Every day brides, grooms and the wedding guestsconnected with them take to forums on Reddit like the Am I the Asshole, Wedding Shaming and Bridezilla subreddits to check on their behaviour. One wedding-related post on Reddit gained viral attention this month after a bride complained about her mother for not paying for her wedding, leading to divisive debates.
The bride shared a screenshotted text conversation between her and her mother, where her mum advised ‘You need to maybe rethink some of your expenses for the wedding, you can have a very nice wedding on a low budget. I did it.’ The bride felt hurt by this request to tighten her wedding spending, replying ‘It’s my first and only wedding, I want it to be what I want it to be. Besides, isn’t parents supposed to pay?’
This bride was expecting her mum to loosen her purse strings, but instead her mother rejected her request for financial help. ‘You have got to be kidding me? I have no money either and I didn’t pay anything for your brother’s,’ was her response.
The poster captioned the conversation ‘Maybe I’m the asshole but this hurts. I’m 36, I’ve never been married before and want my dream wedding. You’d think being her only daughter, she’d want to do something, any little thing, to help out. I’d do it for my daughter, even if I was just offering to buy the cake. But nope, I get flat out nothing [from my mother] and it’s justified with ‘I didn’t help out your brother at all with his wedding’.’
The bride says she was always prepared for her and her fiance to fund their wedding themselves, but she hoped some help would be offered to lessen the financial burden. ‘But now I know that’s not happening.’
This complaint is a real room-splitter. Most of the Reddit users commenting are fiercely ‘team mum’ with one commenting ‘I wouldn’t accept money from my mom because I knew she didn’t have enough to spare and told her to spend it on her dress. My husband and I paid for the entire thing. That’s what adults do.. this lady is really 36?’
Another replied ‘I like how the bride posts her age as if that justifies wanting the mom to pay. I can understand parents paying when you’re a 20 year old with no career or savings (though still, if you wanna get married so young do a courthouse or something.) But especially in your mid-30s shouldn’t you have the savings at this point to fund your own wedding?’
Others even felt it would be inappropriate to take money from parents even if they were offering it up. ‘My mom offered to pay for my whole wedding. I didn’t accept her money because me and my husband are wealthy enough to pay for it ourselves. Even if we weren’t, I can't imagine taking money for something so unimportant. I would just downsize on the wedding if I couldn’t afford it,’ one Reddit user commented.
But others felt differently. One Reddit user shared the story of her own wedding, which was closely controlled by her parents and considered to be a family affair, rather than just being about the bride and groom. ‘My parents wanted input in my dress, the bridesmaid dresses, the venue, and the ability to veto anything they didn’t like. Since they wanted to pick everything and made a fuss over everything I wanted, I felt like they should pay for it. So they did.’
From what I’ve seen of Say Yes to the Dress, being able to have a say on the wedding details is a common motivation for a parent paying for their child’s wedding, and it’s not exactly unheard of for mothers to be a tad controlling with weddings! In this situation, I’d personally probably tell my mum where to go. But compromising on a ‘you pick it, you pay for it’ agreement seems like a good way to keep everyone happy, as long as the parents can afford it.
It’s a long-standing idea - once a tradition and now an unnecessary pressure - that a bride’s parents pay for the cost of a wedding. My partner and I got engaged last year and if I had a tenner for everyone who’s asked me if my dad (who’s non-existent by the way) will be covering the charge, I could pay for the wedding with the total. Perhaps it’s because I have a single parent who’s always been upfront about how we work hard to pay our way for luxury items (which, let’s face it, weddings are) but I hadn’t even thought to ask my mum to pay for our wedding.
Some clearly do - a study from TheKnot.comshowed only 1 in 10 couples pay for their wedding, seeking the finances from the bride’s parents or other family members. But things do seem to be changing. In 2015, a whopping 45% of heterosexual weddings were paid for by the bride's parents while 42% of heterosexual weddings were covered for by the bride and groom, while 12% of weddings were paid for by the groom's parents.
But more recent research from Tree of Hearts shows that more and more couples have started paying for their weddings since then. And if parents do choose to contribute to their children's weddings financially, it’s still usually around 45%, with the bride and groom settling the rest. More and more couples are covering their own wedding bills entirely now.
Even if you do expect some help from your parents, support doesn’t have to be in the form of cash and it definitely doesn’t have to cover the entire wedding. I’m in the midst of planning an £8,000 wedding - my mum is covering my £600 dress and shoes. The rest will be covered by my fiance and me. I can’t express how happy and grateful I am that my parent is offering to put these contributions forward, but I wouldn’t have asked, and I would have paid for them if they hadn’t. If you can’t afford a wedding without familial help, maybe it’s not the right time to get married?
Parents who can’t help financially but want to support the bride and groom could bake the wedding cake, come along to the bridal salon appointments, or help decorate the venue. Or, provide emotional support and sound advice as parents do best! Ultimately, if you’re getting married, the wedding has been chosen by you and your partner. Your parents are already making the effort to turn up as guests looking their best, witness your marriage and party with you afterwards (which costs up to £1015 in itself, by the way.) Is this not enough? To expect anyone - parent or not - to cough up an average of £30k for a giant party and possibly even risking debt is unfair, to say the least.