I have an honest question about the cost these weddings...

r9stedt · January 2009

Do you/your parents make payments on those? ?Is 20k, 30k, or 40k just something people can pay outright? ?Or is it something that parents save for? ??

?

This is an honest question. ? Some of these weddings are almost half of what we are paying for our new house...

kittycarr · January 2009

We saved but had no expenses either really so it wasn't any big deal to pull $15k out of our ass. Of course now that we have kids....

JOEBunny · January 2009

My parents payed cash. Money is not a problem for them. They are super frugal and save a lot.

mlm1128 · January 2009

I didn't respond below, but I will give you an honest answer! Our wedding was about 25-30K. I would NEVER have had a wedding in that price range if I had not received a large settlement around the time we started planning. It was enough to cover our wedding, a down payment on our house and all the furniture. It is the only reason I could justify the cost to myself!

femmegem · January 2009

Well, our parents each contributed around $6K, which is a lot IMO, but DH's parents gave him cash. My mom paid for my dress and many of the vendors herself, so I don't know if it was cash or what.

aml0905 · January 2009

My parents paid cash.

GinandTonic · January 2009

I feel absolutely horrible, but I have no idea. My dad gave me money in installments (we were engaged for about a year and half) when I needed it. Looking back on it, I can't believe I asked him to spend that on me for ONE DAY (especially when he paid for college as well - and has 3 more kids to put through school - my half-sibs). He did get off easy - my wedding was inexpensive compared to what it could have been had I been married in NJ and not MD.

A-baybride · January 2009

In our case it was money we had saved from DH's bonus. It would bug me to have to make payments on a party!

gracendantho26 · January 2009

I don't know if my parents saved specifically for our weddings (me and my sister) but I'm sure they drew the money from their "account for the kids" (college money, wedding money etc.). I know that would have never financed any of it. My dad is a CFP and he's very money savy though so I'm sure he had it all planned out.

As far as half of what you paid for your house where the heck do you live?!?!

Chrisy-Wyobride · January 2009

My Mom has worked for years (she was a SAHM until mid-80s) & does not pay "bills" with her money...she uses it for whatever (bought 2 vacation homes, vacations, savings, retirement, extras) & my Dad always paid all the neccessity bills. I am sure she paid a lot up front & some she put on CCs & paid off w/ in the next couple months. It was not an issue for her really. My Dad probably put it on CCs knowing him. DH's parents are very well-off mainly from inheritances (both were only children).

Halo79RN · January 2009

my parents paid outright for their portion, dh's parents paid outright for their portion (they did the rehearsal dinner and part of the flowers, my mil was flipping through etiquette books trying to find out what her "responsibility" was). and then we paid for our attire, invites and programs. my dress was on the david's card b/c I had to get the most expensive damn dress they made at the time. wth? but I love it! so I guess it's worth the $.

our wedding??? I know my parent's spent 14K, not sure about my ILs but I know it was a good bit, they went all out for the RD and they paid for our honeymoon. I paid probably a little over 2K for dress/alterations/veil/shoes/undergarmets and maybe invites and programs (made those myself) .

in hindsight, it would have been nice to use that money for a dp on a house. but the day was so perfect and so wonderful and so fun, I don't regret a second of it. Not to mention, I don't think my parents would just fork over $14K to us. there was a purpose and a budget set at the moment.

jessicaclare · January 2009

My dad paid cash. Money isn't an issue for him.

emilykristene2006 · January 2009

My mom refinanced their house. That was her plan all along. I wanted a small simple wedding. My dad also made a ton of bonuses that my mom saved up. Since I was little, my mom had ideas about my wedding. My wedding actually means more to me knowing this and knowing that it was her last year with us. She actually got to be there for it and we had a blast planning it.

ccm1203 · January 2009

My parent paid outright but it was "only" about $7K. The 20, 30 or 40K, it depends on the people some probably have saved, others probably go into debt.

happ17 · January 2009

Our parents gave us 5K each in cash, no big deal, they had it.

The rest (around 30-35K) we paid for ourselves. My parents made me move back in with them while I was engaged (torture!) but I basically had no expenses so I saved up my income in about a year.

We ended up getting most of it back so it wasn't too big of a deal.

