<p>I remember asking my sister how she chose her wedding date, she says, “You call the caterer you want & ask what dates they have openings.” I followed her advice & found to my surprise that they were booking about a year from the date H & I got engaged, so we chose among the open dates a year from our engagement.</p>
<p>FWIW, I am not sure what “older” means for a couple. I was in my late 20s & H was in early 40s when we got married. It was an expensive reception, but what our families and we wanted. We are still married and no signs of trouble over 26 years later. My sister & her H both got married in their 40s; it was expensive & lovely. Both are very happy. Part of it is what folks want in a reception–me & all my sibs wanted & had banquets with many courses, which is what each of us had.</p>
<p>We did not spend much on dresses, flowers or other things, but we did spend on food for guests and did NOT expect anyone to cover the cost of their meal. We just wanted them to celebrate with us.</p>
<p>Agreed, the future bride I described is an extreme example, but I’m the one she vents to about costs unfortunately. She wants her childhood fantasy but is getting no money from her family or the groom’s.</p>
<p>I agree that each couple should proceed as they wish but avoid debt if possible. We went to a very fancy wedding last year and had a blast. It was a wonderful celebration and the food, decor, music, etc. were very enjoyable for the guests and the lovely couple. The bride’s parents paid for most of it with a generous upfront contribution. The bride and groom supplemented that amount to have their “dream wedding.”
I wonder, however, if there is buyers’ remorse for the big ticket weddings in some cases. I know my brother and his wife went into debt for her perfect day (resort wedding on high traffic weekend, all the most expensive everything) despite my parent’s generous contribution to the event (her parents did not contribute). They have struggled financially for their whole marriage. I wonder if they would do it differently if they could.<br>
20 years ago, I had a morning wedding and sit down lunch at a service academy. It was lovely and a great value! We were lucky to get any time slot at all :)</p>
<p>Sportsmama, does your d have a significant other yet? Will he share your family’s vision of a wedding? In planning for my d’s wedding, I did not have many issues with my d, but had many “groomzilla” moments. Yes, you are paying but it’s “his wedding too”. :(</p>
<p>I came from the culture that the groom has to pay for everything, the kind of culture that you don’t get to milk the cow unless you pay for cow kind of thing. However, I will help pay for memories such as wedding dress, photography and honeymoon. The rest I don’t care, they want buffet style, I’m all for it. :D</p>
<p>Cbreeze, my daughter does not have a significant other. I figure that gives me three years, at the least. </p>
<p>Yes, the groom does have a say in things, but I think my daughter would not be with someone who wouldn’t have a similar viewpoint. Maybe not, since your experience seems to have included some “groomzilla” moments. Yikes. Anything you care to share?</p>
<p>Also, I was interested to see your comment about buying the dress too early. It seems as though your daughter did exactly what they say you should do–allow plenty of time for it to come in and to have alterations done. What happened?</p>
<p>cbreeze, I would tell her to use her head and ask her husband why it’s the bride’s family responsibility to pay for everything, just because it’s a custom here. I’m don’t mind if they split the cost in half.
On the subject of buying the dress early, I did that and ended up paying with 3 dresses.I think in my case it was nerves. I gave away 2 brand new wedding dresses. Yikes!</p>
Beware the ‘momzilla’ factor which is what I think it is in many cases - i.e. the mothers of the bride or groom or both driving much of the arrangements according to their own desires independent of the kid who’s actually getting married - sometimes to the consternation of both the bride and groom. </p>
<p>So even if the groom is like minded with your D, what about the groom’s mother (or the bride’s mother)? And not to be sexist, I’ll include the dads as a potential dadzilla factor as well.</p>
<p>“So even if the groom is like minded with your D, what about the groom’s mother (or the bride’s mother)? And not to be sexist, I’ll include the dads as a potential dadzilla factor as well.” </p>
<p>GladGradDad, I’ll have to say that my responses are hypothetical in nature, since my daughter won’t be planning a wedding for years. </p>
<p>If I am hosting (in other words, paying for) an event, I make the decisions. If the groom’s family would like to co-host, then it’s a different ball game. Of course, when I say “I,” I mean my husband and daughter (and yes, probably her fiance). Lol.</p>
<p>Honestly, I can’t imagine my son getting married and telling the bride’s family how things should be run.</p>
<p>^^ I hope it works out that way for you but it seems these things aren’t always so cut and dried. I agree with you somewhat in concept - i.e. if you’re paying you get to make the decisions but really it should be the bride AND groom who decide what they want to do (which you say you’d include) and if they decide to accept someone else paying for part or all of it then they’ll need to understand they’re now opening it up to some conditions and baggage to go along with the financing - i.e. giving some decision power to the funding party (or parties) or at least opening themselves up to strong pressure.</p>
<p>What seems to sometimes happen in reality is that the funding party makes many of the decisions and influences it heavily despite what one or both of the people getting married have to say about it and that can cause some stress and sometimes poor feelings between the parties unless all are in happy alignment with what the plans are.</p>
