unpopular opinion wednesday

hmonkey

i don't think the person paying gets to dictate absolutely everything, nor do i think you have to bow to the decisions of the payer.

i don't think saying "no" to the payer automatically equals "i'm not paying for anything, then!"

if the payer is the kind of person who would pull payment over any of the petty, stupid disagreements we see here every day, then the op probably has an inkling that the person was never going to be happy, or never going to pay.

zsazsa-stl

co-signed in theory

But I think at least some of the people that come on here to cry that their parents are being completely unreasonable about reception venues, etc. are probably trying to demand that their parents pay a lot more than the parent had in mind and the dispute is actually about money.  If your parents are paying they do get the right to tell you that you will not be paying $200+ per plate.

GBCK

I do think people need to THINK about strings and be aware of them.

I menioned that one of the reasons the Mr. has the job he has is because my aunt put in a good word.
There is a total of ONE person in ALL of my mother's immediate family I think we would accept such a favor from--it would happen to be this aunt.  Everyone else would lord it over us for years/be difficult/etc.

But it only takes 15 seconds of thnking about my relationships w/ these people to KNOW that.  I side-eye people not knowing the tendencies of their parents.

MinM

Or, GBCK, they know full well, but expect everyone's personalities to change because they are getting MARRIED!!!ELEVEN!!

GBCK

true true.  Weddings change everything.  Just like babies :-P

I do think that if you don't have SOME idea what your parents, who you've, allgedly known for like 18 years, are like, well, yoiu're a lousy judge of character.
Which, hi, if you can't figure out MOM (and I don't mean completely figure out--mine still shocks me occasionally), how the hell could you POSSIBLY have your FI figured out even a little?

loveshine1

I agree with GBCK about the strings.

DH's parents have offered things to us, but their offers come with strings. We don't take gifts with strings.

hmonkey

[QUOTE]I do think that if you don't have SOME idea what your parents, who you've, allgedly known for like 18 years, are like, well, yoiu're a lousy judge of character.
Posted by GBCK[/QUOTE]

yes.  i know my parents well enough to know when they are pulling strings and when they are not.  my dad STILL gives me grief over the time i asked him for $5 for lunch because i didn't have time to stop at the atm.  yet he's never said a word about paying for my entire wedding and letting me do what i want with his money.

related: questions of "what gift should i get for my moh/mom/dad" are just moronic.  how do you not know them well enough to know what they might like?

amatadei

I agree with OP!!!! BRAAAAAAVAAAA!!!!!! A thousand times BRAVA!

If someone is offering to pay for something for your wedding, whether it's part of it (like my FMIL, who is doing rehearsal dinner and engagement party) or all of it (my parents, who are paying for all the wedding components), they should care enough about you to listen to your opinion about it. Granted, if your opinion is that they drop thousands of dollars more than they are comfortable spending, that's one thing, but in general, it should be about the bride and groom and what they want for themselves. I don't understand people who insist on pushing their own agenda on the bride/groom when they supposedly care enough about them to pay for whatever.

Take the rehearsal dinner before our wedding, for example... FI and I wanted to have an intimate, casual dinner with just the BP, parents, and officiant (there's many reasons for this, I'll not get into it here, though I got into it with FMIL, so she does know our reasons). FMIL, who is footing the bill, wants to have a huge, fancy dinner with all our out-of-town guests and family. So, guess which one we're having?! Yep, big ole party. And we're just supposed to roll over and thank her, just b/c she's paying. We actually wanted to save her money, so it's not about the funds.... It's mainly about making a statement, which I don't understand. Why is our rehearsal dinner her time to make a statement?! If you're not willing to listen to the guests of honor, I don't know why you're paying for it.

Lauriac

I find that a lot of people, myself included, want to think the best of their parents, despite what they KNOW about them.

I won't go into the laundry list of ways my parents (especially my mother) screwed me over with this wedding. The vast majority of it was offering to pay for several people's plates (which is a large amount of money, but no where near a significant percantage of the cost of the wedding) and holding that money over my head if I don't choose the food she wants or seat people where she thinks they need to be seated or give someting she doesn't approve of as favors.

FI and I have considered cutting all of her people, but with the way our contract panned out, we'd be below the minimum and would have to pay for nearly all of them anyway. So we just grin and bear it now.

I don't complain (much) because I know it was my fault and I know it was wrong of me to naively believe that my parents were still (ever?) the people I saw them as when I was younger.

It's hard to realize that your parents are manipulating you to get what they want despite what your wishes may be and come to terms with it. I learned the hard way.

MinM

I didn't get anything for my mom. I guess I'm a lousy kid.

TheDuckis

My mom and I disagreed 100% over the band, so I booked it and paid for it myself. It was the one thing I was adamant about, so I picked that as my battle. She didn't pull funding for the entire wedding. In fact, she put more money into other things to make up for what she thought would be lousy music.

That's what she stopped speaking to me over...because they didn't play some song early enough in the evening or something. She told everyone who would listen for months that she thought we had the worst band ever, and everyone told her she was nuts. Our band rocked.