This is a long one and sorry if it doesn’t make sense in some places.
My partner and I (mid 30s) are planning our wedding. We have been together for 6 years and engaged for over 1 year so far.
Both my partner and I make decent enough income, I probably earn more by about £500 roughly each month (which I think he secretly hates but hey ho, I can’t change that, rant for another day)
My partner comes from a somewhat ‘well off’ family and he has lived a fairly privileged life. Not multi multi millionaires, but his parents have good money, have helped both their sons out with buying £300,000+ houses, funded university ie no student loan etc. His parents have helped him out with other things over time like large unexpected bills due to home/car repair’s and things like that.
I come from a much more working class family, both my parents still work full time (his are much older and retired now, my parents are still quite ‘young’). My parents are not ‘wealthy’ by any means, but they now live a fairly comfortable life, in a nice home in a nice area etc. But like most people, big expenses and purchases need to be saved for. I don’t imagine this is the case for his family.
We have started planning our wedding for 2028/29. It won’t be a terribly big wedding but still, the price of everything is racking up. We have made no formal plans or booked anything yet!
On discussing venues etc and looking at prices, I suggested we save £700 per month. Based on my income, I can save £700 per month + have all my bill outgoings (not including food - I tend to pay the bulk of food shops) and still have around £1000 (give or take depending on what’s happening at the time) left for the month. I think, with good planning and budgeting this is absolutely doable for me. And my plan would be to try and save extra where I can on top of this.
My partner freaked out, because he does not think he can comfortably save £700 and then have enough money (after outgoings) to last him comfortably for the remainder of the month. Now I know ‘comfortable living ’ isn’t always something that happens when saving for a wedding and I am willing to sacrifice this but my partner has lots of anxieties around money and having spare money ‘for a rainy day’. These anxieties are not something unique to the wedding planning process, this is something he is constantly worried about in our day to day lives (even though we both make good incomes and live comfortably at present). It’s often something that is snowballed into a much bigger issue than it needs to be.
He spoke to his parents, highlighted his stress and anxiety about how he will pay for the wedding yadda yadda and they have said they would help with the wedding. No exact figure was mentioned but I imagine they would pay a fair chunk of it if I/we allowed this.
Where I have issues is!!
I don’t particularly want his parents to pay for ‘my share’ of the wedding. Not that I think a wedding should be 100%, 50/50 but I would never expect them to fork out the bill. My partner suggested his parents pay for the venue, you are talking 10-15 grand! I would never expect them to pay this!!
Where is gets really tricky is his parents would like to know what my parents are contributing, because his dad doesn’t want to feel like he’s being taken for ‘a ride’ so to speak and that he’s basically paying for some other guys daughters wedding (when traditionally it’s MY dad that ‘should’ be paying, as my partner has pointed out, this mentality I am aware is very out dated and NOT something I stand by, but as you can imagine, makes things awkward).
I asked my partner why is matters to his dad, would that make him change his mind on whether or not he helps pay towards the wedding? The answer is no, so I don’t see what benefit it is? Other than purely to be able to know that HE is contributing more than them.
So my head is spiralling. I feel really awkward now because I never wanted them to pay for MY part of the wedding to begin with. But now, it’s as though they feel the need to become I’m some poor girl whose parents can’t afford it. Regardless of how much money my parents make, I would never expect them to pay for my wedding. It’s MY wedding and I’d like to stand there on the day and know that I made it happen. Does that make sense?
Now I need to have this really awkward conversation with my parents to see if they were planning on giving me money????? I just don’t know how to approach it. I would never want to make them feel pressured into doing so, and I certainly don’t want them to feel ‘judged’ because at the minute, that’s how I feel. I feel like my family are being and will continue to be judged based on their contribution to our wedding.
And knowing his parents, their contribution will undoubtedly be something that my parents simply could not match, nor would I ever expect them to.
It makes me so sad to think that my parents could be standing with me on my wedding day, being completely judged because of the money they did or didn’t give for my wedding.
My partner thinks I’m being unreasonable and that it is perfectly reasonable for his parents to ask if and how much my parents would be contributing (even though this will not effect how/if they themselves contribute.
I basically left it with my partner like this, your parents can pay for however much of ‘your share’ of the wedding you would like and I will deal with my own saving.
