Honeymoon Discussions

Opps, we didnt budget for a honeymoon!

Yep, in all the planning we seemed to have forgotten this aspect. I realized about 3 months ago this mistake & now were scrambling. The wedding is end of October this year.

We considered going to Mexico & a friend gave us the name of the travel agent her family has used the last 20 years.

Then my mother in law to be says she will gift us the travel points she has accumulated on a credit card. I swear I saw 57K+ but last night she said its only 52K. This seems to be more hassle than its worth but with my planning mistake I feel like it’s all I have to go on unless we just forget a honeymoon.

 

My mother in law was given price quotes by the travel agent to which she protested immediately that the 4 various quotes were all too high & she could never afford to pay for the honeymoon. I said I was under the impression you were only donating your travel miles but she said she was going to try to pay for the whole thing. Our quotes were for 4 hotel in the Riviera Maya in Mexico for 6 night, airfare + hotel, transfers & all inclusive. They ranged from $2900 - $4700. I thought the $2900 sounded good but she said even that one was overpriced.  

 

The card she has all these points on is a Capitol One credit card. She has to log in & go under the redemption part of her travel points. There she showed us some other options. All the ones she picked we didn’t like. We asked if we could just browse & she said just tell her what we want & she would look it up. I’d rather not have her hover over me. Just let me look & see if anything catches my eye or what looks cheap. I don’t know if she thinks I’m going to take her credit card info, or I’m not supposed to see how many points she has or what the reason is.

 

My family & friends think we shouldn’t use her points & that we will regret it. Or that’s the only gift from his parents we’ll get. Which is fine, I’m not looking for X amount of money. It’s just I know a lot more was spent on his sisters wedding. I just don’t know why you wouldn’t want to do the same for your son. Oh yeah, we live with them & his sister doesn’t if that matters.

 

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just frustrated over not budgeting in the first place & now time is ticking away. Maybe it’s just that my parents are/have done so much more & his parents seem like they’re trying to go about giving us they cheapest gift possible. Which could be understandable in today’s economy if we didn’t know for a fact they are better off financially than my parents are.

 

We were given a list of options for wedding gifts. We choose the honeymoon travel points option over having his mom take over paying off a student loan. The loan is $80 a month & there’s a balance of about $1800.00 left. She said he would have the extra $80 a month to spend on other wedding things. The 3rd option slips my mind right now but I know it offended us both.

BabyFruit Ticker

Re: Opps, we didnt budget for a honeymoon!

  • Do you pay for all of your own living expenses (food, rent, groceries)? If not, it makes a lot of sense to me that your mother in law would spend far less money on her son's wedding than her daughter's, given the money she spends on your food and lodging.

    If that's not the case, I think you really just have to accept being treated differently. The reality is that it's her money and she can spend it however she likes, which isn't really your business.. How well off they are financially has no impact on the gift they give you, nor should what they give you be compared in the slightest to what you're getting from your parents.

    I can absolutely understand her wanting to be involved in choosing the honeymoon she's paying for, and not wanting to let you browse on your own. While I wouldn't choose to hover over you myself, if she's paying, she gets a say in where you go and what you do. I would want to help choose something I was paying for too.

    The options she has given you for gifts baffles me. A wedding isn't an opportunity for her to find a way to give you money; it seems odd to give a gift in a situation where you really don't care what you're giving. This whole thing is very strange to me..
    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • Wow....harsh posts! In my opinion I would just pay for your own honeymoon. Go where you want to go. I can see that she is very controlling, but she pry feels she can be because you are using her points for traveling. I definitely would start saving up for the honeymoon. You know what you could do is use your tax money for the honeymoon if that's the last resort. Than you wouldn't have to have your fmil help and pry, you guys could do it on your own!:-) I wish you luck!
  • I agree with PPs. FMIL might be annoying about wanting to have so much control over the planning, but they're her points. And she probably feels like if you guys live with them a) her son is still kind of a baby and needs her help and b) she doesn't have to spend money on your wedding because she's spending money on having you at home. Also in more traditional families, the bride's family pays for the wedding...so it makes sense to me they'd spend more on a daughter's wedding than a son's.