Andrewsgal · January 2009

My parent invest a lot, they sold some stocks to pay for the wedding. All extra money no retirement savings or anything

mbg8r · January 2009

Ours was "only" 10k and my parents paid for 7 of it in cash. They could have paid a lot more if I had wanted it. My brother's was about 3 or 400k and her parents paid cash for that!

kjlrs · January 2009

i'm honestly not positive how much my wedding cost, but i would guess it was less than 20k, probably closer to 10k. it was nice and we did all of the typical type things, but didnt' go over the top on anything. my budget was "don't be stupid" and i'm certain my father paid cash.

for our daughters i imagine we will pay out of savings, investments, etc, whatever money is most accessible at that time. i wont expressly save for them but i certainly intend to have enough $$ in savings at that point so it'll be very doable.

elm1032004 · January 2009

I didn't answer below. Our wedding was just over 10k for everything right down to my dress alterations. My DH is a chef and caters a lot of weddings tough, so he KNOWS all the venders we used so we got HUGE discounts and lots of freebies (free wedding cake, free florist, his uncle is a professional photographer etc). If we had to pay for everything it would have been about double. My parents paid for the reception, they paid cash, we paid for the church, dress, gifts for attendants, the DJ and Inlaws paid for the rehersal dinner, limo and gave us a nice check that we used towards the down payment on our house when we got engaged.......but everything was paid in cash. I wouldn't go into debt for a wedding....

binnyskitch · January 2009

I will give you an honest answer. My wedding was about $50K and it's something that my parents paid for outright. They didn't have to pay for my brother's wedding, and since I'm the only girl in the family...I'm sure it was something that they knew was coming. This is exactly why my DH does not want a daughter

Angela814 · January 2009

I never thought to ask. DH's parents gave us $5k. My parents gave us $10k. I just assumed they took the money out of some sort of account.

t-lou rosales · January 2009

we decided we were going to go half half on our 30k wedding. my dad gave me 10k and i putin 5k and husband put the half since in the laws have $15 in their bank account.

Brewster · January 2009

Honestly, I have no idea. I did not pay for any part of my wedding. I am sure they saved for it and used credit for some of it. Mine was probably around 20k when it was all said and done. It could have been way worse.

eclaires · January 2009

My parents had the money - most of it was paid by the time of the wedding and then a few things were due right after the wedding.

But, I mean with deposits and money due - it was all spread out over the 1.5 years of our engagement. I imagine at some point they had to lay out $10k at once, but everything else was spread out.

mamarazzi · January 2009

I guess I'm vastly in the minority, but my H and I took out a loan to pay for the majority of our wedding. H's parents chipped in some and mine gave us about a third, but we had to pay for the bulk of it. In retrospect, it really annoys me because my dad thought he had a "say" in the guest list, venue, etc. because he'd paid for part of it. I was the first of my generation to get married and he thought we should invite ALL the family (and we're close to our extended family) and we ended up having about 350 guests show up (invited closer to 450). I wanted a simple, intimate wedding at my grandparents' farm and my dad won out. I did everything as cheaply as possible, but it still cost quite a bit since we had such a huge guest list.

jaredswife · January 2009

For my parents, they were able to pay for it all with cash. They own their own business which is very successful, and have always made smart decisions with they money.

buffalo_buckeye · January 2009

Ours was about 20K...10 from my parents, 5 from my in-laws and 5 from us.

stacynikki · January 2009

Ours was paid in cash. My IL's and grandparents don't have to worry about money. My parents had saved. We had been saving also and we paid for the honeymoon in cash since our family paid for everything else.

Samantha Thomas · January 2009

I didn't have a HUGE wedding, but it was exactly what I wanted and my parents paid cash.

hopefulmom · January 2009

My parents paid cash but it was only $3,000...which that many years ago would be about $10,000 today.

For our DD's wedding we paid cash $15,000 but she was planning for 1 1/2 years so it was over quite a time span. She had to put a down payment on her reception hall 1 1/2 years out. She bought her dress a year before, put downpayments on flowers, photos, videographer, etc. about 6 mos to a year before. So it wasn't like all of sudden there was a bill of $15,000. Now...for their honeymoon (almost 10 grand) I know they used CC's for a lot of it. Her DH had a house he was selling (she was contracted into a townhouse for another year or so so they had to live there). They sold his house and used the proceeds to pay off CC and put down payment (20%) on their current home.

I think parents sometimes save for weddings like they sometimes do for college. It depends on what they want to spend their money on I guess.

GreenEggs&Ham · January 2009

My dad wrote a check for 9K the day i got engaged. he then later wrote another one for $2500. I think it was stay under the $10K gift limit for tax reasons. he was 72 at the time, and i think he has cash tucked aorund all over.

MY in-laws gave us $5K, not sure what they had to do to get it.

we paid the rest over a 6 month span, total was about 25K