@AttorneyMother - I love Bride and Prejudice as well. I couldn’t remember the name - thanks for the reminder!
About 35 years ago, my cousin was the 4th sister to get married 4 summers in a row. Their father is from a very large family but he also had a lot of business people he wanted to invite. Each wedding was themed (long before people did that) and I remember one was ‘Southern Belle’ with the dresses of many colors and parasols and white gloves, one was Hawaiian with fire dancers flown in, and the one I attended was German. The first estimate was $25k, and this with a wedding in the small town church and the reception at her parents house - but with huge tents, tables, beautiful hanging baskets of flowers, lots of food, etc. The bride said she’d elope and take the money, but the father was very clear this was his party, for his friends and clients.
My cousin just wanted to get married and did not care about the wedding. Her husband had received a foreign service post and they were leaving just after the wedding. His parents were political and connected too, but had little say in the wedding and reception and probably didn’t pay for anything except their clothing. This is the only wedding I’ve ever been to where I thought the bridesmaid dresses really could be shortened and worn again; they were simple and beautiful and all the men wore light summer suits that were also beautiful and those that didn’t end up in the swimming pool could also be worn for years.
I wonder to what extent this is still the case for SOME weddings – that is, could some weddings today still have some flavor of this? Hope not.
I didn’t have nearly enough patience. In the end I threw up my hands and said that I would not pay for her extra people. We had about 153 people. The things that were important for my son (all single people could bring a significant other and good wine and open bar for the cocktail hour were done.
The cost of the wedding wasn’t terrible. The Mob said that, in our area the average wedding was 105,000. Seriously?! Those who know me know that I have a sense of humor. But the “average” is over 100k000?!!! Not in my time.
I’m sure there are many weddings that are still thrown to fulfill family obligations or political ones or even the father of the bride or mother of the bride’s dreams. It’s not like Kate and Will could have had a few friends over after a quick trip to Vegas even if that’s what they wanted, and Chelsea Clinton had more than just her college friends at her wedding. You might dream of and even want a small wedding, but if you marry a Kennedy, you might have to adjust those dreams.
In my cousin’s case, just having her family would have made it a large wedding anyway, and adding the groom’s side and the business clients just made it bigger still. There are some families where big weddings are just expected. She got to have a few friends as bridesmaids, but also had to have most of her sisters, her brothers were groomsmen, I think he had a sister for another bridesmaid, there were nieces and nephews as flower girls/ring bearers. I think there’s a point where you just say “What the hell, what’s one more?”
My daughter is getting married next summer. She and husband-to-be are paying. She’s also in charge of the planning. They have a modest budget. I’ll fly out when it’s time. 
@Mcat2: you don’t have to spend any money for your son’s wedding if you don’t want to do so. I guess I don’t understand why you seem so worried about your son getting married. You can simply say, “No.”
If you can’t afford it, don’t want to give money for a wedding, if spending $$$ on a wedding is going to make you crazy, then just don’t do it. My folks were like you (they were Eastern European immigrants) and spending money for something they considered “unnecessary” them crazy. If this is how you feel, then be honest and tell your son. Don’t make him think you’ll give him something when you know you won’t.
The biggest and oddest wedding I’ve attended was a double wedding – the couple got married twice in the same weekend to please both sets of parents (Irish and Indian). One wedding was in a huge Catholic church (perhaps a cathedral, I’m not sure where the dividing line is). The couple had to take and pass the Catholic marriage class and in the wedding promise to have lots of kids and raise them as Catholics. I’m sure that one was expensive; sit-down catered dinner for ~150 afterward.
The next day, they had a smaller, traditional Indian wedding. The Irish family didn’t attend that one.
I think only the close friends of the couple knew that the bride’s mother had tried to bribe her to move back home to Ireland and forget about “that heathen”. The Indian family wasn’t particularly happy about the bride, but not to the point of sending paid airplane tickets to the home country to their son.
I was clear the sets of in-laws weren’t on speaking terms with each other. It was awkward to attend; just think how it was for our friends getting married.
@Bromfield2, I think we can afford to pay up to a certain amount, and we will want to give $$ for a wedding. The question is not “if”; it is to what extent.