    If you don't want her to have this kind of control, you need to pay for your HM yourselves. Say you found a great deal somewhere else and thank her for her generous offer.
  • Wow, some of you are really harsh. I will agree with you all that if we dont like how she's going about it, then do it on our own.

    We live with her because we were saving for the wedding. We do pay rent & buy our own food, do our own laundry, etc.

    I dont see how us living in her house equals not being trusted to make our own travel plans or us lacking in credibility. We dont live in the basement, not paying rent & eating all her food while we play video games all day. Im 32 & he's 30. We both have full time jobs & are paying for the wedding ourselves. We all agreed it would be cheaper living under their roof to save money for the wedding.

    My thoughts were just if your gifting something to someone, wether it be travel points, a gift card to a certain store, cash/check, etc...you wouldnt expect the person who gave the other gifts to have a say in what you purchase. Thats just how I feel though.

    As far as the brides parents paying for things, well we have this talk over & over when we first became engaged. We were not going by the old standards. We were going to pay for the wedding ourselves & plan it around the budget we could afford. We were not asking our parents for assistance at all. My parents told me up front they were gifting us a specific amount of cash & that we could use it as we see fit. That was out gift. We added that amount to our budget.

    It is our own fault of course for forgetting the honeymoon, we know this. We just didnt expect A) to get gift choices B) for said choices to be so odd in our opinions & C) that once we decided on a gift option for it to be so difficult.

    All in all after our conversation last night we are thinking of just doing a road trip for a week. We are going to tell his mom we changed our mind. We both want to tell them to forego a gift all together since we dont want stipulations on it but there doesnt seem to be a polite way to say that so we'll see what happens.



    BabyFruit Ticker
  • Why not just take a honeymoon some other time? Then you have time to save up for it yourself.
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  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_honeymoon_opps-didnt-budget-honeymoon?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:11Discussion:80df7185-1545-4a27-90ee-1c2c5f1ea861Post:3bb11760-4f34-41d1-9cc4-9d6306532bee">Re: Opps, we didnt budget for a honeymoon!</a>:
    [QUOTE]I dont see how us living in her house equals not being trusted to make our own travel plans or us lacking in credibility. We dont live in the basement, not paying rent & eating all her food while we play video games all day. Im 32 & he's 30. We both have full time jobs & are paying for the wedding ourselves.
    Posted by GingerSnark[/QUOTE]

    I don't think anyone meant that we don't believe you can book your own HM. But if his mom has her son living at home again, she might be thinking of him as her baby boy who she needs to take care of. Maybe not, we don't know your FMIL.

    In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_honeymoon_opps-didnt-budget-honeymoon?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:11Discussion:80df7185-1545-4a27-90ee-1c2c5f1ea861Post:3bb11760-4f34-41d1-9cc4-9d6306532bee">Re: Opps, we didnt budget for a honeymoon!</a>:
    [QUOTE]As far as the brides parents paying for things, well we have this talk over & over when we first became engaged. We were not going by the old standards. We were going to pay for the wedding ourselves & plan it around the budget we could afford. We were not asking our parents for assistance at all. My parents told me up front they were gifting us a specific amount of cash & that we could use it as we see fit.
    Posted by GingerSnark[/QUOTE]

    I was the one who mentioned this, and your response has nothing to do with my point. My only thought was that HIS parents might be more traditional and for that reason put more money toward their daughter's wedding. I might be wrong, but it's what occurred to me as a possible explanation for behavior that you felt was strange.
  • My first response was worded harshly and I apologize...  The additional info that you posted leads me to think you have bigger issues than who's going to pay for the HM, however.

    It strikes me as very odd at your age to make the decision to move in with his parents to save up for a wedding.  You forgot to budget for the HM - did you also forget to budget for life after the wedding?  How are you going to pay for rent/mortgage, etc. once you're married?  Are you planning to still live with them?

