Paying for weddings?

[crl]

Are you planning to pay for part or all of your children's weddings? Does it make a difference boys or girls?

My parents paid for mine. I asked them if they wanted to and they said yes. If they hadn't, I would've done a tiny church ceremony with some sort of very inexpensive brunch or dinner. As it was, we had about 65 guests and did sit down dinner, tons of flowers and a thousand dollar wedding dress and so on. My parents made most of the decisions as to cost (like Mom said they wanted to sit down dinner). I think they may have helped a bit with my brother's wedding, but I am sure they did not pay for all of it. I know they covered the rehearsal dinner, per tradition, and I think they helped a bit more as well.

I just started thinking about this. I think we should offer the same to both kids (one boy and one girl). But I also am thinking of setting a cap on what we would spend and offering them the money towards a house or something instead if they don't want the wedding. . . . . And what if they never get married? Hmmm.

Catherine

[ellies mom]

I would be willing to put a certain amount toward the girls' weddings depending on what we can afford and they can make up the difference. I will not pay for a full blown, all out wedding, especially if they are in their late 20's or early 30's. I would rather pay for college or give them money toward a down payment on a house (or heck put it in our retirement fund) than spend on it on an extravagant wedding.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Our parents paid for our wedding and I would like to help, within reason. I'm not paying for something uncomfortable for my budget. I have boys.

eta- I would love for them to start their married lives debt free and would like to be able to help them reach things, like weddings, that they couldn't necessarily do on their incomes depending on when they get married. Yes, I know, I'm old fashioned and I got married young. AMy perspective is different than those that married later in life after their careers were established and they were either in debt already or not.

Beth

[fivi2]

Well, I don't intend to start saving up now or anything!

Once we get college and retirement figured out, I guess it is something to think about.

My parents paid for my sister's wedding in her early 20's. Neither of them were prepared to pay for my wedding (early 30's) but my step mother graciously contributed a nice amount. I wasn't expecting it. I was fully prepared to "elope" (a destination wedding with no guests? ;) ) but dh was against it. If stepmother hadn't given us a nice amount, we would have had a small low cost event. As it was, it was still fairly small.

So, it isn't high on my priority list, but if we can afford it, I will likely do what stepmother did. Write them a check - they can use it on wedding or not. But I won't foot the bill for an elaborate affair. And I will expect them to manage the money I do give them and not expect more.

If they don't get married, or if one gets married years before the other... I don't know what we will do!

[[email protected]]

Before he died my dad set aside a certain amount for each kid to pay for their wedding or to contribute toward the down payment of a house. My sister eloped and used her share toward a house (I think my mom chipped in more but I don't know or care). I married at 31 and had a nice wedding. We used the $ from my dad, some of our own and my IL's chipped in for things that they really wanted (ie an expensive photographer and big rehearsal dinner).

I hope to be able to do the same for all three kids. As to the "what if they never marry" question, I'd probably give them the money outright when they turn 35.

Christine

[justlearning]

Wow--I haven't even given this any thought! Even though we had 140 guests, we did our wedding very inexpensively. IIRC, it cost around $2,500 total (everything except the rings) and my parents paid for most of that (DH and I paid for some of it). We also got a bargain deal on our rehearsal dinner, so it only cost $200 and DH's parents paid for that.

Based on our own experience, I'd have a really hard time forking over lots of money to pay for a wedding for my sons. But if they tried to do things in a frugal manner like we did, then I'd be happy to help pay for some or all of their weddings.

[Pear]

My parents wrote me a check for a modest amount. We payed for the vast majority ourselves. I can see taking the same approach. SimPly providing an amount I can afford and think is reasonable and the kids can do with it what they choose. I do think times have changed and throwing a wedding is primarily the responsibility Of the people getting married.

[pinkmomagain]

I am a traditionalist. I have three girls. I will be paying for their weddings.

My parents paid for mine. My grandparents did offer to pay for my wedding dress. And my in-laws paid for flowers which is customary around my parts.