Like many parents here, we have spent a lot when we were raising our child. For example, just for his two major instruments, it might have cost us almost $10,000 in the past two decades. Let alone years of private music lessons + private college tuitions + a part of grad school tuitions. But it is lucky we have only one child, otherwise we could not afford to do this. (Also, we have almost never taken any vacations in order to save money for other things we value more.)
We do know our limit. For example, we are fully aware that we won’t be able to help him buy his first house at all, like some other families may be able to. But we are pretty confident that our child would appreciate that we have done for him.
A related question is WHY we want to do this. I really could not articulate my reasons exactly. Maybe one somewhat “irrational”/sentimental reason is that since my own folks were unable to help me when I was that age, I just want our child to have what we could not have when we were young. But I am not sure whether this is the real or only reason.
I knew of two families whose loved ones got married, (also two weddings in two different cities on two different days in US), the two sets of in-laws were not on speaking terms with each other right after the wedding. It is extremely lucky the couple are still together after 5 years when the two sets of in-laws bitterly “hated” each other.
Without getting into the details, the root cause of conflict is: Money, or two different expectations about who pays for what.
BTW, a CCer here who likely knows more of our situation once said that we were “crazy” in the way we used our money as long as its use was for the “education” purpose. We likely won’t be as “crazy” if the money which will be spent is for a wedding. Maybe we will be more insane as compared to most CC families would do here.
Is there a reason for all the different colored fonts in the quote boxes? The quote box gets the point across. The blues and oranges and such are a bit distracting, IMO.
And I know of no parent these days who would or could buy their newly married kid and spouse a home. That also must be some old school custom from the old country. Thats not common here. If you left your home country in part because you and your wife saw yourselves as a bit of rebels to the customs and not fitting in, why not leave these customs behind too? Its simple enough IF the situation arises to say “we would love to be able to contribute to the wedding. We are thrilled they are getting married. What we can contribute is limited, but we are happy to do what we can.”
Congrats Calmom.
“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.”
Amen!
I think part of why this topic is so hard for us as Americans, mcat, is that “what one spends on one’s child’s wedding” is not seen as reflective of anything other than that personal family’s abilities and preferences. Here, no one really has a need to make a statement – unless they want to. There’s no shame in having something modest.
“Jonri, it really depends on the person. Personally, I couldn’t have married someone who wanted a big, fancy wedding with tons of people (or a big fancy ring or whatever else). To me, that signals that we have totally different values. And that’s OK- there’s nothing wrong with that- but some people just know what type of wedding they want well before they are even dating someone.”
A big fancy wedding with tons of people (or a big fancy ring, or whatever) isn’t a value in and of itself, though. It has no moral / ethical connotation either way - it is neither morally superior nor morally inferior to have one. A value would be – “one should spend significantly above one’s means (or take out loans, or whatever) to fund a wedding because it’s important to impress other people” or even “it’s important to entertain loved ones with the finest food/drink/celebration, even if it’s above our own budget.”
“Hm. Unless you have a family heirloom to give, I think it would be a point of pride for the young man to buy the ring(s) for his bride himself. What do others think?”
I think people are different in their points of pride. I know for my husband, it was very important for him to do that himself, and he would not have wanted a family heirloom from my side (not that we had any!). OTOH, my MIL says she has a pair of large diamond earrings that she intends for her two grandsons (my son and nephew) to use as engagement rings (and they are big enough to do so, LOL).
“As head of my family, I feel it is my responsibility to host a party (wedding) to welcome my future SIL and his family into my family, and it is only gracious for the groom’s family to host a party (rehearsal dinner) to welcome my daughter into their family. I would be very disappointed if the groom’s family should choose to do nothing.”
I agree with you. But I would imagine you would see a difference between “the groom’s family chooses to do nothing” and “the groom’s family can only afford a modest X.” I think this is where mcat goes off the rails, because he’s worried that his modest X will fall short. I think we all know the difference between gracious people who are entertaining to the best of their funding ability, and people who are trying to get off cheap.
“The father was very clear this was his party, for his friends and clients.
I wonder to what extent this is still the case for SOME weddings – that is, could some weddings today still have some flavor of this? Hope not.”