<p>Since I don’t look at this traditionally I think it should be strictly up to the bride/groom to decide mutually what they want to do with equal weight given to both and it’s just as big of an event for the groom’s family as it is for the bride’s so it makes no sense to me that the bride’s parents think they have more of a say than the groom’s - and of course, I don’t think the bride’s parents should pay any more than the groom’s either. I realize I’m a in a minority with this outlook.</p>
<p>I think the problem is that in most cases the bride and the bride’s mother have probably thought more about what they would like in a wedding, and are loathe to surrender control. (Understandably.) The MOG knows in advance that she is going to be much lower on the totem pole, so unless she is a very difficult person she is going to be prepared to take a back seat: the old saw about smiling and wearing beige. Ideally, I think that both parties should tell the B&G what they will contribute or pay for, and let the B&G take it from there. This makes it more difficult to demonize anyone, which is a good thing going forward.</p>
<p>Personally, I would love to have the opportunity to help plan a wedding, but I know it is highly unlikely.</p>
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<p>So if you chip in $10K and the groom’s family chips in $5K, do they get to make 33% of the decisions?</p>
<p>My H & I had been living together for a few years( early 20’s) when we married, we made all arrangements and paid for wedding ourselves- except for things my MIL took upon herself to implement. ( insisted on food and drink at reception, I was happy with cake & coffee)</p>
<p>I don’t think I have ever been to a big reception with live music and sit down dinner. Most of weddings have been in late morning as was my own. I think that lowers expectations and expenses. Several weddings have been outdoors including mine, which also was wonderful.</p>
<p>Neither of my girls have ever expressed any thoughts on weddings, oldests BF family is from a part of the country that typically makes a bigger deal, but don’t have impression this is the case for themselves. They are in a very different socioeconomic level than we happen to be,but knowing the couple,I expect they will have an informal but possibly large wedding.
A rented barn sounds like just their style!( especially if furnished with horses!)
;)</p>
<p>My step-daughter was married just over two years ago. Since there are divorces and remarriages on both sides, there were potentially 8 parental units to consult. Daughter and her fiance very sensibly and wisely chose to ask each set of parents for a contribution they felt comfortable with and then they handled all the planning, decision-making from there. We have no idea what any other of the parent sets contributed; nor do we care. What we do have are wonderful memories of a lovely evening that was quintessentially “them.”</p>
<p>This thread is very timely for me as well, since my fiance and I are in the early stages of planning our wedding. </p>
<p>It’s definitely been a learning experience finding out about how much these things really cost. My future MIL has generously offered to pay for the ceremony/reception space and honeymoon, and upon his graduation his grandmother gave him a $5000 monetary gift which he put away with the intent of using it for our wedding. Even with that, it’s still going to be a challenge to plan the wedding we want on our budget.</p>
<p>The worst things, we’re discovering, are the caterer and the photographer! Those alone could cost $3-5K easily even if we go with some of our less expensive options. That leaves very little room for other details, such as table rentals, the dress, the tux, and any decorations we want to do. Fortunately, the space is very cool so it doesn’t need a lot (it’s a natural science museum). </p>
<p>One issue we’ve run into is what is convenient for the bride/groom versus what is convenient for the guests. I wasn’t aware until now how much some people expect the bride and groom to bend over backwards to cater to the whims of the guests. Right now we are in a spot because we realized that the wedding date we are looking at for next year is the weekend of Memorial Day. We wanted to do a late May wedding so that it wouldn’t be too warm, but also so the semester would be over so I would be able to focus on the wedding. Some people think it’s great that they have an extra day, but then we worry that we might interfere with others’ travel plans. This is all so complicated!</p>
<p>hyperJulie,
Some people will be able to attend; others won’t. Don’t go crazy over it. The only folks S1 and fiancee are concerned about accommodating are her immediate family (as in her dad teaches and sister is in college, so have pretty hard dates as to when they could fly from their country here). And as I type this, I realize one of my sisters is a teacher in the US and her school starts the first week of August. Cr*p.</p>
<p>Planning a wedding involves lots of financial and budgeting decisions, not to mention the political intricacies of dealing with various relatives’ demands and deciding how the couple, as a team, will approach those issues. DH always thought that alone was a compelling reason to “have a wedding” vs. eloping. He felt the process of managing money together could be enlightening.</p>
<p>After the wedding, you will have pictures. You will not have the food. It seems to me that there are more options to keep to a budget re: food than photography. Said sister above had a friend recommended by other brides to do her photography and he kept the lens cover on. She was devastated. (This was back in the age of film.) Don’t know if this would save you $$ on the photographer’s fee, but we have been to weddings where there were disposable cameras at the tables so folks could shoot candids. At our wedding, half my family was trolling with cameras. :)</p>
My sister & her H both got married in their 40s; it was expensive & lovely. Both are very happy. Part of it is what folks want in a reception–me & all my sibs wanted & had banquets with many courses, which is what each of us had.</p>
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