[MelissaTC]

We hope that we will have a daughter and plan on paying for her wedding. For M, we will host the rehearsal dinner, pay for a shuttle for guests to avoid driving, and truthfully, anything else they will need, including the wedding if need be.

[Jo..]

This is so not on my radar at all. My kids are 3 and 5 and we are still saving for retirement and college.

If they marry after these worries are behind us, I will try to contribute. To both equally. But I think they should also each work, save, and pay some of the cost themselves.

[artvandalay]

This is so not on my radar at all. My kids are 3 and 5 and we are still saving for retirement and college.

If they marry after these worries are behind us, I will try to contribute. To both equally. But I think they should also each work, save, and pay some of the cost themselves.

:yeahthat: Word.

[vludmilla]

Assuming that I could comfortably do so, I would pay for a nice wedding for DD. I would offer her the opportunity to have a smaller, inexpensive wedding and give her money toward a down payment or graduate school. I wish my parents would have given me that option, I would have preferred that flexibility.

[liamsmom]

No. My family has a long-running tradition of paying for one's own wedding. My philosophy is if you're old enough to get married, then you're old enough to pay for it yourself.

[wellyes]

Write them a check - they can use it on wedding or not. But I won't foot the bill for an elaborate affair. And I will expect them to manage the money I do give them and not expect more.

That's exactly my thought too. Fits in perfectly with my parenting philosophy. Support the kids, without trying to control how they do things or over-enabling by rushing to fix their mistakes.

My parents had a small, intimate destination wedding and so did we. It is a family tradition that I will speak positively about. My parents wrote me a generous check before the wedding and gave us a gift check as well.... both were unsolicited and had no strings attached. The best kind of gift.

[swissair81]

In my community, the girl's parents pay for the venue and caterer, and the boy's parents pay for the flowers, liquor (if you decide to have any), orchestra, and photographer. When I got married, my husband's parents and mine split the cost of the wedding, because my in laws are fairly well off and they wanted to. We will be paying for our part of all of our children's weddings, and they will not be expected to pay anything. Our kids get married fairly young (19-22 is most common) and it's not that realistic to expect them to pay for anything, even if it was 'done' around these parts.

[elephantmeg]

my parents gave me a $3,500 budget for mine. I paid some out of my own pocket but was still in college so it would not have been much of a wedding otherwise! I will do the same for our kids-contribute some. I do HATE that my mom stipulated that my dress had to have sleeves if she was paying for it.

[DrSally]

My parents didn't believe and weren't able to pay for any of my wedding or college education. We are definitely going to help w/college and prob wedding for both boy and girl (although w/some sort of cap/budget).

[DrSally]

I do HATE that my mom stipulated that my dress had to have sleeves if she was paying for it.

Yeah, that's not right. One thing freeing about not having your parents pay for anything ever, is that you get to make the choices. But, still, it would be better to have help and get to make your own choices on things that personal as the style of the dress!

[smilequeen]

I haven't really put much thought into it, but I'd be willing to give anything they needed for their weddings one day. I have 3 boys, but I'm not traditional...whatever is needed is cool with me.

FWIW, we paid for our own wedding because we could comfortably do it. It would have been a big stretch for our parents to pay for a wedding and they most certainly could not have paid for the wedding we actually had. My younger cousins are still annoyed with me for setting a precedent ;P

[niccig]

I think we will help out, but as we paid for our own wedding without any help, I expect DS to pay for most of it.

I think to be fair, parents should offer the same amount to their children, I don't get the only pay for the girls. DH did comment when discussing if we would borrow some money from his parents that they paid for both his sisters' weddings, they took longer to get through college and were helped by his parents financially at times. He has not needed any of that. Siblings do take note if one child gets more help than the others.


:tongue5: DS wanted this smiley face.

[sweetsue98]

My parents paid for my wedding and I had a modest wedding. I plan to pay for my girls weddings as well. I'm not going to go broke over it though so they better not have expensive taste!

