WWYD.... big decision!

insanityofamom

This is our second attempt at a wedding. The first time, my parents offered to help pay for the wedding- and came up with a number. We told them we felt comfortable that with that number we could pay for the ENTIRE wedding. My mom said she did not feel comfortale "paying" for the entire thing - so I told her "I don't want to spend more than X" - so if you are giving me X- I don't want to spend more than that. Don't ask me why she didn't give me less than X, but she didn't, so we argued about it for a couple months. In the meantime, my FI got fired from his job, and we were limping by financially. After he got fired, my mom said "If you postpone (nothing had been booked at this point) we will give you X+1, and an extra K for the wedding gift" Yeah, she bribed us. And, being broke, unable to pay for the wedding ourselves at that time, we said, sure why not. 

Fastforward a year, I start talking to my mom about starting to plan a wedding and she goes AWOL, doesn''t return my calls, won't return emaisl, etc, so finally, I just dropped it. FI and I saved up our own money to pay for our wedding and that's what we're doing. 

Until last week, when my mom got the invitation. 

She's now offering to pay for the catering. Due to bad timing, we have to host two meals, and it will be extremely stressful for us (FI and I) to manage both. We were thinking we could "let" my mom pay the catering for one of the meals.

My  big worry is that she will flake at the end and then we will be left with a bill we can't afford. We could not come up with the money to cover the bills if she flakes. Oh well, I told her I would send her prices. 

I have a friend who owns a catering company who is working with me to make my menu and determine cost/budget if I make my own food. He is being super helpful. 

CarolineandDean

Just curious, but why are you hosting 2 meals?  

Personally, I would not count on a dime from her until you have the physical cash/check in hand.

mmmendi

I say go on as planned, on the budget that you and FI have already set. It would be great for Mom to contribute! If she does not, you are still within your budget.

BrittneyRN

I'm also wondering why you are hosting 2 meals and what exactly that even means.I oils host what you can afford, and if she gives you the extra money, then great.

SomethingBeautiful08

I agree with everyone else, don't plan on something that you can't without your mom's help.  I wouldn't let her pay the bill directly, I'd give her the cost estimates and ask that she puts the fund in the checking account you are using to pay wedding expenses.  If she complainss give her the "Our names are on the contract, we'd like the payment to be directly in our name to avoid confusion" or something like that.  Keep in mind that if she does help pay for something she should have some say in it, but I'd let her make some small desision that you don't care much about... i.e. the choices of salad dressing, one of the dishes etc. 

insanityofamom

We are hosting 2 meals because all of our family is from out of town. Our original plan was to host only 1 meal.... Plus, our families have never met each other. His dad met my mom once, and that's it. So, we're doing some casual/fun food for Fri night, and then on the wedding day, due to the timing of the ceremony, we have to host a lunch for the reception. 

See, I'd rather go the other way and have her name on everything so that way SHE gets stuck with the bill with her name on the contract. 

Right now I am just getting estimates of cost and setting up tastings. 

There's no way to do catering so it's within our budget. Our budget for food for 2 days is "X" - the cheapest catering I found so far is $300 less than X. Obviously she will end up spending close to double (or more) of our budget "X" for food if she pays for the catering.