<p>(Let’s keep this hypothetical, for the sake of my sanity. ;))</p>
<p>If a couple is getting married, is it strictly necessary for the bride’s parents to pay for the wedding/reception/whole nine yards? If the groom’s parents offer to pay (and are excited to split the costs), how should the bride’s parents feel about this?</p>
<p>Would you consider it a social faux pas if you attended a wedding which was hosted by both the parents of the bride and the parents of the groom?</p>
<p>Mollie:</p>
<p>We had a do-it-yourself, paid it ourselves wedding eons ago. Any arrangement is possible and acceptable.
In some societies, it’s the groom’s family that pay for the wedding. In others, it’s the bride’s. I remember being told that in Hong Kong (or is it all of China), all the groom has to purchase is a bed.
I would suggest to do whatever is most acceptable for the bride and groom rather than for the parents.
And congrats to the hypothetical bride!</p>
<p>I’m not sure if this directly answers your question but I think it does ultimately address your concern. Anyway, I really like Miss Manners.</p>
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<p>I would like to add my hypothetical best wishes.</p>
<p>“f a couple is getting married, is it strictly necessary for the bride’s parents to pay for the wedding/reception/whole nine yards? If the groom’s parents offer to pay (and are excited to split the costs), how should the bride’s parents feel about this?”</p>
<p>No. My husband and I paid for our own wedding. We figured that we are almost 30 and it wouldn’t be fair to ask our parents to pay for something like this when we were adults, and our parents had also helped pay for our educations.</p>
<p>I figure that it’s up to the bride and groom and their families who pays for what.</p>
<p>“Would you consider it a social faux pas if you attended a wedding which was hosted by both the parents of the bride and the parents of the groom?”</p>
<p>No, I figure whatever is fine with the bride, groom and their family is fine with me. I have to admit, however, that I look askance when adults expect their parents to pay for their weddings. Often the couple getting married is in better financial shape than are their parents. Also, if the parents have paid for the couples’ educations, my thoughts are that the parents already have done a lot to help the couple, and it’s time for the couple to start taking care of themselves. If they can’t afford an expensive wedding, then they should have a wedding within their means. What’s important isn’t the wedding, but the marriage. Too many couples – particularly brides – obsess and spend lots of $ and effort on the wedding, but put far too little thought into creating a good marriage.</p>
<p>The money that goes into some weddings and engagement rings would be better spent as a down payment on a house.</p>
<p>A wedding is one day; a marriage is forever (hopefully :O).</p>
<p>My thoughts…</p>
<p>1) I would only consider it tacky to attend a wedding sponsored by both sides of the family if someone made a point of telling me such. The invitation may read slightly differently, but ultimately, I’m just thrilled to see people that I really care about being happy. </p>
<p>2) Now, as for the philosophical implications, I would think that any reasonably enlightened family would not expect that the bride’s family pay for the entire affair because it’s always been done that way. (Now, whether the couple pays entirely is a separate issue; the main point is that it’s not just the bride’s family who pays.) I think that who pays depends on any number of things, from the relative means of each family to the guest list. </p>
<p>Yes, whoever pays the piper calls the tune. This can be a good thing - if his family pays for a lot of the wedding, no one feels bad when the father of the groom invites twenty of his business associates. </p>
<p>3) Unlike other posters (and maybe it’s because I’m young and have no intention of marrying), I don’t see anything wrong with parents who pay for weddings. After all, the wedding is a GIFT to the couple. There are no age limits nor salary limits on gifts. </p>
<p>The only problem (as with other areas of life) is when people expect gifts or expect that, by giving a gift, they are entitled to tell the receipient how to run her life. </p>
<p>4) Just as a thought, but location can be a big factor when determining if one of the three possible groups (couple, her family, his family) should pay. Consider travel costs.</p>
<p>I’m practical, like Dadguy. I have never understood why people want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a one day party.</p>
<p>But, for those that are intent upon doing so, I have no problem whatsoever with the groom paying a portion, a half or whatever. Bride’s parents paying the whole thing makes me think of women as chattel, or the dowry of old, or some such thing. Nothing wrong with that, if it floats your boat, but this is the new millenium, and there are multiple ways to achieve a goal.</p>
<p>i’m the maid of honor in a wedding coming up in october… some things i’d like to point out…</p>
<p>my friends are doing things really weird, so maybe this isn’t any help… but anyway…</p>
<p>they are paying for the wedding, her parents paid for her dress. </p>
<p>his mother paid for her bridal s hower, which the two of them planned together. her mom and i were not pleased… we recieved invitations in the mail from her to her own bridal shower, while we were in the middle of planning one here as a suprise.</p>
<p>i honestly feel they are going way overboard with everything at the wedding and that’s exactly why her parents aren’t paying for it.</p>
<p>Add me to those that paid for our own wedding. My husband was 27 & I was 23, but I had been living on my own since I was almost 18.