[Melanie]

I think traditionally the bride's parents pay for the wedding, the groom the rehearsal dinner and alcohol, right? So I guess that will be our plan, but we've not saved up for it yet. Their current schooling costs too much to put more than a little in their college funds every month, so the wedding will have to be saved later on. I have a friend who's parents saved for their girls' weddings and their boys' college since birth. Uhm, well, they're traditional?

[SkyrMommy]

DH and I both agree that giving a set amount to DD is the way to go. She can use it as needed for her wedding and won't have to run any decisions or invoices by us or she can budget well and use some toward a house or honeymoon.

Both my parents and in-laws helped with some money and labor for our wedding and it was perfect!

[hellokitty]

Like Jo, this isn't even on our radar right now. I'm worried about paying for college (I don't think we will be able to pay for all of it, just a portion) and saving for our own retirement. If we can help out, we will, but I plan to encourage my kids to have small, simple weddings. DH and I won't be the type of ppl who want to invite a ton of friends to our kids' wedding. We'll probably just give them a check and say they can use it for whatever they want, whether it be for a wedding or a downpayment on a house, but I know that unless it is an extremely small wedding, we probably won't be able to pay for it anyway.

[longtallsally05]

Are you planning to pay for part or all of your children's weddings? Does it make a difference boys or girls?

Nope. If you're grown-up enough to get married then you're grown-up enough to support yourself, whether you're male or female. I think we'll do what my parents did for my sister and me, give a small amount of cash (we each received $2000) as a gift. My sister used her $ to set up a small Las Vegas chapel ceremony with flowers, cake & champagne. I used my $ on my dress, veil, shoes, & jewelry. DH paid for everything else, as I was pretty poor @ the time and could only afford to buy his wedding ring! We wouldn't have had a church wedding & dinner reception except it was extremely important to DH (I would have preferred a little trip to the beach with a JOP wedding), and he could afford it. DH's parents paid for the rehearsal dinner (probably about $500), which was was unexpected but very nice. If I could have a do-over, I'd devote a bit more money to the photographer, because ours didn't suck, but they weren't very good either (scrunched up aisle runner, random microphone stands, and weird shadows etc. in the photos), which was a bummer considering how great everyone looked.

[fumofu]

It is our culture's tradition that the groom's family pays for the wedding. That said, DH paid for our wedding. He is a good boy :love5: who saved up to buy me a ring and fund our wedding.

We have very generous family and friends, most of whom gave us monetary gifts (also a cultural tradition), and that paid for 70% of the wedding costs. Which was great, coz then the money pot transferred to fund our house purchase.

We don't have the budget to save up for DS's wedding. I would hope he would learn from his dad's example and save for his own wedding!

[blisstwins]

I do not want my children to pay for college almost at all and we are saving like crazy to be able to do that for them. After that we will help with graduate school expenses (probably not tuition, but rent and expenses). Once we are done with those kind of expenses and children are on there own we will free up a significant amount of money and I intend to save a lot of that to use for weddings, gifts toward down payments, spoiling grandchild. My family helped me and I know it will give me great pleasure to do so with my children. All the above changes it I suspect my children become spoiled or lazy. I was always deeply grateful for what I got and it is not affect my worth ethic, so we will see.

[citymama]

This is so not on my radar at all. My kids are 3 and 5 and we are still saving for retirement and college.



:yeahthat: What's with all the threads about our babies' dating habits and wedding days? And what's next: what to name the grandchildren? :wink2:

[daisysmom]

While we do a lot by tradition here in the South (where all of the weddings I have ever been to except my own are paid for by the bride's parents, and are very expensive), I hope to keep up my parents' tradition instead. My parents paid for their own wedding when my mother was 21, father was 23 (they are now in their 70s). My grandparents would have footed the bill I think but my parents' felt strongly that it would have been wasteful to spend so much money on one day, so they had a very small event (my mother did wear a short white sheath dress) in 1963. Their agreement for all of their kids (there are 4 of us, 3 girls and 1 boy) is that they paid for all of college and further schooling (two of the kids got masters and I went to lawschool) with the understanding that we would then pay for our kids schooling (since we wouldn't have school debt to be paying off). And instead of paying for a wedding or rehearsal dinner, they gave each of us $20K for our first house downpayment.

