Who paid for your wedding?

[disneysteve]

This topic came up in another thread so I'm curious how things break down among the folks here.

Who paid for your wedding?

Bride's parents
Groom's parents
Bride and Groom themselves
Some combination of these
Some other person (grandparents, etc.)

Where I'm from, traditionally the bride's family pays for the wedding. My wife's parents did so. My parents contributed some money but only a small portion of the total cost. My wife and I didn't pay for anything except some incidentals (bridal party gifts, etc.). We also paid for the honeymoon.

When you answer, tell us how old you are and how long ago you got married? I'm 44 and have been married for 16 years.

[gamecock43]

ummm...I'm not sure. I'm 28yrs old, was married 2 months ago.

My mother was a shopaholic (& hoarder) and left me a houseful of high end collectible items when she died. Over the course of 3 yrs I have been selling the items on ebay and saved the money- so when I started planning the wedding 1.5 yrs ago I paid cash for my wedding (from my ebay account) as I planned it, leaving me with about $10,000 in bills when it was over. Except that I also received $7500 in cash from the wedding and used the cash to pay wedding bills and then took $2500 out of savings to pay the last bit off. My hubby's parents also paid $5,000 for rehearsal dinner and incedentals that they wanted included in the wedding. So wedding total:
Mom/Me $16,000
Gifts $7500
Husband parents $5,000
Total: $31,000

yup- it cost to much. Originally planned to pay out in ebay cash for the whole thing with the $15,000 I had saved... Went over budget a few times. And scrimped on a few things too! But it was wonderful!

[Ima saver]

I got married (for the 2nd time, first time eloped) at my house. We supplied food and liquor and had a party after the ceremony.Friends chipped in and brought food and a wedding cake. We spent a grand total of about $100 and had a great time.
I was 32 and dh had just turned 26. Over 30 years and counting!!

[jIM_Ohio]

Bride's dad paid some
Bride's mother paid for dress and a few small things
I paid for honeymoon, tuxes, bridal party hair (10 girls?), rehearsal dinner, limo and probably many other smaller things I do not recall.

[JinCO]

Wife's family paid $5K, my family paid $5K, and we paid $20K.

[hmd2009]

I paid the whole $30 it took to get the JOP to marry us.

I was 20 and DH was 21. I was in the military and was deploying the next day. We've been pretty happy with our little wedding, and our marriage ever since.

[littletoobigformybritches]

I was 22 and DH was almost 23 when we got married 3 and a 1/2 years ago. We paid $10,000, his parents paid $10,000 and my parents paid $10,000.

[Investing First Steps]

We decided to solve it by eloping. That way no one has to worry about who spent what on what! Plus since I wouldn't have felt comfortable with her parents paying for it, it saved us money!

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

We paid for our own. We are 49 and 55 and were married 23 years ago at ages 26 and 32. I suspect my parents would like to have helped, but barely could even afford to come to the wedding. It did not even occur to me to talk to them about it. All my siblings (M&F) paid for their own weddings along with their spouses; husband's parents paid for their daughters' weddings, but not sons'.

[simpleyme]

we paid for our own wedding

my dad offered but i turned him down since there was no way he could have paid anyway

we had a very nice inexpensive wedding

ETA;
we will pay for our daughters wedding within reasonable limits
and our sons weddings as well if needed

[FrugalIII]

I paid for all 3 of mine. No help from either family at all.

[creditcardfree]

Married almost 13 years ago at 23 and 26.

My parents paid for a majority of the wedding expenses. DH's parents ended up contributing about $1500 to the reception...which was about half the cost!

We tried to do lots of things frugally....my sister and her husband were married 4 weeks later. My poor parents!

[moneybags]

I actually have the itemizations of all my wedding costs from 17 years ago. Total wedding was just over $6,000. My parents gave me $2,000, in-laws covered the photographer (not in the total), and I (I, not We) paid the rest. My parents gave a flat amount to each of their daughters, sons got nothing (a gift probably). They didn't set any parameters on the $$, said elope, whatever. I will probably give each of my children (1 boy, 1 girl) a set amount also.

