<p>A few years ago I bought a beautiful wedding dress at the Salvation Army when our school needed on as a play prop. I was going to pull out mine, but it was professionally boxed and I was reluctant to do so. The second hand shop dress was far more of an expensive dress, better made and luxurious,than my dress which was very pretty but from a JCPenny line.$25 bought the prop dress, and I donated it back to SA when we were done with it. Wedding dresses do not have to be expensive to be gorgeous. Lots of places to get a lovely wedding gown.</p>
<p>I posted on another thread some time ago. We have 3 boys and were very fortunate to be able to pay for their college educations ourselves (I doubt any will go on to grad or professional school but who knows). Our oldest is almost 30 and has been with his GF for seven years. They were married by themselves in the County Courthouse and then held a wedding weekend celebration in their city for immediate family (about a dozen people) and about 2 dozen friends (local and some from out of town) who attended one or more event. Out of towners stayed at a local B&B; we only had 7-8 rooms. There were several dinners at ethnic restaurants and diners plus Saturday night at a local (and loud!) tavern. There was kayaking/canoeing with a picnic and also a nine mile hike one morning in another nearby state. The weather in the Northeast cooperated for the most part. We all had lots of fun and it was casual and laid back – exactly as the kids wanted. My son and DIL planned to pay for everything themselves but in the end both families also contributed. My son and DIL are nerdy, intellectual, independent, and like to do things differently from others. It worked out well for them and us although at first I was a little hurt at not being able to share this happy occasion with my best GFs. My DH and I considered hosting an Open House here in the fall but the kids have busy schedules and won’t be around much.</p>
<p>PS The friends who attended were THEIR friends not our adult friends.</p>
<p>Somehow I acquired the belief that the parents of the bride paid for the wedding. Father of the groom pays for booze perhaps. Now where did I get that idea? Did I make it up? Did I dream it? Honestly, haven’t given it much thought. Am I wrong? Are the people objecting to this outdated wrongheaded perception parents of girls? Since we paid for our own wedding 28 years ago the topic hasn’t come up in our immediate family.</p>
<p>If one of my sons gets married and his bride to be wants a large wedding that will cost… let’s just say for example… $50,000… and they ask me to contribute $25,000… my response would be laughter.</p>
<p>NJres: that has been the traditional approach to paying for weddings for decades. The bride’s family paid for the entire wedding and reception, and the groom’s family paid for the rehearsal dinner. As a polite gesture, sometimes the groom’s family paid for the booze or flowers or some aspect of the wedding, but I think that is fairly recent.</p>
<p>My best friend’s son is getting married next month to a woman with a very wealthy father. He is paying for the entire wedding at a very posh country club and the honeymoon too. My friend and her H are just paying for the rehearsal dinner.</p>
<p>The bride’s family paying for everything was perpetuated by the FIRST Father of the Bride movie. My parents’ generation (they would be approaching 100) generally did very simple weddings. When my husband and I married costs were split. In some cultures (Persian and Armenian for example) the groom’s family pays for it all. I think that the wonderful thing about today: You can do what you want to do.</p>
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<p>It smacks of that to me.</p>
<p>Also grooms pay for their own outfits and tuxes for the gents.</p>
<p>I suppose that the parents of the bride have usually ponied up because they were usually the ones dictating the scope/choices associated with the wedding/reception.</p>
<p>I’ve got a boy and a girl. I’ve never put much thought into the “who pays for the wedding” question until reaching this page of the thread. Until now I’ve had a very old-fashioned assumption. We’d pay nearly all costs for D, and rehearsal dinner for S. </p>
<p>Now that’s not a very fair split, is it? Guess I better get with the 21st century and figure something out.</p>
<p>I just never really got parents being responsible for financing their kids’ weddings. I know it’s a long-standing tradition in this country, but certainly if they’re old enough to get married they’re old enough to fund the ceremony/celebration? I also never got the big, expensive celebrations, unless someone has a ton of money sitting around. I mean, if parents of the couple want to give something to them, wouldn’t the down payment on a house or a nice honeymoon make more sense?</p>
<p>My siblings and I were all late 20s-early 30s when we got married. I think we would have been embarrassed to ask our parents to pay for it.</p>
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<p>I agree. And this kind of thinking reminds me of the threads on CC (there is one particular active one in the Parent Forum but there have been lots in the past too) where people frown upon those who spend a lot for their kids to attend private expensive colleges or so called “elite” ones. </p>
<p>Like I said earlier in this thread, in my background culture, parents fund higher education and brides’ parents fund weddings. Now, perhaps I am not up on current times if some say grooms’ families chip in but my assumption has been that as parents of girls, we will be funding the wedding (not that I would not accept offers from grooms’ parents to help). But I do expect to pay for this and not have my kids fund it (unless for some reason they get married at a much older age and are financially well off at that point or some such). </p>
<p>We all come from different backgrounds. Many here did fund their own educations and their own weddings and expect their kids to do the same and that’s fine. Values and expectations vary among cultural backgrounds. </p>
<p>As well, there is a lot of poo-pooing about traditional wedding affairs (I’m not talking outlandish type ones) that are not cheap. I don’t know why others would care about this as each family should do what feels comfortable for them. But lots of “assumptions” here flying around about those who spend significant money on weddings, just like on the threads about those who spend to send their kids to “elite” colleges. On the elite college threads, there are assumptions about the types of kids who go to such colleges and their parents too and now, there are ones about brides and parents who have weddings that aren’t cheap. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Yes, parents often help to pay for a wedding, which may include both the bride’s and groom’s parents, depending on the circumstances of the parents. Of course, in different cultures, there may be different expectations. It is also quite common for the bride and groom to pay for the wedding themselves. I have been to dozens of weddings in the past few years where the weddings were paid for by some combination of the couple getting married and parents.</p>