We had a fairly simple wedding and reception, our budget was $1000, for everything including rings and what there was of the honeymoon.
My mother didn’t offer and I didn’t ask for assistance, & I knew his parents had just paid for huge weddings for his two sisters, but a son getting married…?
( espcially when it was not to someone whom his mother had picked out? 
)
I don’t know that I would want to be the parent who was sharing the planning of a wedding- I think I would be happier just writing a check.
But if the two sets of parents want to put that on, more power to them.</p>
<p>“However, all of this, including the bride’s family’s assumption of costs, is voluntary…” Miss Manners has it right, as usual.</p>
<p>It is extremely tacky for the bride, her mom, or her future m-i-l to have any involvement in planning a shower. This “end-run” around the traditional shower (run by non-relatives, please!) doesn’t bode well for the future family relations. And we all know outside strress such as this can weaken a marriage. Sounds as if there are problems between mom & bride and she’s being very catty, making a point by lining up with future m-i-l. </p>
<p>Weddings can break all kinds of traditions if the alternative doesn’t hurt feelings, cause embarassment, or appear to be an extortion attempt from a mobster. If father-of-the-bride is a falling down drunk, by all means remove him from his duty of walking her down the aisle. If parents can’t afford (or choose not to pay for) wedding costs, make more modest arrangements. Whatever. A wedding is for a day, a marriage is for a lifetime.</p>
<p>I didnt really have a shower, unless you call a party with my friends a shower
I never did understand the reasoning however, behind the “relatives can’t put on a shower” though</p>
<p>( I also hate surprise parties with a passion- presents yes, parties no)</p>
<p>The reasoning behind the no relative rule is the definition of the event. A shower is held to “shower” the bride with gifts. Tacky for a mom to say “Come buy gifts for my daughter!” If friends run things, it’s different. A wedding guest traditinally brings a gift, or sends one in advance. But that is not mandatory and the wedding invitation is sent so the guests come and celebrate the big day & express their happiness for the couple. Its purpose should not be a gift collection spree, but sadly some couple see it that way.</p>
<p>We paid for our own wedding, too. Widowed mom w/ chronic illness on my side, dysfunctional non-Brady Bunch step-family and alcoholic dad on his. 20/20 hindsight: simple is better, although ours wasn’t nutty with trumpets or horese drawn carriages, or anything kooky.</p>
<p>In my neck of the woods, it was traditional for the bride’s family to pay for the wedding dinner and the groom’s family to pay for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding bar. It sort of evened it out a little and prevented the “too many cooks” issue by limiting the decision makers for any single event.</p>
<p>Still, I have seen it done many different ways. I think that if the groom’s family wants to contribute half of the payment, that’s okay. The only thing I would say is that if the two families are “splitting” the costs, it should be very clear who will be choosing and deciding what. You sure don’t want MIL to feel that she kicked in for the invitations or the band, but she had no input and really hates the choice. Or you ordered chicken and she wanted surf-and-turf for 300. Even if you all split the costs, I would suggest an early “divide and conquer” list because it is just not going to be easy to have everyone involved in every decision.</p>
<p>I have seen invitations that have both sets of parent in the text. I might go something like:
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
and
Mr. and Mrs. Jones
invite you to the marriage of their children
Bobbie Sue Smith
and
Billy Joe Jones
etc, etc, etc.</p>
<p>How nice that the hypothetical groom’s family wants to help! :)</p>
<p>We paid for our wedding too. Small, no big deal except for our commitment to each other, not on how it would look to everyone else. </p>
<p>The whole BRIDEZILLA thing is ridiculous IMHO. It’s obvious that the price of the party is not at all relevant to the marriage itself. Use all that planning time to get counseling. Put the money down on a house. </p>
<p>$12K for an open bar is crazy no matter who pays for it.</p>
<p>I worry about brides ( it seems to be the bride) who have unrealistic expectations about being able to control every detail of " their day", and no tolerance for glitches.
