Abby Connolly
If you got married and had a traditional wedding, you know just how expensive the process was. I’ve always felt bad for couples who are pressured to throw a big, expensive wedding by their relatives but don’t receive any help from those relatives to do so.
One woman wants to tell her future mother-in-law that she’d need to pitch in if she wanted her and her son to host a big, fancy, white wedding.
She’s 28 and getting married to her 31-year-old partner of four years.
While her side of the family earns a decent living, they’ve never been rich and have some debts to pay. Therefore, they couldn’t pitch in a lot of money for her wedding.
On the other hand, her partner’s parents are very well-off, Southern, conservative, and on the older side. Therefore, they’re pressuring her and her partner to have a wedding with an elegant old-money vibe.
“My mother-in-law has old money expectations for this event [and] she suggested ridiculously expensive caterers and even pushed for us to choose the single most expensive venue in our entire state,” she said.
“We explained to [my in-laws] our budget constraints and that we were covering a large portion of the event ourselves as my parents can’t really afford to pay for an entire wedding. They still firmly believe that only the bride’s family should pay for the wedding, so they’ve offered no help.”
This didn’t come as much of a surprise to her, as her in-laws are old-fashioned and believe the bride’s family needs to pay for the wedding because their son will support her for the rest of her life.
However, she and her partner are already going against their norm, as she pays most of the bills and extra expenses so he can go back to school.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
