gown etc, BUT, only son married youngest D (by 10 years, so no weddings in many years) all the parents were confortable, the groom’s family had an in at a reception location with a great discount, my mom worked in a Bridal shop for a couple of years and thereby got an amazing discount on the dress and doodads. It was really the parents friends, mostly.</p>
<p>I am kind of glad we are in a new town, so we don’t have 20+ years of friends to sift through on a guest list, hopefully all cermonies will be small and tasteful, but I am still trying to work on the destination wedding or elopement and house down payment ideas.</p>
<p>I think how one approaches it depends on where you are in life, have you just spent 10 years paying full COA at a $50k school or did your kid live at home and go local; are you struggling at work or finally comfortable. Those realities trump any policy one might set.</p>
<p>Mollie, your wedding looked great and not over the top. Really I think it’s okay to pay what you can afford. I hate the thought of going in to debt for a wedding. I do think there’s a happy medium where you can spend $$ on the things you really care about and a little less on other things. If you want a huge wedding but can’t afford the cost of food. Serve tea. If you want lots of liquor and a great meal, maybe invite fewer people. It’s not that hard. :)</p>
<p>I disagree w/two things said in this thread. I don’t think you have to pay for a wedding at all, but if you do, I don’t think it’s reasonable to use the size of your family to determine how many invitations the groom’s family gets. Your D is going to be joining a family. If it would cause hard feelings if some family members aren’t included, remember that your D and her new husband are going to have to deal with those resentments. So invite them. I’m not saying you should give the groom’s family the right to invite as many people as they wish, but people who are close family should be included, IMO. If you really can’t afford it, then give the young couple or the other family the OPTION of paying for the additional guests. Do NOT say, we only have a dozen family members, so the groom’s family gets 12 invitations if the groom is the youngest of 10 and the older 9 are all married, for example. </p>
<p>The second thing I disagree with is having NO bridesmaids. They perform a function too. I don’t think you need a dozen of them, but yes, there should be at least one. And, if the groom has sisters, especially unmarried sisters, include them. If you don’t, the odds are high that your D will have one strike against her with her new mom-in-law. </p>
<p>Any groom’s family that is “blind sided” when the bride’s family asks about money is living in the prehistoric ages!</p>
<p>jonri, I agree with everything that you said except for the last thought. If a bride and her family are not including the groom’s parents in any of the plans (the place of the wedding, the food, the band, the photographer etc.), and are going from place to place with their D and/or their future son in law and not including the groom’s parents in decision making and the expenses, I could see how they could be blind sided. Nobody knows how much or how little the groom’s family wants to/can contribute. Handled in that manner the bride’s family is making plans based upon their pocketbook and the desires of the future couple, but without regard to the other set of parents.</p>
<p>Momof wildchild
I have young docs in my family and its amazing how many of them get married right in that time period between med school graduation and their first years intern assignment.Seems like they are going to weddings every week for each other and fitting in some honeymoon time before that dreaded reporting day.were your D and her fiance able to work out her Divinity School location and his internship location?
Best of luck with the wedding!</p>
<p>jonri, I agree with you on the issue of bridesmaids. In the planning which has happened so far, all three have been a great help and, as the months go on, I’m sure that that will continue. They have been close friends of my D since they were all 12, so she certainly wanted them to be involved with her wedding. D2 is her maid of honor, Ds 3 & 4 are not in the wedding party but will be involved in the ceremony as each will do a reading, as will the groom’s two sisters, who are married. </p>
<p>All close family, on both sides, will be invited (we have fairly small extended families, so not really a problem). Where I’ve seen this be an issue as to who pays is when the groom has a huge extended family and wants to invite 300 people when the bride’s family invites 100. We attended a wedding like this, and the groom’s family happily paid for the bulk of their side’s guests’ dinners, a substantial amount.</p>
<p>I think the bride and groom should discuss the finances, along with other wedding issues, with both sets of parents, right from the start. If the groom’s parents haven’t had this discussion, they should ask their son why not!</p>
<p>alwaysamom, the wedding plans sound lovely.</p>
<p>I agree with you about wedding issues being discussed with both sets of folks right from the start.</p>
<p>northeastmom, thanks. It’s been fun so far, I’ve learned a lot! I figure by the time D4 gets married, I’ll be an expert. :)</p>
<p>I am sure that you will be an expert, LOL! Then you can go into the wedding and party planning biz! The main thing really is that the future couple has a wonderful, happy marriage.</p>