    It just seems to me that your priorities are misaligned...  The only reason we'd consider moving in with parents would be in the case of an emergency (i.e. we're broke and literally homeless).  Moving in with the parents to save for a luxury (the wedding) as opposed to necessities (life in general) is not a sign of maturity.

    So I'm not surprised that your FMIL is trying to micromanage your HM.  She thinks you're still kids.  Again, sorry if this sounds mean.  But I'm pretty sure that your FMIL is thinking these things :(
  • "Opps [sic], we didn't budget for a honeymoon!"

    well, I guess you're just shiit out of luck, aren't you? go later.
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  • Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.  You take it as it is offered or you say no thank you.
    The Bee Hive Est. June 30, 2007
    "So I sing a song of love, Julia"
    06.10.10

    BFAR:We Defined Our Own Success!
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  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_honeymoon_opps-didnt-budget-honeymoon?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:11Discussion:80df7185-1545-4a27-90ee-1c2c5f1ea861Post:f92dea12-0c8b-406d-9a52-3d7727d4f4cb">Opps, we didnt budget for a honeymoon!</a>:
    [QUOTE]Yep, in all the planning we seemed to have forgotten this aspect. I realized about 3 months ago this mistake & now were scrambling. The wedding is end of October this year. We considered going to Mexico & a friend gave us the name of the travel agent her family has used the last 20 years. Then my mother in law to be says she will gift us the travel points she has accumulated on a credit card. I swear I saw 57K+ but last night she said its only 52K. This seems to be more hassle than its worth but with my planning mistake I feel like it’s all I have to go on unless we just forget a honeymoon.   My mother in law was given price quotes by the travel agent to which she protested immediately that the 4 various quotes were all too high & she could never afford to pay for the honeymoon. I said I was under the impression you were only donating your travel miles but she said she was going to try to pay for the whole thing. Our quotes were for 4 hotel in the Riviera Maya in Mexico for 6 night, airfare + hotel, transfers & all inclusive. They ranged from $2900 - $4700. I thought the $2900 sounded good but she said even that one was overpriced.     The card she has all these points on is a Capitol One credit card. She has to log in & go under the redemption part of her travel points. There she showed us some other options. All the ones she picked we didn’t like. We asked if we could just browse & she said just tell her what we want & she would look it up. I’d rather not have her hover over me. Just let me look & see if anything catches my eye or what looks cheap. I don’t know if she thinks I’m going to take her credit card info, or I’m not supposed to see how many points she has or what the reason is.   My family & friends think we shouldn’t use her points & that we will regret it. Or that’s the only gift from his parents we’ll get. Which is fine, I’m not looking for X amount of money. It’s just I know a lot more was spent on his sisters wedding. I just don’t know why you wouldn’t want to do the same for your son. Oh yeah, we live with them & his sister doesn’t if that matters.   I don’t know. Maybe I’m just frustrated over not budgeting in the first place & now time is ticking away. Maybe it’s just that my parents are/have done so much more & his parents seem like they’re trying to go about giving us they cheapest gift possible. Which could be understandable in today’s economy if we didn’t know for a fact they are better off financially than my parents are.   We were given a list of options for wedding gifts. We choose the honeymoon travel points option over having his mom take over paying off a student loan. The loan is $80 a month & there’s a balance of about $1800.00 left. She said he would have the extra $80 a month to spend on other wedding things. The 3 rd option slips my mind right now but I know it offended us both.
    Posted by GingerSnark[/QUOTE]
    The Bee Hive Est. June 30, 2007
    "So I sing a song of love, Julia"
    06.10.10

    BFAR:We Defined Our Own Success!
    image

  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_honeymoon_opps-didnt-budget-honeymoon?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:11Discussion:80df7185-1545-4a27-90ee-1c2c5f1ea861Post:98f42774-a09e-445a-a408-d453aa3c8b8d">Re: Opps, we didnt budget for a honeymoon!</a>:
    [QUOTE]Then don't go on a honeymoon. Your marriage will be equally valid without a honeymoon. Or postpone the honeymoon until you can afford to pay for it yourself. Having my FMIL pay for my fuckfest would not be on my top ten list, no matter how she was planning on paying for it.
    Posted by sarabellam[/QUOTE]

    Big thumbs up.