I’ve not thrown a wedding, but I threw a b’nai mitzvah, and yeah, of course my kids’ friends were invited, but yes, the guest list included some of our friends too, and we even invited some very close friends of each set of grandparents who kvelled appropriately and were beyond delighted to be included, even though they’d only met the kids a few times. I’m not sure what the problem was with that. Granted, they were young teens and I was the host, but sometimes that’s part of the gig. I know that my dad invited a bunch of his business associates to my wedding; that’s how executives entertained. Didn’t bother me one bit - they were nice people, gave good gifts, and they were genuinely pleased to see their friend’s daughter get married.
mcat, early in the thread you posted this quote:
'* I have a son and a daughter soon to be married. But I do not intend to show off by spending a lot of money on their wedding. Neither do I plan to send yedan to my in-laws which, I believe, is totally unnecessary. But my in-laws would never understand it and thus treat my children – especially my daughter – badly. Then my children would blame me for their misery.
These days, I often wake in the middle of the night, sweating in all sorts of nightmares. Despite these unfathomable fears, however, I cannot go against my wish and philosophy. So forgive me, my children, and so help me, God! " *
I take it to mean that this is pretty much what you are thinking.
But you are making a LOT of assumptions here:
- The in-laws wouldn’t understand / would be angry if you didn’t contribute a lot of money.
- They would take out that anger on how they treated your son.
- Your son would blame you, thus eroding your relationship.
You don’t know that ANY of these things are true.
A) You don’t even know whether this couple is going to get married or not.
B) You don’t know what their own feelings are - maybe they reject her culture’s ways entirely and want a small justice of the peace wedding and a nice dinner afterwards, in which case all your worries are for nothing.
C) Even if they want a big fancy wedding, maybe the bride’s parents are happy to pay for all of it.
D) The bride’s parents may be completely understanding of your financial limitations and not be “angry” at all.
E) Even if they were angry, that doesn’t mean it’s a foregone conclusion they would treat your son poorly.
If they did - that reflects on THEM and their poor character - not on you.
F) Even if they did treat your son poorly, that doesn’t mean your son would “blame” you. He’s got to be aware of your limited financial means, and a truly loving son wouldn’t expect you to jeopardize your own financial future.
Basically - the great thing about the US is you can pick and choose which cultural traditions you value and which ones you don’t.
You are very much sounding like a victim - that you have “no choice” but to put forth a sum of money that you clearly don’t have. All you have to do is say no. If the other family doesn’t like it – too bad for them. What are they REALLY going to do? They only have the “power” over you that you give them.
I personally am only going to cross this bridge when I come to it, which is not in the foreseeable future for either kid. Who knows what the situation will be?
- Who knows what their tastes will be in the moment -- simple, lavish, anywhere in between?
- Who knows how many people might come -- we have a small family - they could marry someone else with a small family or they could marry a family where there are 100 cousins who all need to be invited?
- Who knows where the location would be? It might be in our hometown - or maybe not. Totally depends.
- Who knows what other extenuating circumstances there might be? Maybe they're joining the Peace Corps in which case it seems odd to throw a $100,000 wedding and then send them off to Uganda.
- Who knows how old they are going to be and how much they'll already have of their own? (apartment, house, nice things, savings)
I have no idea. I have no idea if it will be the same amount for the two of my kids, or different. It just isn’t something that is worth fretting about or having a strategy about. I don’t have a wedding fund the same way I didn’t have a college fund - I just saved so that I had the money I needed to make choices I wanted to, but nothing is specifically earmarked for it.
We have a small family. I know my budget, which may be generous by some standard, so my kids could have 150 people stylish wedding or they could have 300+ people nice wedding. D1’s BF has a large family where most cousins are invited to each other’s wedding and they could be limited how far they could travel due to expense. Bless D1, she is willing to take all of that into consideration, and I have “matured” over the years to know it is her wedding. It is her life with his family in the future.
D1’s BF is of the mind set that he wants to get the ring she wants by himself. I appreciate his effort. I think if his parents couldn’t afford to do the rehearsal dinner, he would do it himself.
Yeah, I have a sense of a budget (or more accurately a budget I wouldn’t exceed) but that doesn’t mean that the whole thing will or needs to be spent - it just all depends on the circumstances at the time and what they want. And I really don’t know exactly what that budget will “buy” because I haven’t really costed out any of this stuff.