How to ask in-law to contribute?

Honestly it would come across extremely rude to ask her for money if she hasn't mentioned a budget or brought it up since your original conversation. I would plan on covering the cost yourselves.

If she already offered to cover the cost of the wedding coordinator, I don't think it would be in poor taste to follow up with her on it. However, I would leave it up to my fiance to broach the subject. Typically when it comes to money, "blood handles blood". Just have him shoot her a text or a quick phone call if he's really busy.

Your fiancé should handle their mom. Also it's not polite to ask for money so your instinct was correct. Just as FYI, no-one is obligated to cover any costs of the wedding, hopefully you weren't assuming she was going to contribute.

View Quoted Comment I might not have worded my question correctly or given enough background information. We had a one on one get together to talk about wedding details. She was actually the one who wanted to meet and talk about this. She offered to pay different services, one of them being the wedding coordinator. She has expressed a couple of times how she would want to cover it and how much I would need it. It’s more so how I would follow up on her offer while working with her budget? Of course, we would be glad to cover the cost ourselves, but we wouldn't mind the help if it was offered. Thank you for your feedback though, I definitely do not want to make her feel uncomfortable or that she’s obligated to help.

View Quoted Comment

So my mil covered our rehearsal dinner and it kind of just came up naturally when we were discussing wedding planning. If I recall correctly, she asked about how planning was going and I mentioned that we started to look at rehearsal dinner locations (at that point it had been months since she said anything to us about it) and we were under the impression maybe she changed her mind and I thought it was rude to just come out and ask her so when she asked how planning was going and it was one of the last things we had yet to decide I was just honest with her that we had planned on touring some restaurants to see what we liked best since I wasn't overly familiar with the area as we got married four hours from where we lived. She then mentioned again paying for it, but never gave us a budget. Because I wasn't sure of her budget I looked at restaurants that were very budget friendly. She ended up helping me narrow down the list of options and her and I picked the menu together. The pricing was listed on the menus we received from the different restaurants so she knew when helping me pick what the estimated costs would be. Is there a way to naturally bring it up without just being like "hey remember you said you were going to pay for x do you still plan on doing that and if so what's your budget?" I think if it comes up naturally then it wouldn't come across as rude. I will also add my fil and his wife didn't pay a cent towards our wedding. He never volunteered and we never asked.

Does she have one in mind if not I d research a few and meet up with her for lunch and casually say you were looking at coordinators and these are the ones you found and their rates. Then you can say something like I know you mentioned you wanted to cover the coordinator let us know if it's too much or want us to split the cost. Bring some other wedding fun details to show her to too, make it very casual and fun. Happy planning!

Maybe make it a fun girls day? You can just reach out and state that you know she had expressed interest in wanting to cover the cost for the coordinator, and you would love to get together (your treat) for coffee, lunch, etc. to look at different options so she can help you choose the perfect coordinator. this makes it a fun, pressure-free process, makes her feel included, and ensures that someone within her budget is chosen.

I wouldn't directly ask her about contributing money towards the wedding, but maybe bring up the topic in a slightly different way? If you get into a conversation about wedding planning with her, you could mention that you've started looking into finding a wedding coordinator, and are trying to decide between a few options. If she is still planning to cover the cost of that service, she would probably let you know in that conversation, and then you can discuss her budget from there. If she doesn't say anything about contributing at that time, then I would assume that she isn't planning to pay for the coordinator.