Um * life- happens?*</p>
<p>I wouldnt have changed anything except I would have liked to have the enrgy and money to have a dress made rather than buying one off the rack. It was rather dowdy, when I look at our pictures ( oh and I would have hired a photographer, rather than had my sister in law take the pictures), although maybe that is just me looking back in time.</p>
<p>It does seem ironic though, that I paid about $80- for my dress myself, and my sister had a dress specially made for her(which was 8 x what mine was- but my grandmother paid for it- only because my sister had her charge card #), that she only wore to her reception not to her wedding, because she is LDS and I think they have to wear shrouds or something for ceremonies in the temple- I don’t know because as neither I, nor my mother or brother are LDS, we weren’t allowed in… darn.</p>
<p>As a guest, I don’t think I’d want to know who paid for the wedding. So it wouldn’t be an issue! I’m just there to wish the couple well and lend my support and love, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest how low-key the party is or who paid for what. Weddings and receptions don’t come with price tags attached for guests to see, last time I checked. Most of the invitations I get now don’t mention the parents at all, but when they do, they mention both sets of parents, as lkf725 suggested.)</p>
<p>(Add me to the “we paid for our own event” crowd, who also doesn’t understand the major league splurging on a single party, but I know that it does seem to be important to many young couples (and more often to the female half of a mixed couple), so to each their own! And I’m sure it will be a wonderful event, Mollie! 
)</p>
<p>How old is the bride, I will assume she is young because groom is 23.</p>
<p>The whole having the brdie’s family pay for everything is just archaic</p>
<p>We paid for our own wedding </p>
<p>Some things we did to save money:</p>
<p>A bunch of Hs soccer buddies didn’t know what to get us and when H suggested a coulple of cases of wine, they jumped at it…they found a place that puts personal wedding labels on the wine so they were placed on the table </p>
<p>My Maid of Honor was a photag buff, so her gift was talking picutres, i provided al the film and the developing</p>
<p>Our bar was only open for beer and wine…believe me, no one had any problem with that</p>
<p>I registered (because people asked) at a department store that had lots of things in various price ranges and big sales</p>
<p>Our wedding was lots of fun, we had a simpler meal so we could invite more people, we actually made what some may see as a etiquette fauz pas, but we had sooo many soccer buddies, but couldn’t afford to feed them all, so we actually had a second set of invites printed inviting them to dessert and dancing - these guys (it was the single ones with no significant others) were actually happy, didn’t have to sit through the ceremony, and got to come for the really fun stuff…and we made sure to put no gifts please on their invites…sounds odd, but believe these gentlemen did not feel at all slighted…and many came in more casual attire which was just fine</p>
<p>I guess I’ll be slightly less hypothetical. :)</p>
<p>We’re both just out of college (and on grad student salaries), so if we paid for the wedding ourselves, it wouldn’t be a church wedding/reception-type deal. This doesn’t particularly bother me – although I’d like to have a traditional wedding, I’m fine forgoing it. Both sets of parents, however, strongly prefer a traditional ceremony + reception.</p>
<p>His extended family is much bigger than mine, so his family takes up the bulk of the guest list. His parents are very excited about the wedding, and genuinely want to split costs, both because they feel that it’s only fair and because they want us to have a nice wedding without putting undue financial strain on either family. My parents are absolutely horrified by the idea of his parents contributing.</p>
<p>And to be clear, we’re not talking about a crazy circus wedding with 600 guests and 12 bridesmaids… but weddings of any size are expensive in Boston, and I’m not particularly comfortable with the idea of my parents footing the entire bill.</p>
<p>His mother has offered to call my mother, but I’m afraid that will just make her even more upset and defensive.</p>
<p>Mollie:</p>
<p>I’ve seen the following arrangement: different receptions, hosted by bride’s side and groom’s side. This way the cost is split. Would that be acceptable?</p>
<p>We’re soon to attend a reception that is one of several held to accommodate the humongous throng of relatives and friends of the bride and groom.</p>
<p>My son was married just last May. He was 23 and bride was 22. We paid for rehearsal dinner, groomsmen gifts, some of the flowers (florist knew which went on what tab–such as bridal bouquet) and honeymoon cruise. Her family paid for rest of wedding expenses–but we held a dry church reception to help keep costs down. After rehearsal dinner we split cost of a party with open bar and dancing for the young college friends who had arrived in town (wouldn’t recommend that–too many hangovers). I think however people want to pay is fine and as a guest I probably wouldn’t know.</p>