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Like many of you, I was ready to start planning my wedding before I even got engaged…And when I got engaged, I was doubly ready for the job! I started off on the most commonly known websites, such as the Knot, and reading magazines like Brides and Get Married, and I started thinking about everything from table linens to playlists.
The first few weeks, I took the Knot’s checklist so seriously to the point that I printed it out and checked it pretty much every day. (Hmm, what can I click “done” for now?!!) And one of the bullets that remained on the checklist for a long (very long) time was “Budget: Figure Out Who Pays For What.”
I know this is kind of a touchy subject and, like Miss Sloth mentioned, it’s not necessarily polite to talk about money, but this was a big deal and has remained a big deal for Mr. B and me since day one. We didn’t have any idea how we were going to pay for our wedding or who would help us make it happen.
We both sort of assumed our parents would chip in, but we didn’t know to what extent. And neither of us, especially me, was prepared to ask the right questions to get answers. Deep down I really, really—I mean, really—hoped my dad would be one of those dads that say, “Money’s no object. Just get what you want and foot me the bill.” But a part of me knew it wouldn’t go down like that.
For a while, I sat on the “budget” issue and prayed my dad would come to me. I really wanted our experience to play out like the scenes in Father of the Bride, when the mom and daughter hire a planner and the whole family takes part in the planning. That’s not quite how it happened, though.
It took my parents a while to warm up to the idea of me getting married anyway, and when I say a while, I mean months. We talked about the date of the wedding for a long time before we even got to the budget part. This made planning really difficult, too, not knowing a date and how much we had to spend. But I stuck it out and vented to the hive, and yes, I lived—even on days when I wasn’t sure I would (live without a wedding date and budget, that is).
Finally, a few weeks (I think it was) after we finally settled on a date, I got up the courage to ask my dad the big question: Are you going to help? How much can you contribute?
Meanwhile…
I’m puking (not literally), praying, on the verge of tears, anxious, and scared. Feeling everything. This was the moment of truth.
My dad: “We’re definitely going to help. We’re planning to.”
*Crickets*
Fast forward a few weeks, and I’m ranting to everyone from coworkers to friends about how I can’t plan a wedding without a budget—hello! So I really didn’t have much of choice. I had to ask the question again: “Dad, we’re getting to a point where we need to know much we have overall. Do you have any ideas how much you can contribute?”
My dad: “Well, I’m not really sure. We’ll look into it.”
Ugh! Seriously.
It was a really trying time, to be honest. It was kind of dark time, too. I cried a lot. Especially when we watched shows like Platinum Weddings. “Bu-bu-but, why can’t we have a wedding like that?”
I also grew kind of resentful, since I’d always kind of assumed my dad would pay the bulk. He and my stepmom had a very large and traditional wedding just a little over 10 years ago, and that made me wonder what the heck was going through their minds.
I’m sharing this in hopes that someone out there, anyone, has experienced something similiar. I want to tell you that my dad finally did give us a number, although vaguely. We decided to choose one aspect of our wedding that would cost approximately the amount he was willing to give and let him own that.
I know I might sound like a spoiled brat to some of you that aren’t getting any financial support from your parents, and I hope you don’t think I’m insensitive to your situation. I just wanted to share about some of the more challenging aspects of the planning, especially in the early stages, when we brides are so excited and yet so fragile.
How did you handle figuring out who pays for what?
Yep, we ran into the same problem with our parents. If they would just give me a budget, then I would have something to work with, but “we want to help, but don’t know how much” does NOT help me.
I’m not going to approach my parents about it at all. I know my mom can’t financially contribute, though I know she’ll be a big help planning (she has great taste), and I’m not sure if my dad is planning on contributing anything. I figure I’ll go ahead and plan the wedding on what WE can afford to pay for. If my dad offers some money or to cover an expense, that’ll be great and one less thing I’ll have to worry about paying for! If not, I’ll just pay for it as planned and no harm no foul.
Luckily, my parents did this 2 years ago with my sister, so they gave me her budget plus inflation. Otherwise, yes, I can see how this would be super stressful!
I was in the same boat, knowing my parents would want to contribute, but not knowing how much. So here’s how my fiance and I started planning: we made plans based on what *we* as a couple could afford. Then, the next time my parents asked, we told them our plans and budget. They then offered a dollar amount to contribute, and we could adjust our plans as necessary. You can always scale up your plans and add more bells and whistles, but scaling back is awfully hard.
I always assumed, since we are 25 and have jobs that we’d pay the whole thing ourselves, so we never asked our parents about money. At some point a month or two in my mom did offer us a set amount to put towards the wedding, and my FI’s mom offered us a small monetary gift to help out as well. But since I’d assumed we were paying the whole thing ourselves it was just a nice bonus to get help and not really that stressful.
