Bridal shower? Registry? Sorry, that smacks of gift grab.
Not that it affects me - I don’t know the parties involved, and if invited to such an event, I’d probably decline. Just tossing my opinion into the mix.
What next, are they gonna want to throw rice to help increase their fertility?
I agree with the sentiment here - having the elderly parents shoulder the load here seems unreasonable and irresponsible. If they are intent on sucking money from the parents, maybe they should ask for college money for those kids - that would at least be for a better use.
Nope. Don’t think the parents should pay. IMHO
My question is, has the mother been saying she wants her daughter to do this recently, and pressing the daughter to do more, and offering to pay? It’s not really clear where the idea for the wedding came from - if the couple wants it and ‘like mother used to want’ is a distant memory, then I agree with the thread. But if Mom has been pressing for a big wedding and offering to pay for it, then I don’t think it’s unreasonable to take her up on it.
I suspect this is something that could be sorted out pretty quickly if people sat down and talked, I would not be surprised if there is some significant miscommunication about who wants what and who can pay for what.
Yeah. Some at least do. My best friend from first grade or so. She had a HUGE collection of Barbie dolls, and she told me she and her mother used to ‘play’ wedding together, with gowns and bridesmaid Barbies in color-matched outfits. She in fact had one of those over-the-top weddings twenty years later (I wasn’t a bridesmaid, but was invited) and I honestly think the planning and pageantry of the wedding was what she cared about more than actually getting to live with her groom. I think both she and her mother would have been devastated if she’d had to ‘settle’ for an elopement or JP or whatever. Fortunately her father was a successful business owner and indulgent.
Yeah, that’s the aspect that strikes me more strange than anything. A lot of the traditional wedding is about the family supporting the young, newly adult kids who don’t have much experience, don’t have furniture and dishes and linens and everything else. This couple is well past that stage of life.
And, yes, it could very well be the mom who is the main impetus behind the elaborate wedding, her worrying about the costs not withstanding.
Or maybe the daughter has always wanted it, and it took 15 years to get the guy to agree to marrying at all, or at least to the whole circus wedding. Who knows?
Yow. Yes, I suppose that could happen. Well, at least the oldest is a boy, so hopefully they can slide the expenses mostly off on the other family.
I would absolutely decline. Bridal showers are nothing but gift grabs, traditionally thrown by non-relatives. And that’s OK, for a couple leaving their parents’ homes who don’t own so much as a coffeepot or those leaving apartments shared with roommates who have other people’s castoffs because who is going to buy good quality pots when the roommates might ruin them. But by the time a couple is in their forties, living together for 15 years or not, I would expect them to have the household goods they want. Just like when someone is having a second child when the first is under two, I expect they still have the crib and the stroller and the carseat and wouldn’t attend a second shower.
The purpose of a bridal shower is to help a couple get some of the stuff they need to set up housekeeping. That’s reasonable if the couple is young and hasn’t lived together long. For the couple in the OP, it’s ludicrous. Nix the shower.
But I don’t understand why the costs for the reception, etc. are a big deal. Why can’t the mom just say, "Your father and I can contribute “$____. Anything above that, you and the groom will have to pay for”? If the couple can’t afford anything more, they pare down their plans.
The parents aren’t obligated to pay for anything, but if they want to pay, they shouldn’t pay more than they can afford, period.
Er… yeah, if everything were identical, but bear in mind everything has gotten more expensive, and people have far more lavish expectations for weddings these days. Plus, 15 years ago your income was higher ad you might have had an easier time budgeting for it, and you probably did NOT say “Oh, they’ll get married some day, I’ll put that 10K away for them”. That 10K (or whatever) is GONE.
If a kid of mine came to me in this scenario, I’d say “have a lovely time, get whatever you can afford”. And they’d get maybe a small cash gift. Any expectation of more, on the part of the adult daughter, is bratty entitlement at its worst.
Disclaimer: I’m not a fan of huge, elaborate weddings in general. I know of too many where the family chipped in far more than they could afford so their kids could have a big splash. At my niece’s wedding, from something I overheard, the cost (just for the reception) was something like 300 dollars a person - and it was not a small event. If it cost 50,000, that would not surprise me at all.
We got married by a magistrate, with a sit-down lunch for 20 people at a nearby restaurant, and 36 years later we’re still hitched. My brother (father of that same niece) had gotten married in a large affair a month earlier. He is not still married. I think the cost/benefit ratio clearly tips in our favor.
Our wedding and party, after a year of sinful bliss aka cohabitation, filled our semi-rural front yard. Friends helped prepare food and buy cheap champagne. We hired a couple to serve goodies and clean afterward. Nobody’s family paid for anything but their own transportation. When the Unitarian marryin’-n-buryin’ man pronounced our oath, my mom fainted, probably with disbelief that I’d finally done something right.
