Weddings? Who pays????

[C-dubyah]

It's fine to contribute half but that also means that you get half the approval of what happens and is planned. They don't get to run up a $30,000 wedding and reception bill and then say "oh and by the way, here's half the bill...". If you weren't asked and approved by you then it is not your responsibility to pay for it.

[S-3 Ranch]

20 years ago, wife and I eloped, I paid for everything no problems ( her parents encouraged that)
Came home and announced it , and then both sides parents demanded a huge wedding reception , And then the problems started, both paid 1/2 of the cost , but the planning process got really expensive and out of hand , IMO unless you are royalty or old money
With social obligations, expensive wedding planning is a out dated concept!
My reception was ruined by the terrorist crashing the World Trade Center/ 9/11/01
Because “ well it was a nationwide tragedy “ and people were unable to travel to the venue

But if you are helping planning the wedding and inviting people then coughing up some money is expected

[TexaRican]

My wife tried to invest her wedding money from her dad and lost most of it. I ended up paying the bulk and my parents got the rehearsal.

Last weekend my wife mentioned something to my daughter about saving up for her wedding one day. She informed us there is no way she wants us paying for it. Thinks that's old fashioned and I might as well be giving the groom a dowry or trade her for a 3 cows and 2 goats.

[hoghunter69]

if they want to get married, it is there bill

[BrandonA]

The biggest waste of money ever. When Riley gets married I will allocate X number and that's it.

[Fordnandez]

Weddings are stupid.

I'll get my son through college debt free, and I'll pay for a PARTY when he gets married. He can figure out the rest. I won't spend 10k plus for some young lady to try to live out a fairy tale fantasy.

Well said. Typically it is the bride that runs the bill up and I am not going to be on the hook for half of something that I have no say in.

OP, on the other hand you might consider yourself lucky. My wife's parents didn't spend a dime on our wedding.

[Czechfish]

Cost me $10 and 27 minutes in Steamboat Springs Colorado at the courthouse.

[CEO]

Seems a lot of times weddings are for the bride and the parents, groom just gets pulled along. If the bride and her family are being reasonable I don't see an issue with splitting the bill. If she's trying to go nuts on a wedding for whatever reason I would say no and probably have a talk with my son about what he's in for.

[Atfulldraw]

I’m not above bribery and extortion to help my daughter make sensible choices.

Being able to pay for it has no bearing on the matter, but I’ll be ****ed if someone is going to guilt me into paying for something that I don’t want to pay for.

[Pushbutton2]

My wife and I paid for our wedding

As Always My Heart is filled with Love for you and Your Families. Not because I am commanded to Love my Neighbor but because I can, am able to and it brings me Joy.

[ctom87]

31 year old married 2 and a half years ago here.

We had no expectations do receiving anything from either side and as such planned a small wedding with 7 total attendees including ourselves. All in all it cost us about $4,000 which was easy.

If you are paying for it, then you should be the one calling the shots as to who caters, what decorations, etc. It blows my mind the average wedding is $35,000. That much money for one night of bs.

And remember, the only reason anyone goes to a wedding outside of immediate family is for free food and alcohol on your expense.

[hooligan]

When my wife and I got married (5 years ago on the 11th). My FIL sat my wife and I down and said you can either have a check for $10k to go towards a house payment or you can have it for your wedding. Anything over that we paid for ourselves. My parents paid for the rehearsal dinner and offered to cover additional costs or the honeymoon. We kept it simple, around 100 people in the stock yards, was a great party

It made it easy that we had open conversations about budgets with everyone who was involved with lying and hard stop dollar amounts. If something was going to push us over we just looked back at what we were spending and either didn’t do that or cut something else out

[CEO]

The biggest waste of money ever. When Riley gets married I will allocate X number and that's it.

When my buddy got married his future FIL sat them down beforehand and said he had $10k he would give them. They can spend it on a wedding, reception, honeymoon, etc. He said he didn't care how it was allocated but that's what was available. Always thought that was a good way to do it.

[droebuck]

JP with both sets of parents there. Use the money that would have been spent on the wedding for a down payment on a house to live in.

This is what we did and my wife regrets not getting married in the church still to this day. It was what was best for us at the time financially but I will have to give her the church wedding she always wanted one of these days. I think we may renew our vows in our church on our 20th anniversary so she can have the wedding she's always wanted. Heck we may even go on an actual honeymoon this time too since I will be paying for the whole thing. Last time I went to work at 6am the next morning.

[sotx]

Just split it and move on, don't be a hate ***** with the new family. Suck it up and move on.