Well the problem is he is born in USA so so e modification is in order. I’m also guessing from what I’ve read, mcat and his wife may not come from the same countries, hence the conflict as to what and whose custom to follow.
In mainstream middle-to-high socioeconomic status US culture, is there any cost of marriage?
Typically, the bride and groom are both working, they may already be living together (or if they’re not, they may save money by getting a place together rather than maintaining two apartments), and they are a few years on either side of their 30th birthdays, which means that they have already accumulated a reasonable supply of life’s basic needs.
What cost would they incur by being married?
I see costs ahead of them if they have children, of course, but that’s a different story.
why? If it seems they are still thinking along the lines of old customs, then follow old customs for financial planning. Seems safer, and a no brainer. Then if they dont need the $ for a wedding, tant mieux!
Interesting, my H’s parents paid for their own wedding, my parents paid for their own wedding, H (an only child) & I and my siblings all paid for each of their own weddings…I told the kids a long time ago we don’t pay for weddings. I assume when the boys decide to get married they will be capable of telling their soon-to-be-brides.
H and I paid for our own wedding back in 1975. It was small (55 guests) and a morning wedding followed by a champagne brunch at a lovely club in Manhattan, NYC – not at all extravagant, but gracious and lovely. We had a pianist rather than a band.
My parents had a child still in middle school and my father came from a very large family so I figured:
- I did not want to put any financial pressure on my parents when they still had a child to educate and
- If I paid for it myself, I could avoid the typical huge (200 or so) family weddings typical in my father’s extended family. We invited only aunts and uncles, not cousins (with whom I was not close anyway) and could do what we wanted since H and I were handling it all. (I had over 50 first cousins on my dad’s side alone, and many of them had spouses!)
Ironically, when our D became engaged, we did things more traditionally. Her fiance (who was nine years older and financially well established) had offered to pay for their wedding, but H and I told D we did not want her to feel like she was “Cinderella marrying the prince,” and we wanted to cover the wedding ourselves, as our last parental financial contribution. We were in a position to comfortably do it and they were having a moderate cost wedding – again, a brunch rather than a dinner, but for about 120 people, at a lovely spot in Boston. Nice but not elaborate or extravagant. We had little input into their plans, although they were run past us as a courtesy, and only a few minor adjustments were made – the bride and groom were in charge.
S became engaged a few years later. He and his fiancee are younger (mid twenties). We offered to contribute to the wedding in any way they and bride’s parents might want. They are all practical, sensible people who we knew would not go overboard. We have mentioned several times that if there is any aspect of the wedding they would like us to take responsibility for, we are open to that. At this point they have accepted our covering the photography and the rehearsal dinner. (Wedding next spring, guest list heavily bride’s extended family which is larger than ours.) Perhaps we will also cover flowers. Arrangements being handled almost entirely between bride and her parents, with S invited to accompany them to vendors, but he is fine with whatever bride wants. (Again, she is the opposite of extravagant.)
So we have had a range of experiences. I do agree that there should be no assumption that bride’s parents take on full responsibility, and it is often appropriate for the marrying couple to take on full responsibility.
My grandparents had a very small church wedding and no special wedding attire and simply went out to dinner with their parents and best man and maid of honor afterwards and that was it – and they were married until death parted them. Whatever works all around is fine by me.
@soozievt, I commend you for your commitment, generosity and fairness to both your Ds. Clearly, you want to do whatever you can for both of them. (My kids both had Stafford student loans, but those were, fortunately, paid off by them before the weddings.) My best wishes to both your Ds and their partners! Mazel tov and much joy to you in the coming year!
Some people might be surprised by how much I spend on entertaining, but I’m always surprised by how much other people spend on cars or accessories or sporting event tickets. The bottom line is that everyone has their own priorities and interests. If a couple want to spend a bundle on their or their kid’s wedding, it is fine with me. And, as a guest, I appreciate it when people go to a lot of expense to make things special or lovely for their guests. There is no universal standard for any of this stuff.
I don’t truly care what others choose to do about paying for weddings…who pays and how much.
My wedding was paid for my husband and I by my parents in full. We were both students when we got married. I had intended to do the same for my daughters (who are no longer students, though D1’s fiancé is one). My financial situation is such that while I prefer to pay for all of it, I am going to make a hefty contribution (that I really can’t afford), but can’t pay for all of it. I’m doing that because I WANT to. My kids do NOT expect it, nor asked for it. I think some of this can be family traditions and customs. My kids don’t want real traditional weddings, nor have extravagant tastes. I’d be happy if I could give them more but I am certain they will have weddings that are lovely and that will be what they want, as they figure the budget out.