My daughter’s wedding was also self-funded. They’d been together over a decade and decided to finalize the affair. They rented a gothic hall for the wedding and party, a formal masque. I was a big African owl and was not asked for any financial support. The hubby was an ex-celeb chef; his chef buddies catered, gratis.
The family-financed big church weddings I’ve attended ended in early divorce. DIY marriages last longer IMHO. But YMMV as always.
I personally think expecting your parents to pay the tab for your wedding when you’re already a fully grown and established adult is bananas. But I can see the expectation being kinda-sorta understandable if ones parents had ponied up for other siblings.
That said, no one is holding a gun to anyone’s head. There’s nothing stopping the parents from just helping out rather than picking up the entire tab. They are choosing to do this. If they bankrupt themselves in the process, it won’t be their daughter’s fault. It will be theirs.
With college loans these days I doubt being fully established means you’ve got lots of money.
For our daughters we did the same thing my wife’s parents did for us. We gave them a certain amount of money. If they wanted a bigger wedding, they could pay for it. If they wanted a smaller wedding, they could keep the change.
They both had great and very different weddings - no fancy halls and no churches. And everyone was happy.
Clearly the amount a parent pays depends on what they can afford. No one should ever borrow money for a wedding.
I (only child) got married just out of college. The deal we made with my parents, who wanted to pay for the wedding, is that we’d take more of the college loans (which they had originally said they would pay ½) for the upfront costs of the wedding.
All college loans and wedding costs were taken care of before our 2 year anniversary.
And if I did it again, I would only register for daily stuff. We raily use the fancy stuff we registered for so it just sits on the shelf. Registering for stuff after being together for 15 years is definitely a grab for gifts.
This reminded me of a guy I knew. It was his third marriage, her second. They were in their late fifties, both reasonably well off. He and his fiancée registered for gifts. Among other things, they wanted two mango peelers. :rolleyes:
They’ve got kids. And they’ve lived together 15 years.
Legally, morally and socially, that’s about as married as you can get.
I understand: they didn’t register their marriage, and they never had a wedding. If you think that is what “marriage” means, ok with me. But if they decide to split and have a custody battle, other factors will be in play.
Marriage is still a significant legal contract.
To the OP, yes, it’s ridiculous. I got married in my 40s (just 3 years ago before everyone thinks I’m ancient). We paid for everything, and we didn’t have a gift list. In fact we specifically asked people NOT to buy us gifts, knowing how expensive it can be just to attend a wedding.
I get it when people are in their 20s, just starting out, not earning much, don’t HAVE much. But 40s? Please.
(I should add we also didn’t have any Dad speeches - no men speeches actually, it was a lesbian wedding and were determined that only women would speak. We also had no cake and no flowers, and didn’t wear white. So there. That’s what you can do when you pay for the wedding yourself).
Let the couple do what they want, it is their marriage with the meaning that they attach to it. Love is beautiful but sometimes weird. Support their wishes as you would have those support yours is my take.
As for the cost, because of their financial situation, my suggestion is that the bride’s parents pay a small symbolic amount, or the couple gifts the parents money to pay for the wedding or some such things if it’s important that the parents pay.
Backstory on let them have their wedding as they wish. On my travels I met a couple who took us in for the night. We kept in touch over the years.
Their long story made short. He was previously married and divorced when they met. He is also catholic. He wanted to get married in the church as it is very important to him and dear to his heart. However the church would not allow this so they chose to get married outside the church. A decade later or so he got a annulment and the couple get married in the way that was important to him, in a full church wedding. It was not important to her except for the reason that it was important to him and meant a lot for him.
Back to the OP, who knows how the couple came about in their current situation, but the way it happened obviously seemed to be missing ‘something’ and something had to be done to complete it in their hearts. Let them have their day.
Legally, it’s really not. If they split up, there’s no question about their assets. Neither person is entitled to the assets of the other, which may legally be the case of an actual marriage. Nor would either be potentially responsible for alimony/palimony payments. One party might try to argue otherwise, but that’s not an argument that’s going to carry much weight in a court.
It’s also not the same socially. Not entirely, at any rate, no matter how long they’ve been together.
Might work differently in other countries, but that’s how it goes in the US.
Strongly concur.
The idea of a bridal registry is that the happy couple is starting a new household, there’s stuff they’re going to need, and this gives people a way of contributing items to that household that matches their budget and their familiarity with the couple.
In this case, the household in question is already well established. There might be a few things they need here and there, but they can put them on their Christmas lists when the season comes around.
We got married in our 40s after living together for a few years. It wasn’t even our first marriage. White dress, really nice. It’s our wedding. We can do whatever we want.
But getting our PARENTS to pay for it? Aw hell no.
Well, not necessarily. It depends on the state.