How do I get my mom on my side???

Re: How do I get my mom on my side???

• randomslove member

  

  July 2015

  Honestly? If you accept your mother's money, you have to accept her stipulations. If you want to choose the venue, etc., you need to pay yourself. I know it's tough. I'm a veteran who is now going to school full time and my fiance will also be a student when we get married... I know handling the finances yourself can hurt the wallet, but that's the cost of having the wedding you want.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Jen4948 member

  

  July 2015 edited July 2015

  Unfortunately, they who pay get the say.
  
  If you accept your mom's money, you'll have to accept the strings attached. If you don't want a wedding in California, I'd save for a Portland wedding and tell your mom, "Mom, FI and I have thought about what we want to do for our wedding, and we've concluded that the California wedding you want us to have isn't going to work for us and we aren't going to do that. Thanks for offering to pay for our wedding, but since we're not going to California, we'll pay for our wedding ourselves."

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• AddieCake member

  

  July 2015 edited July 2015

  You CAN have a wedding without her help. You just might not be able to have one with "all the trimmings" that you might like. Decline her money, save up, and have a nice, simple wedding that you can afford. It might not be what you were hoping for, but at least you won't have been manipulated or forced into anything.

  What did you think would happen if you walked up to a group of internet strangers and told them to get shoehorned by their lady doc?~StageManager14

  

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• ShesSoCold mod

  

  July 2015

  AddieCake said:

  You CAN have a wedding without her help. You just might not be able to have one with "all the trimmings" that you might like. Decline her money, save up, and have a nice, simple wedding that you can afford. It might not be what you were hoping for, but at least you won't have been manipulated or forced into anything.

  
  This. The venue issue could be only the first in a very long list of disagreements and expectations between you and your mother. My advice us to decline her money, save every penny you can and plan and host your own wedding. It might mean pushing back the date and forgoing some extras, but it absolutely can be done. Stick around and visit the budget board. We can definitely help with budgets.

  
  

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• MobKaz member

  

  July 2015

  aileona193 said:

  Fair warning: this is a long-winded post.. I'm kind of freaking out. I've only got a matter of days to make this right, and I don't know how.

  
  

  So, my fiance and I got engaged last August, and we've decided to put the wedding off until December of next year. We're just starting to get into planning this whole thing, and we figured a good place to start was looking at venues.

  
  

  Some backstory: he and I are both college students, so my mother has told me time and time again not to worry about the expenses for the wedding. I took this to mean that if he and I were reasonable about incurred expenses, my parents would cover what needed to be covered. 

  
  

  But, my mom did tell me that she'd love for us to consider my aunt's property in Northern California -- it's hours from the nearest airport, and everyone (everyone) would have to stay in a hotel, rent a car, take several days off of work -- not to mention it's in California, which would make the whole thing just heinously expensive. But most importantly, a big consideration for me is having the people there that I actually want to celebrate with, and if we have it in California, at least half of our friends would not have the wherewithal to attend.

  
  

  So, with this in mind, we started looking for venues in and around the Portland area. We live relatively close, and we love, love, LOVE Portland. We found a wonderful venue that's reasonably priced, and even my fiance got excited about it (which was surprising, because the whole planning process has been pretty daunting for him). They even were going to give us a discount if we put the deposit down within the first couple weeks after our tour!

  
  

  Excitedly, I called my mom to ask if she'd be able to help us put the deposit down on the venue to lock in the lower rate, but when I did...
  
  She told me that my aunt has been "on the wire" for us to have the wedding at her property, and has been thinking this whole time that we would be having the wedding there. I tried to explain my viewpoint on the whole thing, but she went on to say how she has brothers and sisters out there, how they'd love to see a family wedding at my aunt's property...... **sigh**.

  
  

  So, basically, I'm getting the feeling that her "contribution" to my wedding is contingent upon my bending to how she wants this wedding to go. And I've been trying to be cost-efficient: find a reasonably-priced venue, save all the money I can by doing online invitations, have friends do videography and music for the event... but we can't do a wedding at all without their help.

  
  

  How do I get my mom to understand that what my fiance and I want is our wedding celebration in Portland -- not a family reunion with a wedding ceremony in California? And how do I do it in such a way that she won't be salty about it for the rest of the planning process?

  
  
  It sounds like you need to start at square one. 
  
  You need to start with a budget and a guest list.  I don't know why you would be looking at venues in Portland or anywhere else if you are unsure as to how much money you have or how many guests you need to accommodate.  It is never appropriate to ask friends to perform services for your wedding. 
  
  The best way to have a wedding celebration in Portland is to finance it yourselves.  You can do a wedding without their help.  You can also have HER wedding with her finances. 
  

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• jacques27 member

  

  July 2015

  Not sure why you're even looking at venues when you don't know what your budget it.  Even taking California out of the equation, what may be "reasonable" to you may not be reasonable to her.  You can't shop for anything without knowing exactly how much money you'll have available to you.  Right now, you're doing it backwards.
  
  1.  Make a budget.  This means finding out exactly how much money your mother will contribute if you accept her money.
  
  2. Make a guestlist.  If your "dream venue" can only hold 125 and your guest list is 150, it's not your venue.
  
  3.  Now you can start thinking about venues and dates.  If your budget and guest list means you can only afford a public park at a non-meal time with a cake and punch reception, then start looking for parks and bakeries. 
  
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  Adding California back into the equation and "reasonable" - it comes back to a budget discussion.  Perhaps your mother offered because she figured the aunt's property would be "free" and she doesn't have the budget for your venue.  Or she's putting conditions on her money, which is is absolutely within her rights to do.  You can have a frank discussion with her about what you were hoping for the wedding, but the reality is that no one is responsible for paying for your wedding except for you and your fiance.  If she offers the money, great.  If she offers the money, but with conditions (only if you have your wedding in CA, or only if you invite these members of the family, or only if she gets to pick the menu), she can put those conditions on her money.  Then you have to decide if those are conditions you can live with.  If you can't, then decline her money and pay for your own wedding.  That may mean you have to wait longer until you're out of school and working to save up the money.  Or that may mean you can only afford to invite a small number of people or have to give up the dream venue and cut out a lot of the things you want. 
  
  Also, word of advice, if you accept the offer of money from other people, you shouldn't count on it until it's actually in your hand.
  
  So, TL;DR Version:
  1. Only you and your FI are responsible for paying for you wedding.
  2. If someone offers money, they have the right to make it conditional.
  3. If you can't accept the conditions, then you pay for it yourself.  This means you may have to compromise and either have the wedding that only you and FI can afford, or wait until you and FI can afford the wedding you want.
  

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