Son getting married 🎊

Yes and it security on your money because you know exactly where your money is

This is a great option. This makes things a lot easier.

My understanding of the gift tax is that each parent can gift $15,000 to each receiver (so a total of $30,000). But I hear what you're saying. For our daughter that married in July, we made our contribution directly to the reception venue. For our younger daughter I will transfer the funds to her account before she makes final payment.

I think that’s perfect. I have a family member paying for my wedding and he just said, hey how much was your photographer? And took care of it rather than asking to be a part of decision making. That’s so sweet of you to help them. Congratulations.

The gift tax doesn't kick in till you hit more than $14k per recipient. So unless you plan on giving them more than $28k, you don't have to worry about that.

I think it's wonderful that you want to contribute and I definitely agree with others that you give a budget. My FILs offered to pay for my dress and gave me a max budget before I went shopping. On the other hand, my mom is not a budgeter at all and just has offered to pay for things as we go ("Oh you want a popcorn bar? I can pay for that." etc.). It's certainly appreciated but a little frustrating to do it this way when our budget keeps fluctuating.

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Actually $15,000 for 2018 - it was $14,000 for the past few years though.

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Ah, ok. Hopefully one day I'll be able to gift $15,000 and this will be important to know!

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Right, lol! I only looked this up recently because H and I were day dreaming about winning the lottery and how we handle taking care of our kids. Let's hope it becomes an issue!

That's what my mom did. She let us pick out our photographer and asked how much she cost, then gave us the money for her. My FH parents are doing the same with the catering.

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That's what we've done. We gave them the total amount we're comfortable with and then we've just been writing checks from that total as they came due (so, no transfer of $, no gift tax concerns). FFIL gave daughter a check for his cash contribution, but it's well below the gift-tax threshold, and she and I have just communicated about which items she's going to pay for with that money which she deposited into savings (a lot of smaller dollar-amount items like cake, invitations, etc.) and we've been paying the bigger-ticket items like venue payments (it's fairly inclusive, so in total it will be well over half the total budget). I wrote a check for her dress when she found it last year. So far, it's all been pretty easy.

My parents are doing something like this. I kinda wish they would have given us an at least estimate amount they are comfortable giving Because I'm worrying if the things I'm picking out are over / under what they are ok with , and rather than picking exactly what I want I'm worrying about telling them the cost of things, and usually picking the cheapest option even if it's not what I really want. If they would tell me what they are comfortable giving now, I could figure out what it would cover and know how much more we'd be adding on top.

If you are willing to pay the bill for which ever "thing" you choose, regardless of price. Then I think that's really awesome.