Who pays for family attire?

roseofdeborah

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this question, but I wanted your guy's opinion. My father is of the frugal type and he is paying for everything from wedding to honeymoon so I'm trying to keep it in a good budget from him. He just asked me about paying for my sister and her daughter to rent dresses for the wedding. I couldn't imagine why he would want to pay (both are a bit estranged from the family), but he said he was paying for my brother's tux and my sister and niece don't have clothes nice enough to wear to a wedding. 

So question A. Do you think he should offer to pay for renting a dress if he's paying for my brothers tux?

and B. If he does how in the world would they go about renting a dress for a wedding...I know about the website renttherunway but that's about it. 

Not that there's a definite answer to this but more options are helpful!

cwaggoner07

I'm pretty unfamiliar with renting dresses, and my BM's got dresses from Banana Republic during an online sale, AND they will be able to rewear them. It might be a better situation for him to just buy them nice dresses and then they can rewear them.
I understand wanting to be fair to all your kids, though.

crash2729

As who pays-the person wearing it or their parents/guardians if they are children. 

I don't know where you could rent a dress. I would recommend that you try some clearance racks. 

Even TJ maxx or Marshalls may have something nice.

MarieSD

I think that's very nice and generous of him. There are no actual rules for anything like that, but why not? If he's paying for one child's attire, why not offer to pay for the others?

It would depend on the situation though -- it might be a little weird if, say, your brother is young, no job, still living with your parents and obviously they pay for everything else for him anyway, whereas your sister is older, has been living independent and financially indepent for some time, etc. But as long as he phrases it as just an offer "hey, you know that we're paying for your brother to get a tux to wear to the wedding. Well, we just wanted to offer you $X to buy yourself a new dress for your sister's wedding, just as a little gift from us." (I would advice that he not say that he doesn't think she has anything nice enough -- I highly doubt that's true, anyway. Even in my leanest days I've always had a skirt and top nice enough for a wedding.)

Regardless, I don't think it's very common to rent a dress. There is a store in Dallas where you can rent wedding/BM/FG dresses (http://bridalgownrentalandsales.com/2.html) But it doesn't sound like she's a BM.

Maybe you could talk to your dad? Maybe he just doesn't know that you can buy dresses at any department store that are perfectly acceptable for a wedding. The most expensive dress I own (besides my wedding dress) was less than $100 from Dillards.

roseofdeborah

My brother is 40 and my sister is 39...so in my opinion they are both old enough to work things out for themselves, but I do like the idea of saying hey here's some money towards buying a dress. 

MarieSD

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_who-pays-for-family-attire?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:102Discussion:753c3653-b07c-4a3a-aca3-98d12ece0bd5Post:07221f08-83c7-4b9a-850e-a92e01a7a919">Re: Who pays for family attire?</a>:
[QUOTE]My brother is 40 and my sister is 39...so in my opinion they are both old enough to work things out for themselves, but I do like the idea of saying hey here's some money towards buying a dress. 
Posted by roseofdeborah[/QUOTE]

Wow, yeah ... I was thinking maybe your brother was 22 and your sister 30 or something like that.

My parents paid for my brother's hotel room (and he's 30 and financially independent) for my wedding, which I thought was sweet. It was just a nice gesture they wanted to do.