I don’t begrudge anyone who has an extravagant wedding. But even if I were rich, while I would likely spend more than I am able to give my kids toward their weddings currently, I would not think it was worth some huge dollar figure and they honestly would not think so either. I have a friend whose daughter is the same age as my D1 and is getting married this month. The daughter wants a “princess” wedding and it is going to cost over $100,000. The dad thinks that is ridiculous, but that is what the mom (parents are divorced) and daughter insist upon. Even if I had lotsa money, I would not want to spend that much on a wedding, but to each his/her own.
This. And only this.
We gave S1 and DIL a fixed amount of money with no strings attached during the wedding planning process. We chose to give it to them then because they were getting stressed about all the wedding expenses (they planned and paid for the wedding themselves) and the expenses of moving cross-country and needing to furnish their bigger apartment (they were also tired of living like grad students). They were free to spend the money on the wedding, furniture, honeymoon, or just bank it if that’s what they wanted to do. We had no expectations of having any say on how they spent the money. We did pay for the rehearsal dinner.
@shellfell,
Re: We gave S1 and DIL a fixed amount of money with no strings attached during the wedding planning process.
We hope we can do the same.
@DrGoogle,
Re: mcat and his wife may not come from the same countries.
We were from the same country and came to US (almost at the same time) after we had been married. This was a long time ago (30+ years ago.) But this does not mean that the relations between the two families and between the two generations were without any problems.
But this could happen to our child and his SO.
It seems to me that, at least on the west coast, many first generation families could still not decide whether they fully follow the tradition in this country or fully follow the tradition in their country of origin, or a combination of both – especially when the backgrounds of both families are quite different (from different countries, different SES, and/or different degree of assimilation to the main culture in US.) For some families whose parents are by and large “goose parents” (if you know what it means), who could still “stay behind” most of the time either by necessity (e.g., when they are still working in their original country mostly) or by choice (e.g., they could not afford to retire in US), it could be more difficult for them to decide which way to go.
The wedding cost itself is actually not the central issue (it is a one-time deal only so it is not a big deal in the big picture.) It is the whole package about each other’s “expectations” just because of the unity of the young couple.
Some of you obviously disagree with me, but I think the couple are entitled to know how much parents will pay and what strings are attached well BEFORE the wedding day. The best time to say something is when the bride and groom start planning the wedding.
While I love hearing the stories about beautiful inexpensive weddings…those just aren’t options in the world I live in.
I’m divorced. My ex and I are not on speaking terms. I knew that in her heart of hearts my D thought dad would make a substantial contribution to the cost of the wedding. I knew that he would make certain demands as to family and friends who should be on the guest list. Reality is that it’s kind of hard to say no to dad’s demands if you think he might be contributing a chunk of change. It’s also reality that if dad is going to contribute enough that the young couple won’t be out of pocket personally if they include the 30+ people dad wants invited, then the couple will invite them. They don’t want to antagonize dad. However, while some of you dislike the “cover the plate” concept, if dad isn’t willing to pay, some of those 30+ guests would not be on the guest list the bride and groom would come up with themselves. I personally didn’t think that if there were 20 people dad wanted invited that the B&G wouldn’t invite if dad hadn’t asked, the B&G should be out over $2,000 (at a conservative estimate of $100 each extra for those guests.)
Reality too is that “kids” put weddings on their credit cards. They pay interest on their credit cards. So, I wrote to my ex and said that if he was going to contribute money, I thought it would be wise to give the “kids” the money upfront, so they could pay the required deposits in cash. Of course, I recognized that he might feel he shouldn’t have to pay a dime. That was his business…not mine. However, I thought he should tell the “kids” that upfront because they would plan a smaller, less elaborate wedding if he wasn’t going to contribute. (I did not say they won’t invite half of the 30+ people you told them you want on the guest list. ) If you knew my ex…the idea of his D paying credit card interest got him to pick up the phone and tell the “kids” how much he would pay. Again, in my world, $5,000 in cash to pay the deposits for vendors is worth more than $5,000 six months to a year later.
YMMV. Please understand that I am NOT saying anyone has an obligation to contribute one cent to a wedding. I am only saying that when your child becomes engaged, you should tell him or her early on in the process how many people you want invited and how much you will contribute. If you aren’t contributing any money, I don’t think you have any right to express any opinions about the guest list.
The above post reminds me of an article from a blogger (He is an Australian but he met someone in S. Korean in one of his trips there. He later followed her to S. Korea and got married within a year. But they stayed there for another year or two before coming to Australia.)
