Thespos, you are, indeed, a wonderful brother to offer not only your support, but your financial assistance, should it be needed.
That being said… your sister needs to do 3 things. First of all, she has simply GOT to grow a spine and tell her father that this is her wedding, not his, until it sinks in.
Secondly, then she absolutely must invite every single friend of hers and her fiancés who she wants to be there to share her special day. She must. If she doesn’t, she will look back on this day with regret for the rest of her life.
And finally, she absolutely has to figure out a way to either cover the additional expense on her own, or cut costs somewhere else, in order to be able to afford it. She’s getting married, for heaven’s sake – it’s time to grow UP and start accepting some responsibility for the things she wants in life. If her father isn’t willing to put enough money towards the reception to cover all the things that she wants (including additional guests), then by god, she’d best be willing to pitch in, herself. If she and her fiancé can’t afford to spend a few hundred bucks of their own money on their own wedding then they have no business getting married.
I speak from first-hand experience with this, as I just went through this very thing myself last year when Spiny Norman and I got married. My father gave us a budget – he was willing to kick in X amount of dollars. If we couldn’t plan the wedding we wanted for that, well, we’d have to pick up the rest of the tab – and we did! It was, after all, our wedding!
Your father is absolutely wrong in how he’s treating your sister, but your sister is just as wrong for a) allowing it and b) giving him the ammunition he needs to treat her that way (ie, expecting him to pick up the entire tab and not be willing to pitch in herself).
Believe me, certain members of my family made it quite clear that they didn’t like some of the things we planned – especially that we weren’t going to host a “rehearsal dinner”. I flat out told them, “too bad, so sad”. First of all, a rehearsal dinner isn’t a requirement (believe me, I checked all the wedding etiquette sites!) and secondly, it simply wasn’t in our budget (and it’s not a tradition in Denmark, so we weren’t going to insist that his parents pick up the tab for something like that, either). The money my father gave us went entirely towards the wedding and there simply wasn’t anything left over for any additional party expenses. My sister was so rude to me about it that I finally did what others here have suggested – I told her if she didn’t like the wedding I was planning, she was free to decline the invitation and not attend. It was that simple.
And guess what – when it got down to the wire, my father decided to kick in a few extra bucks (“disguised” as a birthday present, since my birthday was the day before our wedding) because it was important to him. IOW, if he wanted it that badly, he could pay for it. Pretty simple.
Our wedding ended up costing us as much as it did my father and we were more than happy to contribute every penny of it!! Again, it was our wedding and any money we got from my dad was seen as a gift, not an obligation on his part.
And don’t think that because the wedding’s only a month away that things can’t be done to help whittle down the costs. I planned and executed my wedding in 6 weeks, so I know it can be done in such a short timeframe.
If she hasn’t gotten “party favors” for the guests, tell her not to. Or, if she has, and they’re not engraved, have her return them. We didn’t give them at our wedding and nobody cared. They’re a complete waste of money anyway, as people tend to not like or keep them anyway.
Have her call the florist and ask about reducing the number of flowers she’ll have. For insance, put them on every other pew instead of every pew, make smaller bridesmaid’s bouquets (or have them carry a single rose), ask them to use less expensive flowers instead of what she’s chosen (if that’s possible), or ask if they’ll do the arrangements with flowers she buys herself and have one of her bridesmaids go to a farmer’s market a day before the wedding and pick them up really cheap!
If she’s hired a limousine to take them to and from the wedding and reception, have her cancel it. If she’s that concerned about having her friends with her, where is it more important to direct the money she has – towards her friends or towards themselves?
If she doesn’t have enough pre-printed invitations to send additional ones to the friends she’s going to invite, tell her not to get expensive extras printed by the company she ordered them from. Not all the guests’ invitations have to match – heck, who’ll know the difference? Tell her to go to Michael’s or JoAnn and pick up blank wedding invitation stock (they sell them in packages that include envelopes and such) and print them herself.
If she bought expensive shoes at the bridal boutique where she bought her dress and they haven’t been dyed, tell her to return them and go to Payless or a mall shoe store. You can buy “wedding” shoes all over the place for less than half what these boutiques charge. And trust me, no one notices the bride’s shoes under her gown – and – if she’s anything like every other bride I’ve ever known, including me, she’ll kick them off less than halfway into the party anyway!
These are just some examples of what can still be done to cut costs at this stage of the planning without losing deposit money, etc. I’m sure there are a lot more things she could come up with if she sat down and gave it any thought and was creative about it.
So, after that long, rambling post, the bottom line is that she’s got to start taking some responsibility for this event – including financially (in spite of your generous offer). She’ll end up having the wedding she wants without guilt from her father (because she’s pitching in so he can just shut his mouth!), she’ll feel way less stressed and she’ll be much happier in the end because she won’t have had to compromise.
I hope she has as beautiful and memorable a day as Thomas and I had. And may their lives together be happy always!