[SnoopyCool]

We "eloped" of sorts... married in our temple, just us, in Orlando. MIL paid for reception. Friend paid for honeymoon (a trip to Epcot and hotel stay) as a gift to us. IDK the cost of anything, but reception was small and probably relatively inexpensive.

We were married in 2000, I am 33 now and DH is 39.

[Caoineag]

Umm, well we did justice of the peace and then a big informal BBQ reception. So we paid, guests gave enough cash to pay for most of the reception for which we were grateful. Never occurred to me my father would give more than $50 as a wedding gift and originally I had been worried about how to pay for him to attend my wedding hence we did justice of the peace with just a local BBQ.

This was 4 years ago (dear god, I hope I got that right or my husband will be laughing at me again) and we were 23 and 21 at the time. One of my older coworkers was so horrified by my intentions that she actually paid for my flowers because she felt that was necessary. Very nice lady. My wedding dress was a jean dress.

I was surprised by the generosity of his parents with gifts and that was all they gave as well. We used the excuse that weddings are expensive for big families and we were still in college for the whole set up and everyone took it well.

I understand paying for your kid's college (no I didn't get help on this either) but weddings? That was something only rich people did for their kids in my area.

[pearlieq]

I'm 29 and DH and I were married in 2001.

Our total wedding costs, including honeymoon, were approximately $11,000. My mom kicked in about $2,000. DH's parents contributed about $4,000, plus a simple rehearsal dinner. We paid for the rest ourselves.

Neither family could have afforded to pay for the entire thing, but even if they could have, I doubt they would. My mother didn't even believe in paying for college for me--she felt it wasn't her responsibilty. Her paying for a wedding would have been even less likely!

Looking back, I can't imagine what we spent all that money on! We had a budget spreadsheet on a wedding website and while I can remember the total number, I can't recall how it actually broke down. Our wedding was pretty modest--buffet dinner and a DJ in the church basement for about 100 guests--and the honeymoon wasn't very extravagant either. What did we blow $11k on????

[feh]

Married for 20 years next month...bride's parents contributed about $2000, if my memory hasn't failed. We (wife and I) paid for the rest, which wasn't a whole lot. Simple church wedding, followed by a sit-down dinner of about 150 people in a non-upscale restaurant.

No offense to previous posters, but I just can't see why or how folks spends tens of thousands of dollars on a wedding. Seems like such a waste to me.

[zetta]

We married in 2001 at the age of 30. My parents gave us $10,000. We spent about $15,000 plus the honeymoon. DH's family paid for the rehearsal dinner.

[MonkeyMama]

Married age 23

Married 8 years now.

My parents paid for reception (food) & flowers (the pricey parts of the wedding, for sure).

Dh's parents paid for rehearsal dinner and tuxes

We paid for everything else (DJ, Officiant, cake, dress? We didn't hire a photographer or musician for the ceremony - were friends. We didn't get a limo or anything like that).

We could have easily paid cash for the whole thing. We just wanted something simple. My parent's share might have been $7k (At most). We probably paid under $1k, and dh's parents paid very little.

Our honeymoon was mostly paid for by relative's timeshare and airline miles. We only paid for food and transportation, etc. - 10 days in Florida. I doubt we spent more than $500. We were DINKS then with a lot of cash. WE didn't expect anyone to pay for the wedding. It was very generous of our parents to chip in so much.

-----------------

I swear to you - I wanted to take that money and fly our friends/family to Vegas and to elope there. Would have been so fun if you ask me. My dh can be such a girl - hehe. HE wanted the "fancy wedding." To be fair, only my immediate family made it, and he has a million relatives there, so it was important for him to have them all there. I am just not close to my extended family so really rather have eloped!

[KatieNK]

We paid for our wedding. But my parents did give us $1000 as a wedding present which paid mostly for the reception. I'm 26 and got married 3.5 years ago.

ETA: The total for everything, including a 2 week honeymoon on the Gulf of Mexico, was just under $5k. And it was a beautiful wedding and reception! I would NOT have spent any more.