It worked out perfectly. We all bought houses in days when the market was on the up-and-up so when each of us were getting married (in our mid 30s), we had sold and bought and sold several houses and made good money each time. I used some of that money to pay for my wedding at 35 which was very expensive, because that is what I valued. But I respected my brother and sisters choices, both of which who had less expensive weddings that they also paid for themselves. In hindsight, especially as the market is not doing so well as of late, I wish that I hadn't spent such an absurd amount of money on one day... but that's hindsight.

So our plan is to pay for our DDs schooling and then give her money for a downpayment, and she can choose what she wants to do for her wedding.

[dogmom]

No. My family has a long-running tradition of paying for one's own wedding. My philosophy is if you're old enough to get married, then you're old enough to pay for it yourself.

Yeah, that. I would be willing to kick in some money, but heck no to paying for the whole thing and the money I would contribute would be inversely proportioned to the $$ spent. I hate all that those big weddings stand for. I hate wedding dresses that we wear once, are made out of crappy fabric and not well made. (I think some of the thrown together Project Runway dresses would last longer.) I hate that there is a script that most people need to follow. I hate the stupid wedding favors that I have to take home, let sit around for a while, then throw out with guilt because I know someone's family member stayed up late making them. I hate that soon as you say the word "wedding" everything gets 20-50% more expensive. I hate having to make decisions like having a cash bar to save money, but then feeling like you are a crappy host. I hate all that build up and work for one day.

My motto is if you think the depreciation on a car is bad, check out a wedding, because it is worth $0 the next day.

[sarahsthreads]

Well, we have two girls. We already plan to contribute the amount of state college tuition towards their college educations (if they choose to attend more expensive schools, they will have to find loans or scholarships for the difference). I imagine we will pay for weddings, within reason. Basically, we would likely fund up to a certain amount and then let them make up the difference if they want something much more extravagant! And honestly, at this point, we have no idea what that amount would be - it's not really on the radar just yet...

Sarah :)

[wencit]

This is so not on my radar at all. My kids are 3 and 5 and we are still saving for retirement and college.:yeahthat:

Even so, DH and I paid for our own wedding, and I will expect my boys to do the same. If the bride and groom don't have enough money to have the "wedding of their dreams," they can either wait, scale down their expectations, or elope.

[kmm]

We definitely plan on paying for our girls' weddings. It is something we want to do for them and we had an amazing wedding that my parents paid for.

My parents had friends wwho started saving when their daughter was born. They were not wealthy but knew they wanted to someday give her a wonderful wedding. Therefore, they started an account and put $5 in it every week. Needless to say, she had a beautiful wedding!

[wendibird22]

My parents gave us a set amount and then let us to all the planning and if we chose to go over (we didn't) we could contribute the rest. My ILs also gave us a set amount for the rehearsal and we did the same way. I anticipate doing similar for both my girls. Oh, and my mom bought my wedding dress because her mom bought hers. I will carry on that tradition.

[AnnieW625]

My parents paid for my wedding including the dress (I paid for shoes, jewelry, makeup, hair, and dress alterations), bridesmaid dresses, and flower girl dress. We have two girls and will set a budget when the time comes. If they were to elope we'd pay for a reception or give them the money. If a destination wedding was what they wanted then we'd kick in something but probably wouldn't be able to cover all costs.

[larig]

I have one child. I will pay for a rehearsal dinner, flowers and likely give money toward a honeymoon--if bride's parents don't want to pay/can't, we'd probably help a little with other things too. We will also pay for college--and some professional school (I think grad school can be self financing). I expect my parents will leave DS money for a downpayment for a house in their will--ETA: he is an only grandchild.

[twowhat?]

Not even a blip on my radar, even with twin girls. First priority is our own retirement. Second priority is college.

IF and WHEN they get married, if we have plenty to spare I will gladly help out with wedding costs. If not, they're on their own.