“when two Korean families meet for the first time much of the discussion centers around money and how much, how much will be spent on different aspects of the wedding, where the couple will live, what furniture will be bought to furnish their house, where the wedding will be held, etc. There was none of that. I told my parents of the cultural obligation for them to buy some gifts for Jihyeon’s parents (in this case a Hanbok for her mother and a suit for her father and brother and a dress for her sister) and that they would need to part with some cash for these things, but other than that there was no talk of money.”
Good communications between him and his parents.
BTW, “where the couple will live” and “what furniture will be bought” are big parts of the discussions/negotiations. There are no cheap way to rent an apartment there, so, as I heard, it is mostly the responsibility of the parents (because the couple of do not have such a large sum of money by that age) who will pay for it. Since the living standard and SES of two families could be different, it could be challenging to reach a consensus when the backgrounds of two families are very different. Thus, a couple from a drastically different SES have a lot of hurdles to overcome. This could make or break their marriage. This is also the reason why the cost of marriage is much higher than the single-event cost of wedding. Also, all kinds of social “expectations” are involved. (A disclaimer: I am not from that background.)
This brings up the question that has been simmering in my mind. Two of mine are seriously involved with Chinese sig others. What are current practices regarding weddings and who pays what? One family lives in the mainland, one American Taiwanese. Or is there a current practice? I have a feeling that local social practices would not suffice, a relatively informal catered event in a park shelter.
I agree with your post jonri.
Go ask Mark Zuckerberg. He has some experience. Just joking.
Unless their families are very assimilated into the main culture of America, I guess a relatively informal cartered event in a park will not cut it. This is eapecially true if the families are (were) well connected families either back in their country of origin or here in US.
However, their guests will likely be expected to bring money in an evelope to help fund the weddings – they often will contribute more than enough “to cover the plate.” The guests would do that because their parents have been doing the same for their whole life and they just get back what they have contributed to the families of these invited guests.
I also even heard of a strange story like this: Some family may even pay some “professional guests” (who are strangers to everybody involved) to come to the wedding (pretending they were guests) in order to have more guests if they do not have the number of guests expected for a family of their “caliber”. There are a lot of strange practices if you ask my opinion. I and my my wife has had none of all these non-senses in our whole life – this may be one of the reasons why my wife can never have a chance to “normalize” her relation with my side of family in the past 40 years. As rebellious as we were when we were young and were still working (for a brief time) there, we likely could not even “survive” in that society if we did not choose to come here. I still remember that a large chunk of salary would be used to fund all kinds of events, even for someone who I barely knew. You just could not violate the expected rule if you want to survive there.
My info may be VERY outdated though.
Jonri,
You are right that the $ discussion should be conducted early on in the wedding planning. But it doesn’t have to happen, IMO, before a couple is even engaged!! This thread is kinda premature.
It can get challenging when there are exes and yours/mine/ours involved, problems arise over who is paying for what and what they get in return. Friends of ours asked usm, at their s’s wedding, to drink as much as we were willing to because the brides parents (who were paying for little else of all the weekend events even though the wedding was in their area and most of the guests were theirs) because the bride’s family was paying for the liquor!! LOL! Well (a) we really don’t drink that much and (b) the alcohol selection was rotgut stuff!!
The mother of the bride and I had the discussion. Her idea was that there would be 250 guests and that the Ellebuds would pay for it. Perhaps not. The wedding would be kosher (I didn’t care) and the Ellebuds would pay for it. The Ellebuds don’t do the showy big stuff. In the end…she paid far more than she wanted and demanded the she receive the wedding gifts to offset her bill. It was a beautiful event. There was tension…but we’re good.
Wow, @bevhills, you must have had A LOT of patience during that process! This I don’t even get: “demanded the she receive the wedding gifts to offset her bill” Ballsy.
Dr Google, indian weddings are known for being very formal and expensive spanning several days.
Dowry is illegal put there is expectation that brides side will shower grooms side with elaborate gifts.
My daughter is still in college. I would rather have a small intimate wedding for her and give her money for a down payment for a future home instead of having a really elaborate and expensive wedding. I would like a wedding which she truly enjoys and not celebrate with tons of people she doesn’t even know.
Is she engaged? If not, please understand that she may surprise you by marrying into a very different culture with different expectations. I don’t mean to be rude…but…you seem to have missed the fact that she will be marrying someone else. He may want to celebrate with people he knows and loves who haven’t yet met the bride.