Opinions on parents paying for wedding?

Hey! Me and my fiancé are getting married August 9, 2020, are 23 and bought a house a year ago. My parents and his parents are splitting everything 50/50. I am of course helping out with more of the smaller things, which will still be about 3-7 thousand. I have friends who are getting married as well and their parents are paying for their wedding as well. I do not believe there is a normal or abnormal, its whatever your parents feel comfortable with.

Before we even spent any money, we were going to have a beach wedding and my parents were going to pay to rent the house we were having the wedding and reception at. We changed our plans and decided to have it local at an all inclusive venue. My parents are paying for half of our wedding as the venue we chose does a payment plan so we pay the other half. My fiances parents are giving us a little money to help as well. I think its all up to the couple and their parents. I don't think anything is wrong with it as it all depends.

It’s okay to accept money if parents offer, for sure. But it’s not okay to be asking for money, from anyone really. To me, that’s the distinction.

We haven't told our parents that we are engaged yet. (We have been for a few months but we wanted to hash some things out before hand so that no one could start trying to take over).. Anyhow, in our conversation, we have both agreed that we know our parents will try to help but since they aren't well off and are on a strict budget, we decided not to count on that money and try to pay for it ourselves. We limited our guestlist, looked at a ton of different venues/menus, etc all to try to keep it within what we could afford. While I don't think it was right how it was phrased, I would suggest planning without the money from him and if he comes through then it will make life a whole lot easier.

My fiance's parents paid out about 45k for his sister's wedding a few years ago. We asked for a couple thousand to help, but they said it's the bride's family who pays. But my parents can't help, so we are doing a small wedding paid for by ourselves. Just picked up a couple of odds and ends jobs to get it paid for.

Luckily my FH dad is giving us money, my mom is also giving an amount, throwing my bridal shower and also bought my dress.
My fh mom is throwing me another bridal shower and said she wants to also give us money as well. We are very lucky-but i do understand that alot of parents may not offer money anymore

My parents are paying for the whole reception, including flowers (because I didn't want real flowers, but my mom nearly had a heart attack thinking about fake ones and offered to pay whatever it took to get real ones). His parents are paying for the rehearsal dinner. Everything else, I am paying the majority for - I bought my dress, paid for my alterations already, paid for the Save The Dates, photographer, going to pay for the invitations, and he's paying for the DJ (since it's his friend). We are 33 and 40 years old, and we have not been married before. Honestly, it's whatever is most comfortable for you and your parents - there is no right or wrong. EDITED TO ADD: I understand that it's not like that for every family. I am just lucky enough to have parents that are totally willing to contribute whatever is needed, even though we are both fully functioning adults with full time jobs.

I think these situations vary so much family to family. Everyone’s financial situations are different and just because one couple could pay for their own wedding 100% themselves, doesn’t mean it’s wrong for another couple to get help from their family. I don’t think it’s wrong for parents to help pay for the wedding if they can, but I also agree that you need go into wedding planning expecting to pay for it yourself (which you obviously did). My fiancé and I are grateful to have good jobs that have allowed us to save for our dream wedding and we’re able to pay for it all ourselves. But both of my parents are real big helpers and want to contribute something financially so they’re going to help with my dress and the rest of what we owe our photographer. My FH parents made it very clear (on the day we got engaged) they will not help us pay for anything for our wedding because they believe the brides family is responsible. Which is fine, we didn’t expect money, but they were extremely rude about it. I just brushed it off and moved forward. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Most couples do pay for their own weddings these days. Some people have parents that help out but it shouldn't be anything that is expected. If they willing offer to help that's great if they are being generous. Also when parents help pay alot of the respect to have a say in the planning and they typically want to invite guest of their own. Hopefully, you dont have that problem and the money comes with no strings attached.

View Quoted Comment That’s what my dad did, and honestly it makes it easier to budget and spend. Instead of thinking who is paying for what, I have a debit card with my wedding money on it, and I swipe when I need to. If the card runs out, then the rest is on me. I tried to convince my FH to elope, so we could invest the money or whatever. But he wanted a wedding. So I’m having a big wedding!!!

My mom and dad paid for my brother's wedding. Since my mom has since passed and dad remarried to a woman who hates me, my FH and I are paying for our wedding ourselves.

My parent are paying for the whole wedding, but they offered. I wouldn't ask anyone for money for the wedding. They are in a financial position to give me and my FH this wonderful gift of a wedding. That is how I look at is, it is a gift. You would never ask for a gift.

On the other side, my FMIL is not in a position to pay for the rehearsal dinner and we did not ask her to. If she offers great, if not me and my FH will pay for it. As of now, we are paying for the rehearsal dinner.

My parents are paying 100%. I’m not very into weddings but when we told them about the engagement, they insisted we have one. If they weren’t paying I would just opt for something at the courthouse and call it a day. But that’s me.

I didn’t expect my parents to help me with my wedding but they offered to help out. Which I think they thought would almost cover all the cost but only will be covering about half ( because weddings are crazy expensive !!)
I originally was planning a destination wedding or just having a very small intimate wedding (50ish ppl) rather then the 150 wedding we are now having.

I think it’s more common for couples to pay for their own weddings now a days. And it is nice since you can’t make our own decisions if you do.
I think a lot of couples who pay them self’s are opting for much smaller or DIY weddings to help with the cost.
Even with my parents help I am still stressed about the amount of money we are going to spend on 1 day!
I think you need to prioritize what’s important to you and try to put together a budget . For example I’m going cheap on invitations, flowers, dessert , decorations and favors but spending most of my money on venue, food and alcohol.
Hopefully with your mom and fiancé’s family helping , your able to cover the remaining cost. If not there’s always credit cards, but make sure you have a plan to pay them off. Or you could revise your guest list to keep costs lower.

My parents are basically paying for like 30-40% and I have a feeling fiance's mom will contribute like 10-15%? I think it's nice for parents to help if they have money but I don't think it should be "required". If parents weren't helping, we'd have a much smaller wedding within our budget which I think I'd be happy with... ugh just remember if they're helping pay they have more say in your wedding which is starting to give me a headache. Anyway, I didn't ask... I just let them come to me and let me know if they'd like to contribute.

My Fiance and I are paying for the wedding ourselves. However, my dad bought my dress, and my mom as well as my future mother in law have been buying things here and there for decorations and other little items. It does save us a little money but we have not asked anyone to help in terms of the bigger costs. I think it depends on the family and the decisions made together. I think the way your dad is reacting to it is a little rude. To go back on what was originally said he may have remorse. Maybe he is testing you and your fiance and the wedding. Or maybe he is acting out like that because he is losing his daughter to another man. I hope things go well for you.

We paid for everything ourselves. I would have never asked or expected anyone to help us pay for anything.

We went into it expecting to pay for most everything, but our parents have offered to contribute. We're accepting whatever they generously give, but paying for everything else on our own!

When we started planning our wedding we just assumed that we would be paying for the whole thing. Since then my parents have generously offered to help on a couple of things, but it was never assumed that anyone would be helping us pay for our wedding. We actually prefer that we are paying for most of it ourselves as we get to have the control when making decisions this way.

I get that if your dad had implied that he wanted to help pay for your wedding before you got engaged that there was an expectation there and that you would be disappointed about this, but at the same time in no way is he obligated to finance your wedding.

I would definitely say it’s less common for parents to pay for the entire wedding, mostly because the cost of weddings have gone up drastically. I don’t think it hurts to casually ask if they will be contributing so you can plan accordingly, but don’t be hurt if they say no. We got lucky and both sets of parents contributed, but we’re still paying for more than half of the wedding