A variation on option #2: pay for DD#1 (and spouse) to go to the DD#2’s wedding.
I assume that pay nothing and, in the interests of equity, ask daughter 1 for the money back, isn’t an option?
Regardless of the choice for the type of wedding, it doesn’t seem unfair for daughter 2 to ask for the same expenditure as daughter one, unless finances have changed a lot. In fact I can’t think of any way to make it fairer in a family where they’re still doing the old-fashioned thing of having the Dad pay for the wedding. I mean, it’s not like she’s underspending and then asking for cash in lieu.
The choice of a destination wedding includes many consequences. I would assume that fewer people will attend and gifts given will be less expensive because of the cost of travel. It’s also a possible consequence that the people footing the bill will be able to afford less because of the cost of getting to the destination. I’d have no problem with Mom and Dad offering less money to the cost if they felt like it was the right thing to do.
Add another father of married children who dislikes destination weddings - largely for this very reason.
Any resolution is problematic, because it creates the likelihood of longstanding resentments - on your part if you pay fell fare + travel, on hers if you reduce the wedding gift to reflect travel. I wonder if it might be possible to strike a middle course. Gift an amount that is less by approx 1/2 your travel costs. I could imagine defending/rationalizing/explaining that approach better than the others. It would be based on several important considerations - including the need to realize that one’s choices impose costs on others.
Even tho you oughtn’t HAVE to explain your choices to anyone other than yourselves, I often think about what choice I would most feel comfortable explaining/defending - if I had to. And I think I would be more comfortable defending the “split the differences” choice, than either of the others.
But travel costs are interesting. I have 1 kid who lives nearby and got married locally. My other 2 kids live 1 and 2 timezones away. 1 is married, the other engaged. Even tho we had to travel to my son’s wedding in his and his bride’s home, we gifted them approximately the same amount. But that was where they lived and worked, and nowhere near the costs of a trip to Hawaii.
The way it should be handled, IMHO.
The couple tells the parents that they are handling the expenses entirely on their own, including airfare for the parents to the “destination” (uuuugh).
The parents volunteer to pay what they deem is reasonable. E.g., same as the other wedding, less travel expenses.
The couple express profound and sincere gratitude for the gift.
No one in such situations should ever expect anything as “standard”.
It’s b - she’s the maid of honor.
Fortunately everybody in #2’s immediate family has the means to attend.
The situation isn’t so much about affordability as it’s kind of a power move to make the family spend their vacation time and money at the whim of the bride and groom. Most weddings take only a few days out of lives of the wedding party so people have the rest of their free time and money to take a vacation.
But after making all of the effort and expense to travel to Wowee they might as well spend the week there. Had plans to go to Europe this year? Forget it. You’re going where the bride wants you to go.
Dad should spend as much or as little as he chooses on whichever categories he wants and daughter should learn that she is an adult who should provide for herself and who can’t decide how other people spend their money.
I hear ya - and agree w/ ya. Your dtr is acting poorly. And there may not be a good, graceful solution. But as this proceeds, I urge you to aim for an approach that most minimizes the chances of longterm resentments by anyone.
As a parent, you’ve made all manner of sacrifices for your kids, and have likely supported them despite them making choices other than the ones you would have wished. Like I said, I’d feel comfortable giving a reduced amount, considering a portion of your costs. Let your daughter try to spin you as unreasonable for having given her a generous gift, AND undergone considerable expense to share in the ceremony AT HER REQUEST. :rolleyes:
At some point, I’d probably take the opportunity to try to clearly express my feelings - if that can be done w/o making it a huge, prolonged battle. She’s an adult and is expressing her opinions - why oughtn’t you be allowed to do the same? Hopefully, despite her being offbase on this one issue, she still is someone you like and respect.
Good luck.
X minus your expenses, and minus your other daughter’s expenses. Destination weddings are expensive and anyone who has one should calculate on the guests considering being there their gift.
No, the other daughter isn’t involved in this like that. They can choose to go or not, but that’s not between father and daughter #1.
I would give X minus travel expenses.
