Parents Upset with Date

If you can, stick with your date and pay for it yourselves. That way no one else feels like they deserve a say in how you do things.

If it's what you want to do then you should do it. If money is an issue then you may have to figure out a way to fund your own wedding. Although if they try and put their input in on the wedding you are planning and paying for they have no right on an input.

Agreed. Did they say why they have that stipulation? If they pau they have a say
If you both are ok w paying for yourselves then do it wjen you want.

I'm just speculating here, but your parents may be concerned that you won't finish school if you run off and get married now. I don't know you, but the people I do know in grad school are so determined to finish, as their education directly relates to their career choice. But parents are funny that way.

Maybe if you and FH talked to them about your plans for the future, they may see that they have nothing to worry about. You might be able to sway their thinking, if they feel like you are on the right track.

If your parents have strings attached to their help with the wedding I would personally ally have a wedding I could pay for myself. I wouldn’t want to do things their way.....they had their day. If you can afford it then do what you and your FH want to do.

Oh my that is so silly. I have my internship left in grad school and my parents have zero problems paying for my wedding (well venue and all that comes with it + dress,veil,shoes) and I straight up told them idk when I’ll do my internship (not because of the wedding, kind of arguing/disagreeing with my boss regarding what I’ll do for my internship 🤦🏻‍♀️). Sorry your parents are giving you a hard time with that. I’m working full time, planning my wedding, finishing my last 2 classes, and taking care of my fiancé and his 9 year old son and our 1 year old dog and I’m doing fine plus I still manage to maintain my 4.0. I would try explaining to them that getting married at this point won’t affect school because it shouldn’t and most likely won’t.

I’d like to know what their issue is. If one of my kids came to me after 7 years of dating I'd be completely ready to help with wedding planning. I hope that very old fashioned notion that once a women is married she will give up her education for a life of domesticity isn’t it! If you feel the need to marry now, marry now, but also know that if you have a ‘ dream wedding’ planned in your head, it most likely won’t happen on a graduate students budget.

I agree with PPs that you should ask why they have that condition. I am also in grad school and next year when we marry I’ll still have about a year left. I guess I don’t understand what their hang up is. My mom, for example, understands that grad school is for my career and if I made the choice to do it it’s because I know what I am capable of handling. I think you could remind your parents of that. You’re not a teen college freshman partying in your dorm and barely getting by in intro classes. You’re a grad student serious about your academic goals and your wedding shouldn’t and won’t interfere with that.

It sounds like even if you did go with a date after you graduate, you would be under your parents thumb because they're paying. I 100% do not recommend that. You'll end up compromising on everything you want because unfortunately, money talks. If you are ABLE to swing it, I'd pay for it yourself and choose the date you want.

Stick with what you want!

My fiancé is still in graduate school and we are in a similar situation! Have been together 5 years, and he is not done for another 2 years. He has a 6 week break next summer so it was either get married then or wait another 2 years- which we didn't want to do.

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This. And truly, paying for your own wedding is the best, most freeing feeling. All of the decisions will be yours and your future spouse's!

It is YOUR life, and your fiancé, and if you have been together for 7+ years go ahead and get married. Your parents need to let you live your life. This is a part of growing up and moving on.

You control your own wedding best when you don't get financial assistance from parents. The most important thing is the marriage, which you are ready for, not the wedding itself. Don't wait any longer. 7 years is too long already. Get on with it. You may need to get sort term part time jobs not figured in your " how to pay for school" plan, dedicated just to wedding things . If your parents think they can run your marriage as they want by dangling money to get what they want, you will have to set some boundaries so it does not spill over to their thinking they, not you, are the important decision makers during your marriage. Things will be difficult about what jobs to take ( always near them, things they approve only), where to live, you visiting for all holidays and special occasions and never any just for you as a couple. When or if you have children, how you raise them, are things you not they decide. Start now.

I am dealing with the same thing. My question to them is:

Are you paying for it?

Is this your wedding?

NO

NO

soooooo yea Like our wedding date or do not show up.

Thats what I said to them.

Its your wedding not their hunny. Congratulations on the wedding!

Do what you guys want to do and pay for it yourselves if they are not supportive. Or if you can break it down for them and explain that you can handle the course load while planning a wedding while in grad school maybe it will help them come around!

Option 2: you could always look into it and see if both of you could put your courses on pause and then resume classes after your wedding! My FH and I want to have our wedding literally the weekend we are both supposed to walk at graduation from graduate school. I looked into my program and I have time to finish my degree and worst case scenario am planning on waiting to take my last class after we get married. My FH technically isn't done until August so in the end it works out.

Hope this helps!

I always remember my mom talking about this, as her and my dad were engaged during college and her parents always told her that "if you get married before graduation, we won't help anymore with tuition". They got married a year before she graduated, handled the tuition themselves, and turned out just fine.

Ultimately, do what is best for you and your fiancé in terms of where you want your relationship to be and what is realistic financially. Sit down with your parents in a calm/non confrontational space and discuss this with them. Have them share their reasons for wanting you to wait and then discuss what you and your fiancé have decided to do as a couple moving forward. Try and actually hear them out, if nothing but to try and maintain a good relationship with your parents while you do what you actually want to do. Then prepare a wedding to match the budget that you and your fiancé can afford, and hopefully your family will still be all smiles if they help plan and when they arrive on the big day to celebrate with y'all

Yes, my fiancé’s parents don’t believe we’re ready for marriage. They want us to change our wedding date. But In reality, I’m marrying HIM not his parents. We’re going to continue with our plan because we know us as a couple better than anyone in reality