    H and I got married in October with a wedding we could afford, and have yet to honeymoon. It might happen this summer, depending on if we can save the money, so maybe not. We'd rather use the money we have now on like, rent and stuff and fixing my car, etc.



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    Taco cat: Always a palindrome. ALWAYS, okay J&K?

    "cool......insult my size 2 body or my natural brown hair...or the fact that my parents own a country club, I have no budget for a wedding, and I have horses. I really dont care. Its better then having roots." ~ futurepivko
  • Maybe I'm a bit too late, but I'm putting in my two-bits anyway...

    #1. I get the frustration of his sister getting more $$$ for the wedding from FMIL because I'm in a bit of the same situation (though neither wedding has happened yet). I was frustrated at first when I realized it, but guess what? It's their money to spend their way and they can do what they want. Plus, think of it from this point...didn't your mom want to buy your dress or make sure you had something? A mother will put more into her daughter's wedding because it's her little girl. Also old traditions die hard...that's how my FMIL is. Sitting and thinking about it won't help anything, ENJOY YOUR DAY.

    #2. Nobody is trying to say you can't manage money, when you don't give full information people make conclusions from said information. I forget who put it, but she shouldn't have to give you her credit card information...that's very personal.


    #3. FI and I have decided to wait to have a HM until we can afford it. We've put a lot of money into our wedding (as have my parents and his parents) and rather than putting ourselves in debt or depending on anyone else, we're waiting. I think we'll enjoy it more.


    #4. Why not get your own place and wait for the HM? Just living in your own place will be a bit of a HM at first.

  • I am also late, but I wanted to add a bit in about how much money that FILs are spending for your wedding versus Fi's sister.

     My mom is very traditional. I am talking Emily Post/ Miss manners traditional. She (along with my now late grandmother) had a savings account established when I was born to fund my wedding. It was a gift, and I am happily accepting it. My mom will be spending a bunch more on my wedding than she did on either of my brothers' because of her traditional mentality. For one brother she hosted  a very small wedding at her house and paid for their honeymoon. The other brother eloped, so she paid for their honeymoon/elopement. They might have that mentality and therefore see what they are responsible for in a different way.

    Oh and I would tell them you changed your mind on the HM, and if you do accept a gift from them, let them pay off that student loan debt. That would help you guys out the most in the long run.
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  • Some of you have good & valid points. The rest of you come off as know it all beotches. You don't know our entire situation. You only get a part of it but I'm not about to write out a full bio. I never expect anyone to sugarcoat things. As I did say above we decided to not accept the honeymoon offer but some of you still felt the need to make it a point of trying to make me feel like I'm wrong for how I feel. I'm not wrong. Nothing any of you say will change my true feeling.

    Before I moved in with him & his family. He lived with his parents. As did his sister & her boyfriend. Right before they got married they moved out into an apartment. This is all too familiar as it what many of my friends living situation is. Throwing money away on an apartment. Why would we want to waste money when we could live in a nice big house where we still have privacy & independance so we can not have a great wedding & live in a crappy part of town. Nope.

    After we get married, we're putting money down on a house. It's what we both wanted & our current situation is working out aside from my issues with the gift situation. So I will not feel anything less than happy that we're getting the wedding we want, have firmly decided on a honeymoon we are paying for ourselves & we're getting a house of our own after the wedding.

    So say what you will. It's just your opinion anyway. You don't know me & what really goes on in my life. It just amazes me how rude & mean & crass some of you can be on these message boards.

    BabyFruit Ticker
  • I'm going to try a different post:

    To save money on the honeymoon look at places around where you live that are 4-6 hours away.  It won't be the carribean or mexico but it won't have the price tag either.  Do a short honeymoon weekend and just take 1 or 2 days off of work. Don't try to stay in the nicest hotel either.  Save up for a nice honeymoon later but take a short one now.  At the end of October and beginning of November traveling season is over.  You should be able to get some pretty good deals.

    Anniversary
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