Well, it seems too late for this now, but paying for a wedding in one place AND a reception in another seems quite generous. I would consider it reasonable to say, “Look, you get one party at $x, make it count.” But I think the ship has probably sailed on that option…
I’m surprised that travel expenses account for 20% of the total. I would guess the two events would cost in the neighborhood of $20,000, so four grand in travel to Hawaii seems quite high. But if it is what it is… the OP’s “friend” is in the best position to judge how much an imposition these travel costs are to his overall financial situation. If the “friend” was going to take a $4,000 trip to Europe this year, but now is instead doing a $4,000 trip to Hawaii (can we just say that it is Maui?), then it shouldn’t come out of the D2’s “share.” If this is really $4k of additional wedding expenses, then I think it’s fair that some portion come out of her share. Unlike most other guests, the parents of the bride don’t really have a choice of not attending, on top of all the other financial commitments that this cockamamie wedding tradition demands.
OK, we can say Hawaii. But I still reserve the right to hide behind the “friend”.
I think after careful consideration dad will just give out a fatherly “Harrumph”, back off and dig into his wallet a little deeper.
I’m giving dad the right though to bring this up as a bargaining chip whenever he wants to during the next 20 years or so.
I appreciate all of your opinions on this as I’m sure my friend will too.
The only fair thing is that the father spends the exact same amount of money on wedding a and wedding b, if wedding b is at the destination, then the lucky couple sucks it up and goes alone, or THEY pay for the parents airfare and hotel out of THEIR personal money, not the wedding budget.
WTF is the draw of destination weddings that cost more per person than our mortgage payment for 6 months? Marry locally, then go on a great honeymoon not drag everybody to your dream honeymoon location.
I have nothing to say other than I am glad I am not the father in this situation. 
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I’m really curious about how DD#1 feels about the money aspect of this. I guess if she’s OK with DD #2 getting enough for a fancy destination wedding AND a local reception AND having to (I assume) pay a bundle for travel expenses, then I’d say you have a heck of a great DD#1, and go with that option.
My parents gave each of us sisters the exact same amount. If we spent more than that, we paid the difference; if we spent less, we kept the difference. We were all very grateful and would never, never have asked our parents to pay big travel costs, too.
I don’t know how destination weddings got to be a thing. It seems selfish to decide you’re going to ask guests to pay out big bucks they may not have. There are many ways to have a lovely wedding that don’t cost guests an arm and a leg.
Your friend should make the time to visit the giant mountain that rhymes with “Mount Schmaleeakala” to redeem some of the stress of all this. You take a thing that rhymes with “blike” and ride downhill like several thousand feet as the sun rises. It’s plawesome.
Except that generally speaking, guests transportation costs aren’t part of the wedding cost. I agree that it’s really presumptuous to have a destination wedding, but I can see how it would feel like mom and dad’s plane tickets were a whole different category: they can decide not to come, but they shouldn’t subtract the cost of one from the other.
One tweak I’d like to add. Tho my wife and I tried pretty hard to treat our 3 kids in a manner we thought “fair” and “equitable”, that did not always mean we were “identical” in terms of expenditures on them. Several examples: the kids all played band instruments, but a decent quality bassoon cost considerably more than a comparable flute or trumpet. When our oldest kid wanted to stay home instead of accompanying us on a family trip, we felt no obligation to gift her an amount equal to what we spent on the other 2. We did not feel a need to spend exactly the same amount on each kid for x-mas. And when one went to a less expensive college than the other 2, we did not gift her the difference.
Just saying, I’m not sure it is necessary - or even desirable - for a parent to inflexibly say, “I’m giving each of you $Xk (adjusted for inflation?) when you marry.” So many factors - on both the kid’s and parents’ parts - might warrant variation in the gift amount.
My youngest is getting married this summer. She and her fiancé live 2 time zones from us, and are planning a very small wedding, which we will attend. We intend to give them a sizeable check, but we have no intention of checking receipts and such to ensure that it is identical to what we gave her older sister 7 years ago when she got married locally, or her brother when he married 1 time zone away in 2018. If any of the kids choose to get their noses out of joint over what they consider inequitable - tho IMO very generous - treatment, well, they can add that to the list of grievances over how I suck as a parent!