Wedding Costs

[SacredFaerie]

See now I'll be putting my parents' names on the invites. They'll be giving me away.

[MiikeB]

Steve, having a daughter of your own, do you plan to pay for her wedding? Have you begun setting money aside for it or is it a take it as it comes for you? Would your decision be based on how much you liked the guy?

[disneysteve]

One thing did bother my mom, though. I didn't put our parents' names on the invitation. Just me and DH's names. I figured we were 32 (him) and 30 (me) and living on our own and paying for it ourselves, so I just put our names on it.

I think the problem here is that there are long-standing, generations-old traditions of how things were done, and they just aren't done that way anymore and it takes some adjustment to get used to the new ways, especially for the older generations.

For our wedding, had we just sent out invitations with our names, numerous people on the guest list would have had no idea who we were because they know our parents but didn't really know us. Of course, had we been planning and paying for the affair ourselves, those people likely wouldn't have been on the guest list.

My wife and I did receive a wedding invitation a few years ago that only listed the bride's and groom's names and we didn't know who they were. I had to call my mom to find out. It turned out that the bride was the daughter of my cousin's second wife, but the girl has a different last name than her mother (her birth father's last name, I suppose), so I had no clue.

[disneysteve]

Steve, having a daughter of your own, do you plan to pay for her wedding?

Absolutely, if they both want us to.

[Snave]

Absolutely, if they both want us to.

How old is your daughter? I have a little boy! :

[Investing First Steps]

I would feel really weird about my wife's parents paying for our wedding. It seems like a really treacherous emotional minefield. Yet another reason to advocate for eloping!

[pearlieq]

I enjoyed planning and celebrating our wedding. If other guys don't, that's really a shame.

I think that might be going a little too far.

DH wanted to get married, to go on a cool honeymoon, and to have an enjoyable party with his friends and family.

He didn't give a hoot about the color scheme, whether my dress was satin or chiffon, what kind of favors we gave out, or even where in particular we held it. I happen to enjoy the planning process, so I did most of it. If I hadn't been inclined that way either, we probably would have just eloped.

I don't think there's anything wrong with him not being too concerned about the details--lots of people are like that. He just wanted to marry me. That's all I needed from him.

[disneysteve]

I think that might be going a little too far.

DH wanted to get married, to go on a cool honeymoon, and to have an enjoyable party with his friends and family.

He didn't give a hoot about the color scheme, whether my dress was satin or chiffon, what kind of favors we gave out, or even where in particular we held it. I happen to enjoy the planning process, so I did most of it. If I hadn't been inclined that way either, we probably would have just eloped.

I don't think there's anything wrong with him not being too concerned about the details--lots of people are like that. He just wanted to marry me. That's all I needed from him.

Agreed. I didn't mean to imply that they guy necessarily needs to be picking the table linens or the bridesmaids' dresses, just that he ought to be involved in the overall process since it is his wedding, too. A couple of comments were made about it being the bride's day. I don't agree with that. It is the couple's day.

[Well Spent]

I agree, Steve. And men should not marry women who think the wedding is her day. It's a huge red flag for guys to beware of.

[whitestripe]

When DF and I get married, he wants to be in on the planning