Did you help with your child's wedding? How much did you spend?

[hereyago]

I paid for my ceremony. It wasn't on my parents to pay for my dreams and wishes.

My dd knows that I am not financing her wedding.

 

[2China2009]

My girls are still young. My plan is to help them through college. I have very little saved for college let alone weddings. We are a small family with a few friends. The girls do not have a lot fo friends. I assume they will both be small. I would rather see them in their own house etc and getting off to a good start in their young lives after graduating college. Time will tell, but spending $20-30,000 wedding is insane. But I am very frugal so we would do as much as we could own our own. My neighbor got married last April. They got married at their home church and right after the wedding had a cake and punch reception. It was very nice and people could leave when they were done. It cost them nearly nothing and they had a very memorable day. I think it was such a great idea. I Think a mid day wedding with a light lunch would be perfect. Esp if they did not want a dance etc.

 

[OhMari]

4 adult kids and our last is getting married in June. The other 3 were this past year.

I just want to say the tradition of the brides family paying for the wedding is so old and out dated and that tradition needs to be broken. It is so wrong for the grooms parents and family not to pay anything is wrong. This is your sons wedding too, not a free loading weekend.

We have 2 girls and 2 boys. After our first dd got married and we were told by the grooms parents that the wedding was our responsibility and then they went and booked a $7000 venue. We smartened up very fast.

With the next 3 we did a family meeting and discussed expectations with both sides of the families.

 

[loves to dive]

My son got married in Columbus Georgia. We paid for the rehearsal dinner and that was all. Her parents paid for the wedding itself, it was held in their church and her parents paid for the reception in a local convention center type place. She paid for her own dress. They had a buffet and DJ.

 

[luvsJack]

4 adult kids and our last is getting married in June. The other 3 were this past year.

I just want to say the tradition of the brides family paying for the wedding is so old and out dated and that tradition needs to be broken. It is so wrong for the grooms parents and family not to pay anything is wrong. This is your sons wedding too, not a free loading weekend.

We have 2 girls and 2 boys. After our first dd got married and we were told by the grooms parents that the wedding was our responsibility and then they went and booked a $7000 venue. We smartened up very fast.

With the next 3 we did a family meeting and discussed expectations with both sides of the families.

The grooms parents booked a venue they were not paying for?

The groom’s family, by tradition, doesn’t really get away with zero things to pay for. They do the rehearsal dinner, flowers or at least the bride’s bouquet, and the alcohol at the reception. This varies of course. Dd’s bf’s mom plans to host an engagement party about 6 months out so we will do the alcohol in exchange.

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

My wedding was on a budget since my husband I were planning on paying for most of it. My mom payed for my dress ($200) and hair and makeup the day of the wedding ($400 for her, my daughter and myself) and my dad payed for the food (my friend's husband cooked it so it was just the cost of the ingredients which i don't now the end cost of). Probably everything together cost them less than $1000. I'm pretty sure everything (including engagement ring and wedding bands) came to around $4000. We are in the Northwest.

 

[MamaLema]

Our 3 kids will get a cash wedding gift but nothing in the amounts being mentioned in this thread.

We are paying for college for 3 kids. Weddings are their responsibility.

 

[tcufrog]

My husband and I had two weddings in 2002, Indian and American, for cultural reasons. My mil was too busy trying to break us up to help pay for either. Despite that she had plenty of opinions regarding how the Indian wedding should be done. My parents gave us $10,000 and we saved up $10,000 over two years to spend on the weddings and Washington DC honeymoon. We've been married ever since and consider it money well spent.

 

[quandrea]

My parents paid $12000 for our wedding. His parents paid $2000. Our wedding cost $14000 so that covered it. 17 years ago.

 

[Calee]

11 years ago my parents gave me a $10,000 total budget. I spent the greatest percentage on the photographer and i am thankful for great pictures. I did not spend my full budget amount and my parents (unexpectedly) gifted us the remainder. My husbands parents did not contribute to the wedding or the honeymoon (I've heard of some grooms parents financing the entire honeymoon!)

 

[BigAlsGal]

Weddings......

The only positives I can say is it creates jobs and keeps the economy rolling.

72 BILLION $$ a year spent on weddings. If half of all marriages end in divorce it’s safe to say 36 billion a year is flushed down the toilet.

 

[jerseygal]

A friend spent over $150,000 on his daughters wedding. They were separated with in two months. Such a waste of money. It was mostly his wife that got carried away with it all. For some reason many women lose all sense of reason when it comes to weddings.

$150K, WOW!? Seems VERY VERY EXTRAVAGANT! I would say that in this case his wife got "a little carried away", LOL!!!

 

[leebee]

Both of my sisters and I married within an 8 month time span (youngest in October, middle in May, and I in June) and my mother paid for none of it. We all knew that she couldn't afford it so never planned on anything from her, which is fine. What WASN'T fine was how the entire time I was engaged and planning my wedding, all I heard about was how this was a colossal waste of money, why didn't we just elope to Vegas, etc. It was SO hurtful. As you can imagine, with each of us paying for our weddings, they weren't extravagant affairs, but all 3 were nice ceremonies with reception-hall receptions featuring full dinner and dancing (OK, cash bars... don't start!). All I wanted was for my mom to be happy for us, and instead she criticized everything any of us did or spent. PLEASE... if you think spending money on a wedding is foolish, that's fine, but PLEASE don't keep reminding your daughter/son of this. I have been married 25 years and I still remember how sad and ridiculous my mom made me feel for wanting to celebrate our marriage with a nice reception for our friends.