DH and I paid for our own smallish (100 guests) wedding. My mom paid for my custom dress ($700) and DH's mom paid for rehearsal dinner ($500).

eta: in general we plan to work hard teaching the girls that money is hard-earned. If you want money to pay for what you want in life, you need to work for it. We'll try hard to fund college but that's the only thing really in our plans. It's going to be hard enough paying for 2 colleges at once.

[sste]

Are posters that aren't planning to contribute also not planning to invite any of their friends, family, neighbors? If so I think that is fine. But usually what I have seen is that when the time comes both sets of parents want at the least their relatives and oldest friends to attend the celebration - - in which case the adult child shouldn't have to pay for those guests.

I am also of the opinion that gender of child shouldn't influence financing. In fact, I find the idea of the girl's parents paying all or nearly all of the wedding costs kind of offensive . . . I don't need to offer a dowry for DD. She is the treasure IMO (!), it is statistically unlikely that her spouse will end up supporting her financially for life, and any man and his family should be over the moon delighted with her, without compensation.

Anyway we will contribute what we can assuming that is something our adult children want.

[chays]

We are planning to pay for DDs wedding (but would be nice if ILs offered to help) and 1/2 of DSs weddings -- provided that they are within reason. BUT -- only one wedding each!

[sarahsthreads]

In fact, I find the idea of the girl's parents paying kind of offensive . . .

But we only have girls! :)

If we had a son we would certainly help out with his wedding costs as well. Or put money towards their honeymoon, or...whatever they needed.

Sarah :)

[sste]

Oh, I meant paying 100% - - as in the girl's parents paying for the entire thing, including the groom's (partner's??) family and friends. I am going to edit to clarify!

[mommylamb]

Are posters that aren't planning to contribute also not planning to invite any of their friends, family, neighbors? If so I think that is fine. But usually what I have seen is that when the time comes both sets of parents want at the least their relatives and oldest friends to attend the celebration - - in which case the adult child shouldn't have to pay for those guests.

I am also of the opinion that gender of child shouldn't influence financing. In fact, I find the idea of the girl's parents paying all or nearly all of the wedding costs kind of offensive . . . I don't need to offer a dowry for DD. She is the treasure IMO (!), it is statistically unlikely that her spouse will end up supporting her financially for life, and any man and his family should be over the moon delighted with her, without compensation.

Anyway we will contribute what we can assuming that is something our adult children want.

:yeahthat: I totally agree. As the mother of boys, I could get out easy I guess, but I just don't think the gender of the child should matter at all. We will contribute what we can, but won't feel badly about not footing the bill, and I'd feel the same way if I had daughters.

In my case, my parents did pay for my whole wedding, but it was a very inexpensive wedding. I think it might have cost $7-8K total, including my dress. DH and I had absolutely no money at the time and DH's family was never in a financial position to help with the wedding and my parents understood that. The only people from DH's side that even came to our wedding were his mother and 1 of his 3 sisters. The other 70 people at the wedding were all on my side (and a few joint friends of ours).

[daisysmom]

on the question of paying for guests... when I paid for my whole wedding, the guest list had no input from my parents (or myhusband's parents). That being said, I was 35 and my husband was 40, and we invited all of our aunts and uncles (siblings of our parents) as well as close family friends of our parents because those were people that we had stayed in touch with too, and that we wanted to celebrate this. We had 270 people there and I can say that we knew every signle person there. I didn't want to not know guests at my own wedding. My parents were very respectful of this (since they too paid for their own wedding), and it was a very fun time for them to see all of their siblings too (and all my cousins, and cousins children... extended families probably made up for 150 people at the wedding). We also hosted a bar-b-que on the Thurs. before for the wedding party and out of town family that came into town that early, much more laid back.

Now DH's family was not too respectful of our wishes... they gave DH a list of 20 couples that they wanted invited. Some we invited (as we were planning to do in any event) and some we didn't. We let our own wishes govern it. I was pretty unphased by what his parents though, except that it reaffirmed that it was a day for us and I wasn't going to let his parents dictate it.

So no, I am not planning on giving my daughter a guest list when she pays for her own wedding. She can do whatever she wants and invite whoever. But we involve her in tons of family and friend things now, so I can't imagine that she wouldn't invite longstanding family friends if she ends up having a bigger wedding.

