Perhaps being pedantic, but wouldn’t that still be one type of “gift”?
If by contributing funds, you are anticipating, your name on the invite, Mom gets to help plan, no cash bar, and some say on the guest list, then you need to say so. People are not mind readers as to your expectations. ‘Not wanting to speak up’, IS a problem here.
Wedding planning is addressing a million things, over a long period, involving a lot of people. You may assume your expectations are self evident, but I know a lot of people who would never be able to guess them, nor be offended if they were over looked.
If you have such expectations, vocalize them or anticipate they may not be met as others cannot read your mind.
Yep, I wasn’t denying that part.
I start with the assumption that some kind of generally accepted tradition* that bride’s family pays for the wedding, it’s their party, and the invites say they invite so and so to the wedding of their daughter and her groom.
But it’s common for there to be a ‘rehearsal dinner’ smaller than the wedding paid for by groom’s parents and groom’s parents might give a pretty big gift to the couple**.
Nowadays in a diverse sometimes even outright anti-traditionalist society people can do whatever they want within reason (or not within reason it seems looking around in general). And as older wedded couples have become more common they often have the wherewithal and desire not to bother parents about weddings. And some weddings have two people of the same sex which also tends to nullify ‘who pays’ traditions. However I think the defaults are as I stated.
So ‘it’s a gift and strings should never be attached to a gift’ is an idea people are free to have (however unrealistically IMO, in general not just weddings), but in weddings the default case implies an obligation to many people. Therefore it’s not a totally freely given gift to begin with, and so not unreasonable for example to expect the tradition of bride’s parent’s name on the invites if they bow to the tradition of paying for it. Of course, how much of a big deal you make about stuff, whether about following tradition or your own better, nicer, fairer ideas that go against tradition, is a different question.
We are fairly likely to be father of groom in the not distant future. We’ll default to tradition and pay for the ‘rehearsal dinner’ and a sizable cash wedding gift (though again that’s not as standard AFAIK) and not initiate any conversation about paying for any of the wedding itself, or expect our names on the invitations. If we’re asked to pay, we’ll think about it in terms of keeping relations cordial and being as flexible as possible.
The other factor some mentioned is situation of the couple. Our son and likely fiance are in their 30’s, not kids, and make very good and decent money respectively. They are both sensible and I don’t worry they’ll spend too much, but they have enough for a nice wedding. The likely fiance’s family’s financial situation is not known to us. Our own wedding was extremely modest, nothing wrong with that either.
*in the US but AFAIK it’s true more or less of some other places.
** here in my vague knowledge it can differ more by (sub)culture.
It COULD be a freely given gift in this case, if it’s given in advance and the couple can decide how to use it.
A gift, by definitionis:
It’s not pedantic, it is the meaning of the word. Anything given with expectation of something in return is a transaction, not a gift. “I’ll give you a car if you drive Granny to the store once each week” is a transaction - payment for a service, in this case. It may be overpayment, but it is payment nonetheless. Money given to pay for all or part of a wedding is exactly the same - payment for goods and/or services on behalf of another.
A gift is freely given with no expectation of anything in return. You may be surprised or disappointed after the fact with how the recipient(s) used the gift, that’s just human nature - and maybe that’s what you’re saying. I read it more as “We gave them a generous amount of money and expected some things in return”, IOW you expected a transaction but they took it as a gift. That’s a communication issue.
To relive his honeymoon with the Mother of the Groom?
Totally agree with this.
For some people (such as myself), paying for everything themselves is much better than having a gift that comes with certainly freedom-restricting expectations. A wedding is normally one of those things a couple wants to have complete power over, because it is, afterall, supposed to be a celebration of their union with the people the couple cares about the most. I guess every family and culture is different, but I didn’t think it was commonplace in the States to reserve a proportion of invitees for guests of the parents’ choosing. Is this an expectation in your circle, Dinsdale? Between two sets of parents, I don’t see how this wouldn’t get crazy if both sides chipped in for the wedding.
I say all of this because it could be your son is already aware that allowing you to pay for wedding costs comes certain expectations, and he would prefer to forego that in exchange for autonomous decision making. But you won’t know unless you ask. If you truly want him to accept any offer of assistance, you might consider making it clear upfront he is free to use it as he pleases.
This IS what makes wedding planning a minefield, and why money makes things weird.
Father A contributes to a wedding expecting the things mentioned, but presents it as a ‘gift’. The recipients, not being mind readers, accept it as a gift and do with it, what has value,…for them. Confident it was a gift, and they can do as they wish.
If a father is expecting an open bar because he’s ‘contributing’, then he needs to A, say that’s what the money is for, and B, make sure it’s enough to cover the entire open bar.
It’s the unstated belief that your contribution is purchasing you things like names on the invite, Mom gets a say, a couple of your friends get invited, is EXACTLY what makes wedding planning so tricky for the couple.
And why so many couples are avoiding it with smaller events they pay for themselves, or skipping it altogether.
All those unstated expectations with every cheque, is the very root of the problem, in my opinion. Nothing is wrong with having expectations, if you’re contributing, but either own up and speak them, if they are important enough to you, or gift freely and stay out of it.
I kinda agree, it’s either a gift or a transaction, it cannot be both.
(I’m a very strong believer, if you can’t bring yourself to speak up in the moment, when it would have mattered, you forfeit the right to bitch about it later!)
It’s not a question of anyone being pedantic I agree. Whether it’s called a ‘gift’ is pretty much beside the point.
Which is, as I see it, that if by social convention the bride’s parents are expected to to pay, a special obligation the groom’s parents aren’t subjected to (though of course they can pay if they like), it seems to me artificial and unrealistic to say they should have no expectations (like their names not groom’s parents on invitations) of their own.
Same with a lot of stuff nominally called ‘gifts’. Christmas gifts to a lot of people we give them to are that way. Wedding gifts too if you get an invite.
Individuals are free to claim (and may really believe) they only ever give 100% freely and never expect anything in return for anything they give. But that’s not a very realistic general assessment of gift giving in real society IME. So there’s no need IMO to find a new term for gifts given in part because the person had a social obligation to give it under some assumption of reciprocal consideration. That’s most gifts actually, AFAIK.
Again, how you deal with other people’s differing opinions, especially in today’s diverse and culturally fractured US society, is another question. But you can’t especially nowadays expect to lay out some absolute rule and expect everyone to fall in line.
It sounds to me like the son wanted to avoid all this with his dad after seeing how his parents behaved with the sister’s wedding. A smaller wedding he and his fiance can afford is much better than the stress of dealing with parents that have problems communicating their expectations if they help pay.