Am I being unreasonable?
My partner and I (mid 30s) are planning our wedding. We have been together for 6 years and engaged for over 1 year so far.
Both my partner and I make decent enough income, I probably earn more by about £500 roughly each month (which I think he secretly hates but hey ho, I can’t change that, rant for another day)
My partner comes from a somewhat ‘well off’ family and he has lived a fairly privileged life. Not multi multi millionaires, but his parents have good money, have helped both their sons out with buying £300,000+ houses, funded university ie no student loan etc. His parents have helped him out with other things over time like large unexpected bills due to home/car repair’s and things like that.
I come from a much more working class family, both my parents still work full time (his are much older and retired now, my parents are still quite ‘young’). My parents are not ‘wealthy’ by any means, but they now live a fairly comfortable life, in a nice home in a nice area etc. But like most people, big expenses and purchases need to be saved for. I don’t imagine this is the case for his family.
We have started planning our wedding for 2028/29. It won’t be a terribly big wedding but still, the price of everything is racking up. We have made no formal plans or booked anything yet!
On discussing venues etc and looking at prices, I suggested we save £700 per month. Based on my income, I can save £700 per month + have all my bill outgoings (not including food - I tend to pay the bulk of food shops) and still have around £1000 (give or take depending on what’s happening at the time) left for the month. I think, with good planning and budgeting this is absolutely doable for me. And my plan would be to try and save extra where I can on top of this.
My partner freaked out, because he does not think he can comfortably save £700 and then have enough money (after outgoings) to last him comfortably for the remainder of the month. Now I know ‘comfortable living ’ isn’t always something that happens when saving for a wedding and I am willing to sacrifice this but my partner has lots of anxieties around money and having spare money ‘for a rainy day’. These anxieties are not something unique to the wedding planning process, this is something he is constantly worried about in our day to day lives (even though we both make good incomes and live comfortably at present). It’s often something that is snowballed into a much bigger issue than it needs to be.
He spoke to his parents, highlighted his stress and anxiety about how he will pay for the wedding yadda yadda and they have said they would help with the wedding. No exact figure was mentioned but I imagine they would pay a fair chunk of it if I/we allowed this.
Where I have issues is!!
I don’t particularly want his parents to pay for ‘my share’ of the wedding. Not that I think a wedding should be 100%, 50/50 but I would never expect them to fork out the bill. My partner suggested his parents pay for the venue, you are talking 10-15 grand! I would never expect them to pay this!!
Where is gets really tricky is his parents would like to know what my parents are contributing, because his dad doesn’t want to feel like he’s being taken for ‘a ride’ so to speak and that he’s basically paying for some other guys daughters wedding (when traditionally it’s MY dad that ‘should’ be paying, as my partner has pointed out, this mentality I am aware is very out dated and NOT something I stand by, but as you can imagine, makes things awkward).
I asked my partner why is matters to his dad, would that make him change his mind on whether or not he helps pay towards the wedding? The answer is no, so I don’t see what benefit it is? Other than purely to be able to know that HE is contributing more than them.
So my head is spiralling. I feel really awkward now because I never wanted them to pay for MY part of the wedding to begin with. But now, it’s as though they feel the need to become I’m some poor girl whose parents can’t afford it. Regardless of how much money my parents make, I would never expect them to pay for my wedding. It’s MY wedding and I’d like to stand there on the day and know that I made it happen. Does that make sense?
Now I need to have this really awkward conversation with my parents to see if they were planning on giving me money????? I just don’t know how to approach it. I would never want to make them feel pressured into doing so, and I certainly don’t want them to feel ‘judged’ because at the minute, that’s how I feel. I feel like my family are being and will continue to be judged based on their contribution to our wedding.
And knowing his parents, their contribution will undoubtedly be something that my parents simply could not match, nor would I ever expect them to.
It makes me so sad to think that my parents could be standing with me on my wedding day, being completely judged because of the money they did or didn’t give for my wedding.
My partner thinks I’m being unreasonable and that it is perfectly reasonable for his parents to ask if and how much my parents would be contributing (even though this will not effect how/if they themselves contribute.
I basically left it with my partner like this, your parents can pay for however much of ‘your share’ of the wedding you would like and I will deal with my own saving.
Am I being unreasonable?