[JoyNChrist]

I hope that we're able to. My parents didn't pay for my college, wedding, first car, or anything like that...and while they simply weren't in the position to, it would have been a lot easier for me if they could have at least helped more. So I hope DH and I can do those things for our kids (within reason...no $50K weddings or brand new BMWs). ;)

[hellokitty]

Are posters that aren't planning to contribute also not planning to invite any of their friends, family, neighbors? If so I think that is fine. But usually what I have seen is that when the time comes both sets of parents want at the least their relatives and oldest friends to attend the celebration - - in which case the adult child shouldn't have to pay for those guests.

I am also of the opinion that gender of child shouldn't influence financing. In fact, I find the idea of the girl's parents paying all or nearly all of the wedding costs kind of offensive . . . I don't need to offer a dowry for DD. She is the treasure IMO (!), it is statistically unlikely that her spouse will end up supporting her financially for life, and any man and his family should be over the moon delighted with her, without compensation.

Anyway we will contribute what we can assuming that is something our adult children want.

I agree, that the sex of the child shouldn't matter. Both sides should help if they can, unless the couple wants to pay for everything themselves. My mil really pissed me off. She is clueless about american culture, but grabbed onto the fact that since she had sons, she felt that she did not have to contribute ANYTHING to our wedding day (my parents paid for the entire thing, mil and fil reluctantly paid for the rehearsal dinner). She bragged about it, and then got pissed off when I put my parents name at the top of the invitation, demanding to know why hers was not on there. When I told her that hers was down in the middle of the invitation (and I was being nice, traditionally, you don't even have to include the groom's parents in the invitation if you don't want to), she took out my sil's wedding invitation. Showed me that even though she did not pay a cent for sil's wedding, sil put their names on top, since it was a sign of respect. I had told my mil earlier that if she wanted to order korean wedding invitations, she could do it, but she was too cheap to bother with it and frankly, she could have written whatever she wanted on korean invitations and I wouldn't have known or cared about it. She ended up telling me that d/t me not including their names at the top of the invite, her friends thought that our wedding invitation was junk mail, so they threw it out?!?! I told my DH it's not may fault her friends are too stupid to read, since his parents names ARE mentioned later on in the invitation. Then my mil threw a fit, b/c we limited both sides of parents to 30 guests and she wanted to order about 20 more. I told her it wasn't in the budget, nor could the venue fit anymore guests and she started telling me that she would pay for those extra ppl. We would not let her do it, and then she got pissed when I told her she had to call her friends, since NONE of them RSVP'd. Come to find out that my mil's list of guests were based on who, "owed" her, as in ppl she had given $ to for their weddings or their adult children's weddings. She felt that this was a way to, "get back" that $. Well, not to sound greedy, but her friends suck. Out of all of our guests we got the worst gifts from her, "friends," which just verified to me that they thought very little of her. Her, "best" friend gave us two broken picture frames shoved into a wine bottle gift bag (didn't fit correctly), w/o a card, just something scribbled on the tiny card attached to the gift bag.

I hate how ppl feel that if they paid for the wedding, they should have 100% power over the planning. I had to settle for a buffet over a sit down, since my parents were paying and insisted that ppl would, "starve to death" if we did a sit down meal. Yeah, they are crazy. It's even worse though when someone doesn't want to contribute at all, yet thinks that the affair should be catered completely to their needs and wants. I don't know it, it just gets to touchy when it comes to $. There are always strings attached, not everyone is going to agree with how things should go, esp older vs young generations. We really should have just eloped, wedding planning for me, even though I was very good at it was, UGLY, due to dysfunctional, demanding, rude, awful family members.

[HIU8]

I'm also a traditionalist. We will pay for DD's wedding with the new IL's paying for the liquor and rehearsal dinner. For DS we will pay for the liquor and rehearsal dinner. Now, if we need to, we will pay fully for both kids weddings (but we expect to pay for what is traditionally expected).

[brittone2]

I assume we'll contribute to some degree, regardless of gender (I have 2 boys, and 1 girl).

