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How involved was your mom in wedding planning?
I have a really good friend who is going through a tough time as her daughter plans her wedding. The daughter lives in a different state and has very strong opinions about what she wants. My friend is mildly devastated as she said that she always envisioned being very involved with the planning of her daughter's wedding and this is her only daughter. She also brought up the fact that she and her husband are paying for the wedding and therefore should have a say in the decisions that her daughter is making.
I want to be supportive, but I am my mother's only daughter, we are super close and yet she was not overly involved in my wedding. She and my father paid for most (not all) of our wedding, but she didn't really offer much input into my decisions. She went wedding dress and accessory shopping with me as well as went on the tasting with DH and I to the caterer. But other than that, I had everything kind of picked out already because I know what I like and my mom and I have very different tastes (which seems to be the case between my friend and her daughter).
So tell me--what is a "normal" level of involvement for a mom to expect in her daughter's wedding? If you give your child money, should you expect to have more input? It seems weird to me that a mom would want to help pick the venue, the food, the photographer, the music etc. but maybe that's just me?
Re: How involved was your mom in wedding planning?
This is why with most people money comes with consequences or strings. There are the rare cases like yours where the parent has no problem footing the bill with not caring about input. Then you have the other side of it..and what seems to be the more "normal" reactions which is my money with my ideas.
My mom personally was like you. Any idea I had she respected. But I also didn't have a huge wedding. If I was having a huge wedding she probably would have told me to just pay for it myself. I also personally find it weird. As I see it the person getting married is hopefully only getting married once and should have their own dream wedding. Whether if their dream wedding is small or huge. But if that daughter is racking up her moms credit card bills then that does seem unfair also.
I think it has a lot to do with the age of the bride and who is paying.
My first wedding was paid for by my parents, I had just graduated from college so she had a LOT of input. My second wedding was paid for by me and DH and my mom was not involved much at all, although I did invite her and my MIL as a courtesy to look at dresses with me and to a tasting event hosted by our caterer.
I talked to my mom about the wedding a lot (we live in different states also), and she just went along with whatever and offered opinions when I asked. She and my dad made a large contribution to the wedding and let us spend it on what we wanted, we paid for the rest.
The only request she ever made was that we not have Coco Robicheaux officiate, which was reasonable hahaa.
My mother had involvement in looking at 2 wedding venues and then both mom and dad paid for the wedding reception place and the food and that was it. (Well $7500 lol) Then my mom helped me with dress shopping of course and the wedding guest list for our family. She through in some opinions on favors, dessert but I didn't really listen because H and I already knew what we wanted. God, she hated the idea of the cupcake tower instead of the traditional cake, but we weren't looking for traditional...I valued her opinions but ultimately it was our wedding and our choices.
Your friend shouldn't be too bummed about not being soo involved, it's especially tough when they aren't even in the same state. She needs to accept the fact that her daughter is growing up and can make her own decisions with her finace. H and I really bonded over planning a wedding because we learned that much more about eachother and our tastes.
Both my parents and H's (he's an only child) helped to pay for our wedding. My mother went to look at wedding dresses, to one of my fittings, looked at venues with us, went to the cake tastings and requested a couple of things for the ceremony. Hs mother went to look at dresses with me, went with me to pick up my dress, custom made jewelry for myself and the bridesmaids, looked at a couple of florists and get other little things here and there. I took them both (seperatly) to look at dresses for theme selves and all they were concerned with at first was if I liked it. I finally got it through to them their outfits were all about them.
They were as involved as I wanted them to be. If I didn't invite them to go to anything they would have been ok with that too but disappointed. I took their advice and feelings into account, then made my decision. I never picked something I didnt want 100%. They never forced anything on us and just wanted us happy. I think their attitude helped a lot. It made me value their advice more (and I tried to make them happy too). Everyone was happy in the end (me included) with how it turned out.
I understand you want to hear what's "normal", but after being on the Knot for over 3 years, here's the basic responses to inquiries like this by brides:
- He/she who is paying gets a say.
- If a bride wants to plan a wedding where the payor doesn't get a say, then she and her fiance pay for it.
However, having said that, I don't think your friend or her daughter sounds like they are manipulative or insensitive. It sounds more like the Mom (regardless of the fact she is paying) feels left out and the situation arising now with her daughter living out of state is the source of the problem, not the fact that she doesn't have a say. I was a bride back in August 2011, and have grown kids. I know I'd feel badly if my kids didn't ask for some input because I'm close to both my son and daughter. However, if they wanted to plan the wedding that THEY wanted, I would understand that and accept the fact that unless they asked for my advice, I'd keep to myself anything I disagree with.
BUT, and it's a big BUT, if I were contributing to their wedding, I'd offer to give them a set amount of money, not an open checkbook, carte blanche on an event that I would have paid for with no say in how it went. I'd especially take this approach if my child had been working for a while and should have saved enough to have the wedding they wanted without expecting me to finance a grand event.
If I were her friend, I'd tell her to contribute a set amount that she's comfortable with, but talk to her daughter about her feelings, not having a say in the wedding. She's hurt, not resentful.
Good luck.
My parents didn't give us money for our wedding but my mom was very involved. She went with me to look for dresses, helped me with making the centerpieces, went to food tasting with us, helped me with guest list, she did buy my veil and other small items, I'm her only daughter. We did have a few moments where I wanted to scream, the wording on the invite was a disagreement, she wanted their names along with my inlaw's names on invites, I wanted the invite to say 'together with our parents, we invite you...' without naming them specifically. We finally compromised, we had invites made her way and sent those to closest relatives and the ones our way sent to friends and coworkers. At the last minute, flower shop ran out of orchids and my mom made my bouquet from flowers we purchased at Kroger that morning, the bouquet came out beautiful and very inexpensive.
I reminded myself that my mom didn't have a big wedding and I'm her only daughter so she was very excited and maybe one day I will be helping plan my daughter's wedding (if any) so I let my mom be as involved as she desired.
My mom didn't have to pay for anything for my wedding but was still very much involved and knew what we were doing, planning, booking etc. She came with me dress and shoe shopping, shopping for my H's attire, helped me pick the wedding rings design and so on. The day before the big day she helped us with the set up and other things.
I'm her only daughter and wouldn't have excluded her, nor is she the intruding type; we felt strongly about paying for our wedding ourselves and do things exactly the way we wanted (i.e. to have a destination wedding) nonetheless I shared every detailed with her and made sure she was present for those unforgettable WR mother-daughter moments.
Mom needs to talk to her freakin' kid. "Honey, I'd love to be more involved with your wedding. I always dreamed this would be something we could do together. Is there anything I could help you with?"
My mom helped me a LOT. It was a terrible time in my life to try and plan a wedding. I'm so lucky my mom was able to make several trips to where I lived to help me with wedding stuff.
I'm in this camp.
I will say that she expected to both be involved and pay, but when she tried to hijack the whole thing and make it all about what she wanted, I said no thanks to the money, and just sent her an invitation when it was time.
I talked to my mom about what we were doing, but she didn't really have any "say". She did provide me with some money to help pay, as did H's parents, but they all realized this is OUR day, and we weren't going to go over board. They also just provided us with X amount of money.. and whatever that didn't cover we had to pay for ourselves.
My mom and dad went wedding dress shopping with me and they also paid for that. Again, while they gave me their opinion it was ultimately my decision.