Well my honey and I both agreed that we wouldnt ask anyone for help as far as money goes.We were going to save what we could and do it ourselves! Of-course we planned on a small wedding. But once everyone started seeing that we werent asking they starting offering! Which was perfect! I guess we didnt want people (family) to think we depended on them. We still are paying for the majority of the wedding but some family members have helped with a thing or two. My adivce to u would be to just talk about expenses with ur family. Let them know how much things are costing and maybe they’ll reachout to u with help. Good luck
I agree with some of the other ladies who suggested planning a budget based on what you and your fiancee on your own can afford and then putting any gift from your parents towards that. That way it doesn’t put any financial strain or expectations on anyone. We did that and it worked out great - we used a large wedding gift check from my parents (since they didnt contribute to the wedding) to go into savings for future needs (home, baby, travel). Sure, you might not get to spend as much as you want, but not having a financial strain gives me peace of mind.
This is exactly the point that I’m at right now in planning. I’m trying to get a number from both sides since they are dead set on inviting certain people that we barely know. My FI’s mom wants the final number to be 300-350! So once I get her number, I’m going to have to ask about them contributing because that is way too many people for FI and I to afford. I knew it would be hard but not this hard! Thanks for writing this!
We went through something very similar. We figured that, since we’re in our thirties, we’d be paying for the bulk of the wedding ourselves. We didn’t ask our parents for monetary help, but his parents and my mother both offered to chip in a bit.
My mother told me right away the amount she could afford to contribute, but Mr. S’s parents took months and months to give us a figure.
It was a stressful and uncomfortable time. Finally, we had to say, “Look, we appreciate anything you can give, and we are grateful for your generosity, but we NEED to know how much money you plan on giving us because we need to know how much we’re going to be responsible for ourselves.”
We felt really uncomfortable about saying it. But at least we finally got an answer.
My mom is a single parent with not much money, but I knew she wanted to contribute. I asked her to pay the photographer’s fee and a few odds and ends like some of the beverages for the reception. My fiance and I picked up the tab for everything else. His parents didn’t offer and we didn’t ask.
We did everything budget conscious anyway. It wasn’t like, “Well if we’re paying we’ll do this venue, this cake, etc.. but if someone else is paying we’ll use this venue, get this cake, etc, instead.” We did the wedding we wanted to do to begin with and if someone else wanted to contribute - fabulous.
I am in the exact same predictament. My parents keep saying that they plan on contributing but they can never give me even an estimated amount. So the FH and I put together a budget based on what we can afford and whatever my parents end up giving will just be extra.
I think the BEST way to start with a budget is to figure out what you and your FI can afford, base venue & guest list off of that.
Then if parents decide they want to contribute you’ll just have more to play with. If they decide to add 100 people to the guest list or demand that you have an open bar then you have a good argument for asking them to contribute. That way one family doesn’t get overextended because the other keeps adding to the wedding.
I think it’s best to start with what you can afford in order to maintain control of your wedding. There tend to be strings attached to money…even from your parents.
Pretty much in the same boat… I kept hoping my dad would come to me.. Finally I went to him…and he asked how much I thought it would be total (ummm NO idea).. So he said I planned to give you xxxxx but I can prob get some more together… I’m still at a loss for what our budget is. Funny b/c then my mom (they’re still married) is like I’ll help w/ whatever I can on the side too… We are 8 months out and I am flying by the seat of my pants while planning.. Using coupons and saving where I can and knowing that whatever my dad/mom don’t cover we will pay for. (I started doing some side work so that I can have a little extra breathing room w/o going into debt)… So crazy!
Ah the money talk. I just had this with my parents and it was oh so fun. (not)
As I’m in my 30’s as well, I assumed that I would be paying for the bulk of the wedding myself with some parental assistance. However, my parents had different ideas. As in, it was insulting to even think that I would consider using my own money since this was their ‘gift’ to me. It ended up being a huge blow up. The Mr. and I are pretty low key people, but as it’s really important to them, we are trying to accept their gift with grace. We both understand how lucky we are to have parents on both sides who are willing to contribute, it’s a wonderful blessing I know.
And yet the fights continue. My dad is planning on retiring next year and yet he and my mom are still planning on throwing a huge expensive wedding. And while I appreciate that this is something they want to do (and the Mr.’s parents are helping out as well) I REFUSE to have my parents put themselves into debt when they are going into retirement. I don’t care if it makes my hair turn grey, I’m going to fight them on spending more than I know they can afford. So my situation is reversed where I am keeping a tight rein on the budget and slashing things I don’t need, where my folks want to get the expensive details that I haven’t thought of. (On a funny note, my dad started watching TLC and WE just so he could ‘know what the heck to talk about’)
Thank you for being gutsy to talk about this because it is such a hard thing to write about! I think you handled it very well!