How much will depend on our financial comfort level at the time.

My parents contributed several thousand, which was not enough to pay for our entire wedding. DH and I paid for a good bit of it ourselves. We had a lovely wedding, but the sky was not the limit, iykwim. There were real limitations and a real budget, and we worked around them to have a lovely wedding. We prioritized certain things, and made certain tradeoffs. I am happy w/ the way we handled things to this day. We didn't really incur any debt, we had a beautiful wedding, we had great food.

I never expected my parents to pay for my wedding, and their contribution was IMO generous and helpful. ILs paid for the rehearsal dinner, and that was very much appreciated. Both parents had requests about people they wanted invited, but understood our limitations. I think we invited just over 100 people. I have a large family, DH does not. No one really pressured us to extend invitations to people we didn't want to include.

Yes, I plan to help, but won't commit to 100% financing any of their weddings. We'll give what we are able to give at the time they marry.

[longtallsally05]

Are posters that aren't planning to contribute also not planning to invite any of their friends, family, neighbors?

Heavens, no. The bride & groom are in charge of the guest list & invitations, as it is their event. Our parents didn't try to tell us whom to invite and we won't do that either. Heck, SIL had a wedding and didn't even invite DH (it was before my time) and my ILs never said a word to him about it. DH only found out months later when he spoke with SIL on the phone. I will say that we invited almost all of our extended family members and probably most of the friends that our parents would have liked to attend, but we never asked. If they weren't people that DH and I knew personally, or if we didn't want them there, they weren't invited, period. For example, I didn't invite my cousin who can't be bothered to send a Christmas card or say hello at family functions, nor did I let my brother bring a flavor-of-the-week girlfriend by not putting "and guest" on his invite. I didn't invite a family friend who is a notorious drunkard, and the only children we invited were those belonging to our out of state guests (my sister & SIL) because my friend's children were absolute hellions that I didn't want at the wedding. I know my sister got her kickers in a twist b/c I didn't invite our friend's children, but I am glad that I didn't. Those little boogers stayed home and nobody caused havoc @ the wedding or reception. Nobody got obnoxiously drunk and I have no strangers or people we dislike in our photos. We made the right call on whom to invite. I'm sure our children will do the same and if they don't, I'll bite my tongue.

[niccig]

Oh, I meant paying 100% - - as in the girl's parents paying for the entire thing, including the groom's (partner's??) family and friends. I am going to edit to clarify!

I think it's sexist and akin to "here's your dowry". It's also not necessary as many couples are working full-time jobs - they should pay for themselves. When we got married, both my parents were retired and DH earned more than they did. Silly to expect them to cough up money for our wedding.

That said, I think we'll offer some money, but I would expect the bride/groom to foot most of the bill.

[Ceepa]

Heavens, no. The bride & groom are in charge of the guest list & invitations, as it is their event. Our parents didn't try to tell us whom to invite and we won't do that either.

We will not insist that certain people should be invited to DC's weddings. MIL was offended because we didn't want to invite random people to our wedding that she thought would be fun to have along. She offered to pay for them but we declined. Anyway, who would want to go to a wedding when the only connection to the couple is knowing the mother of the groom?

[liamsmom]

Heavens, no. The bride & groom are in charge of the guest list & invitations, as it is their event. Our parents didn't try to tell us whom to invite and we won't do that either.

:yeahthat: That's the whole point!

FWIW, I did invite some of my parents' friends to my wedding. I have known them my entire life, most of them were present at my parents' wedding, and my parents were being invited to their kids' weddings. It seemed totally normal to invite the same people who had come to all of my family's previous parties. There was one couple that joined the group much later, when I was a teenager, and my mother requested that I invite them too if I was inviting everyone else. I didn't want my mom to be in an awkward situation, and I had no problem inviting two more people--who I had met many times.

[ahrimie]

I plan on paying for my daughters' weddings because my parents paid for mine. I had a pretty nice and big wedding too. So I hope that I will be able to afford the same generosity as my parents did for me. They also paid for college.