<p>It is also not uncommon for parents to tell their children that they will give $XX towards the wedding costs. If the children wish to throw a wedding that falls within that budget, all is paid. If, instead, the children wish to spend more on a wedding, than the children must determine how to pay for the additional costs themselves (often the couple will pay this portion). If there is no way to pay for the additional costs, than the grand plans the couple may have had must be scaled back. It’s not an unreasonable lesson to learn.</p>
<p>It is very much a family decision as to how much to pay for a wedding and how it is paid. Just like anything else that you consider buying, you should think about the financials regardless of what your culture, personal desires, kids’ desires, social pressures are. You may decide to go all out and make it a big priority. You may not. </p>
<p>However, the quality of the wedding ceremony and certainly the quality of the marriage is not determined by the cost of the celebration. </p>
<p>I have no issues at all about people spending a fortune, more than they can comfortably afford for a wedding if that is what they really want. When they endanger themselves, financially, I consider it a folly as I would anytime someone embarks on something unaffordable. I do admire any kind of creativity that saves a lot of money on any endeavor, so a lovely inexpensive wedding does attract my attention. </p>
<p>I have enjoyed some very expensive wedding as well as inexpensive ones and have seen both kinds done not so well. It isn’t the money that goes into the wedding that determines the quality of it.</p>
<p>Something tells me that since people have had their retirement funds plummet, many middle class and upper middle class parents are no longer going to fund these lavish weddings. </p>
<p>I tell my sons that is fine with me if they get married in Vegas, and I am not kidding! In fact we have a family member (complicated family situation) who did just that and they are very happily married. Getting married in Vegas does mean many raised eyebrows in our family. I am happy for the couple.</p>
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<p>LOL, I must have watched too many episodes of *Say Yes to the Dress * where the bride and her mom walk in with a $3000 budget, then the girl throws a hissy fit and ends up with the $8000 dress.</p>
<p>I think my daughter’s dress cost about $300 and was absolutely stunning. Our biggest expense was the awesome live country band- worth every cent. We also paid to fly the kids’ parish priest from their church in Houston (Rice/UT Med) up to preside at the service along with our parish priest. It was a drop in the bucket (relatively) and meant a lot to everyone.</p>
<p>My SIL comes from a culture where extended family members “sponsor” the wedding. The end result is that the wedding party is huge with all the cousins and such in the wedding party and the wedding is huge. She did not want this and they ended up going to Vegas to get married. Her Mom was not happy and for the first year of the marriage she kept telling her D that she needed to do a “real” wedding.
The owner of the nail salon I sometimes go to told me that in her culture the cost of the wedding is handled by the groom and his family, including the 2 different bridal gowns for the bride. Also guest give monetary gifts to the couple which the couple uses to start their lives together. She shared photos and the wedding looked pretty fancy. This was her culture not any desire to have a super fancy affair.</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t be happy about that. I would hope that they would want friends / family members to be present for a happy occasion. H and I have very small families - there aren’t more than a dozen of us.</p>
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<p>But if you had a D and she asked you to contribute the entire $50,000, you would? What if the only reason the B wanted a $50,000 wedding was that the G’s family wanted 250 of their family and friends on the guest list? Lets go further and assume that the B’s family would be perfectly satisfied with iced tea and wedding cupcakes in the church basement, but the G’s family was appalled by the idea and wanted a sit down dinner and an open bar? </p>
<p>Again, I can understand saying you won’t pay for a wedding for either a S or D or that you don’t have the funds to do so and are unwilling to go into debt. I don’t understand saying that the parents of females have any more of an obligation to pay for a wedding than the parents of sons. as DougBetsy said:</p>
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<p>The idea that the B’s father pays for the wedding only applied to the wealthiest segment of society and originated at a time when the B was her father’s property and had to marry whomever he chose. If she eloped, he paid nothing–and none of her family would have anything to do with her. Women weren’t educated and couldn’t be doctors, lawyers, or business executives. The parents of males were expected to educate them or set them up in a business or profession. (People used to purchase officer commissions in the military, for example; no training whatsoever was involved.) Married women couldn’t own property in their own names. Nobody expected a woman from this class to work outside the home. </p>
<p>Yep, it’s the 21st Century. The parents of young women have often contributed just as much to their education as the groom’s parents have contributed to his. Two income couples are the norm. Even in the most traditional families, I don’t think the G’s parents would be thrilled if the B gave up her job on her wedding day and expected her H to support her. </p>
<p>I also don’t “get” why people are so condemning of those who can afford to spend money on a wedding and do so. I think it’s completely false to assume that the young woman whose parents will do this will turn into a Bridezilla who cares more about the wedding than her spouse to be. I’m not claiming that $ makes the wedding; it doesn’t. The wedding doesn’t make the marriage either. Still…I am PROUD of the fact that my kid and spouse WANTED to share the day with family and friends.</p>
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<p>I know of a similar situation. B’s parents are middle class, and G’s are wealthy. B chose a place for the wedding and reception. G’s family was NOT happy with the location and type of place. G’s family “took over” the affair and paid for all of it. The wedding was held in another state in G’s hometown. Since G’s family was paying, they made all of decisions. The wedding was lovely, but there was always friction between the two families. Frankly, the wedding would have been lovely at the location that B’s family could afford.</p>