For the record, DH and I paid about $6000 for our wedding, which was the budget we set. We lived in San Francisco but got married near my childhood home in Maine. I was miserly in my spending, and now wish I'd spent a few more dollars for a lot less stress. We used our frequent flyer miles for our plane tickets, a friend did the photography as our wedding present, my sister/BIL gave us the wedding cake (he worked in a bakery at the time). Other than that, our money covered invitations/programs, rings (ordered wholesale through my sister's shop), my dress (I made it), bridesmaids dresses (once again wholesale via my sister's shop), flowers (killer deal on roses from a local grower, they made the bouquets but we made all corsages, boutonnieres, and centerpieces), pastor gratuity, reception venue with buffet, DJ, two week rental car, renting of 5 cottages for 4 nights for DH's family (told them if they could get from the midwest to Maine, we'd put them up), rehearsal dinner (lobster/chicken bake, 30% discount because a neighbor owned the place), and a long weekend in Bar Harbor for a honeymoon. I think we did OK!

DD is starting to look at things. Prices are OK to scary, but she's pretty adamant about not spending a stupid amount of money. She thinks they want an outdoor ceremony (or something scenic) and a BBQ, with dancing. We'll see. She also doesn't want us to pay, but of course we will pay for a lot of it, because we want to. I also want to invite some people, and feel if I'm making requests for specific guests that she might not otherwise include, the least I can do is pay for them. DH wants to tell her "the sky's the limit, we'll pay for it all" but of course that's not realistic, and not what they want. I will say... a friend ordered her flowers from Sam's and they were lovely, so I'm thinking of going that route for the flowers. Knowing DD, my guess is they'll spend under $10K and we'll pay for about half of it.

 

[disykat]

We just helped our kids get through college debt free. We plan on giving each $5000 for a wedding gift to use as they please. It would certainly help, but won't' be paying for a fancy wedding. We can't' even imagine forking out big bucks for a wedding after the money spent on college. If they want that, their college education should help them get a career that can fund that. Being debt free should help them with that - the gift that keeps on giving!

 

[Patience]

OP here. Thank you for the different perspectives and for the comments!

My daughter is planning an outdoor wedding (weather permitting) at a lovely farm venue with facilities for an indoor reception. We live in a fairly low cost of living area in the southeast; however, we did find that wedding venues were quite pricey. For reference, the least expensive venue we looked at was $3900 for a Saturday wedding. The venue she and her fiance booked was $4900. It is very nice and exactly what they wanted but all of the wedding venues were higher than what I expected. They do get to book their own vendors and we have a caterer friend who is giving them a discount on food and the DJ is a friend of the family so there was a small discount there as well. The venue also allows us to bring our own alcohol as long as we hire a certified bartender to serve it so that's a big savings. The bartender is included with the catering.

Anyway, my daughter and her fiance are having a cocktail hour, a buffet dinner, and dancing. My husband and I decided our budget/contribution is $15,000. For what it's worth, we paid for our daughter's undergraduate education completely but not for grad school. She graduates in May with a masters in speech language pathology but she and her fiance are just getting started so we don't really mind helping with the wedding and we can afford a reasonably priced wedding. We are planning for a guest list of 125-150 people.

 

[Marchand63]

I paid for my ceremony. It wasn't on my parents to pay for my dreams and wishes.

My dd knows that I am not financing her wedding.

Our 3 kids will get a cash wedding gift but nothing in the amounts being mentioned in this thread.

We are paying for college for 3 kids. Weddings are their responsibility.

We paid for the wedding because my DS got a full ride for private college and saved us way more than the 10K we spent.

 

[dosekies]

My parents have offered to pay for the food for my wedding. They know we will just be having a small service at the court house and then renting out a banquet room at a local restaurant. Knowing my mom, I'm sure they would pitch in for the dress too which will definitely not be expensive. Since many people have mentioned school too as an either/or, they put a little money towards my loans each month to try and help, but my loans are my responsibility. I know my parents' don't have a lot of extra money laying around so I wouldn't expect them to pay a lot for a huge wedding.

 

[tvguy]

I guess it all boils down to your view of what a parent does.
DW and I agreed before we had kids that we would pay for their college, a car, and their weddings. Now, certainly there are/were financial limits, like a $10,000 car not a $50,000 Corvette.
To DW and I, that is just something parents do.
While we hope never to be a financial burden on our kids, but the reality is, when we get older, we made need some of their time and help. Just what families do. Parents take care of kids, and then at some point, kids take care of parents.

 

[sk!mom]

This thread popping up is interesting to me as DH and I have recently been discussing changes in our budget with DD21 graduating college in May. She will have no debt as we paid for everything not covered by her scholarships.

One of our budget considerations will be a future wedding and what we might contribute. We are thinking probably 10-20K depending on what the groom's family might contribute.

 

[mamamary]

My parents paid for just about all of my NY wedding back in the day - in laws didn't contribute. It was expensive. At the time it was just how weddings were done (at least in my family/circle of friends). If I felt how I feel now back then I would do something different - what I don't know. Right now we're paying for both kids to get thru college and I can't even imagine how much money I'll have towards a wedding when the time comes. A few years ago I remember showing my daughter Disney weddings - hope she forgot about that!!