I never was brave enough to ask my dad - not sure if that was good or bad. Luckily, FMIL and my mom quickly gave me a number they wanted to contribute. I just budgeting accordingly. My dad just this past weekend approached me with a number he would like to contribute, and we are about 7 months from our wedding day. I mean it’s a nice windfall, but I definitely was doing all of my planning and budgeting without it. So, I don’t know what I would recommend for others because I don’t think my way was ideal, but my dad is very awkward to discuss $ with that I wasn’t brave enough to ask.
I was lucky that my parents told me a few days after we got engaged “We can contribute X amount of dollars.” It took a lot of the guesswork out of it.
However, it has kind of morphed into “We’ll pay for x, y, and z” now, where we try to keep the elements they’re paying for around their budget. It will end up being more than the initial $X they offered, but they’re okay with that.
Mr. Taco Night and I are planning on paying for the rest, and his family will probably give a small monetary gift. I actually struggle a little bit with resentment toward the HIS family, because they are hardly kicking in any money (which is fine) BUT they want to have input. Like adding people to the guest list kind of input. Sorry, if you aren’t paying, you aren’t adding 
We’re going to be paying for almost all of the wedding our self. My aunt is going to help me pay for the food but otherwise, we haven’t asked or be given an amount offered by anyone.
Our wedding is in 5 1/2 months and I feel like we’re STILL in that boat, in a way! My FI, mom and I had a talk about budget early on and my mom made a very generous offer that would cover a big chunk of our budget. We figured we could save enough in the time until the wedding to cover the rest, but were still hoping for some sort of offer from my FI’s dad. That offer, so far, has never come. For a while, I kept encouraging my FI to call his dad and ask outright if we could expect support but he refused. (They have a very awkward relationship around asking for help/money. Especially since his dad’s retirement was all but wiped out when his previous company filed bankruptcy.) His best guess is that we either will get no support, or his dad will swoop in and write a check at the end after we’ve been as frugal as possible. (Greeeat. So we get to stress out and he gets to feel good that we didn’t waste money. Nice.) I’m still hopeful we’ll get something, but we’ve learned just to not count on it and plan for not having it, at this point. It is still frustrating to know that it’s possible that we could have more money coming our way we don’t know about yet. Especially when we’ve cut some really precious things out of our wedding budget that we would’ve really liked. (Honeymoon, photobooth, videographer, etc.)
You do sound like a spoiled brat. Just focus on how much you and your FI can afford to pay, and base your budget off of that figure. Many many people don’t have a father who can just pay for their wedding.
I have gone through something similar. Our parents have been great, and both sets offered us a set amount of money early on, which we then used to help plan our overall budget (please note that we are paying for the majority of the wedding ourselves). We have been engaged for 23 months. My parents gave us money each month towards their total, without fail. His parents have yet to give us any money, and the wedding is now less than two weeks away.
It’s hard for me not to feel upset by this, because the amount they promised to contribute was included as part of our budget, that we now don’t have. We have approached them about it a few times over the course of our engagement, always saying that if they could not contribute it would not be a problem, but that we just needed to know. Each time, we were assured they would contribute and again told the amount we would receive. And yet…here we are.
Also, my mother-in-law always told me that the reason she never got on well with her own in-laws was because they left her and my FIL high and dry on their wedding day for the bar bill, which her in-laws had agreed to pay ahead of time. And yet now, they’re doing the same thing to us.
I love my in-laws–truly, I do, and we get along very well–and I know that any contribution they offered us is a blessing…but when we haven’t received what we were expecting and it was included as part of our budget, it really left us in a lurch. We’ve adjusted for it and we’ll be fine without their contribution, but I am still bothered by it, especially when, during the course of our engagement, they wanted to make demands about the guest list and other things but they have not contributed anything.
Sorry for the long comment, but I thought you should just know you’re not alone. Money can be a difficult topic to broach, especially with parents!
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Mrs. Brooch, Arlington, VA Age and Occupation: 25, Writer/Editor Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Front Desk Manager Engagement Date: October 3, 2009 Wedding Date: April 2011 Venue: Oxon Hill Manor About Me: I’m an indecisive girlie-girl with a motor mouth, can-do attitude, and knack for making others laugh. I dream of becoming a best selling novelist like Elizabeth Gilbert or Julie Powell (a girl can dream, right?), and love long road trips, a beautiful countryside, music, blogs, books, and all things vintage/thrift/antique/or homemade. I’m a Virgo, i.e. overly sensitive, emotional, and critical, and there’s no such thing as short and sweet in my world. I want to say and do it all. Mr. Brooch grounds me. I point where to go and he figures out the way. He’s a pragmatic fancy-pants who enjoys video games and movies. We both adore our mutt, Rocky, and spending time with our amazingly supportive family and friends. We’re planning a garden wedding with a formal reception with lots of whimsy and unique, Southern-inspired details.
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