The Money Talk Help

All you can really do is to say that you are going to proceed as though the $5,000 is all you have, until they actually give you whatever money they want to give you. If they offer to pay for something, you can accept, but you can't plan on money you don't know you'll have.

I would sit down with them and lay out your budget that you have now. Tell them the things that you and your FS have decided are most important to you (i.e. food, drink, venue, photos). Then you can ask them where they would like to contribute. If they say they will give you $500 for photography, you can either get an extra hour or more prints or re-allocate "your money" to something else you want now that you have some wiggle room.

I will say that when parents say they want to contribute they will also get a say in guest list. You may want to save their contribution to pay for the guests they intend to invite.

Maybe it would help them if you had a more detailed breakdown of how much everything costs? I did that with my family. I included the very smallest amount something would cost up to the most expensive it could be. For example, the DJ's I were looking at were any where from 500-1500 depending on package. That might help them get an idea.

I'd sit down and talk to them, and let them know you are planning a $5,000 wedding because that's all you and your fiance can afford. If they can't give you a number, you can't start hypothetically planning with money you don't have and they should realize that.

Exactly this.

The way I went about this with my parents was having them pick the actual aspects they would like to cover. For example (parents are divorced), my mom chose dress and flowers while my dad chose venue. Maybe like this, they can visualize and guestimate costs rather than throwing out a number.

LIke others have said, plan the $5000 without their financial help. There are way too many threads here about "Help! my parents said they would pay for flowers but now they can't!" so just plan a lovely wedding without their help.