My son wants me to help pay for his very expensive wedding. But how much is enough?
Even though I am semi-retired and trying to be financially independent there are still many unexpected expenses and family demands for me to spend a lot of my money.
My son- who is in his mid-20s- has found his dream woman and has announced his engagement. His fiancee is a very cultured woman who grew up in a wealthy family and expects the best the world has to offer. Her parents have given her $50,000 for the wedding, reception, and honeymoon and they are planning an incredible event and honeymoon. They expect to invite about 250 of their closest most personal friends and relatives. The wedding and reception will be at a very exclusive Country Club and the honeymoon will be 5 Star.
$50K won't pay for the event and they need more money. My wife and I are under extreme pressure to pay up to another $40K for the event. So we can closely match his fiancee's parents' contribution.
The issue really comes to extreme pressure to match the contribution of the brides' parents. My son says that is the tradition and all his other friends had the same arrangement. He has gone to about a dozen weddings in the last five years and all of them were very expensive affairs, so he feels a need to keep up with his friends.
Would you as an early retired parent feel pressured to help pay for a fancy wedding and honeymoon if the fiancee's parents paid a large amount also?
What has happened is that her parents raised her to expect the best, instead of working hard for it. I don't know all the facts, but here is what we went through 2021/2022.
Daughter and son-in-law work hard, and have been through tough times when they hit adulthood. But both persevered. After he asked for permission, being in their very early thirties, they were mature enough to recognize the situation. She did all the planning, and tried to hold to $50K for 250 persons. Everything was in a spreadsheet, and I watched that grow. TBH, for a formal wedding $50K will not buy what you think, at least in our area.
All of the costs grew to 89K, but total paid by everyone was about 75K. Savings there was due to people dropping out due to COVID fears, and we ended up with about 150. He offered and paid for the band, his mother paid for the dinner, and mother also kicked in a few thousand extra. My daughter paid for some things, so us, the parents, paid about 60K.
I trusted my daughter to take care of the decisions, and it turned out well given 10 degrees at a hotel on a Jersey beach.
My daughter let us know that it was now a thing that others chipped in, and the entire bill would not be for the parents. So there is a newer reality that differs from most of the comments I'm reading here. For reference, in our HCOL there are sweet 16 and mitzvahs that approach 100K.
So you should take into consideration expectations, but of course you should push back, and do what the in-laws did. Set a budget and gift that amount. You see what the other parents did. First move, draw a line, and push the rest of the problem on young adults, who immediately want a bail-out from you.
No one answered your question at the end. Yes, I would feel pressured, and that would mean I'd gift $20K, and let them know we'd help make harder decisions. Instead of that, maybe I'd pay for pictures and music, or similar.
If my son comes to me with a proposition similar to yours, I'll deal with the specifics. Maybe her parents live on the northeast border of Ujraine and need help. But if they live in Manhattan and father runs a hedge fund, I have no empathy for the costs.
If you and son can sit down and discuss the situation rationally, it is probably a good idea.
