My parents are paying for my wedding and I am beyond grateful for that. But of course there is a budget. They are saying here's the money for your wedding. Spend how you'd like. So it's their money but if I want to spend half of the budget on a dress (I'm not/I didn't) then I can. I mapped out a budget for each item/group so that I would know how much to spend on each thing. If I find something over budget then I chip in my money to pay for it or take money from some other area.
Issue is my mom keeps adding things that she likes/would be neat but then that money comes out of my budget. TBH I have loved her suggestions and the things have looked better. The main issue that came up now is favors.
I FINALLY found favors I liked that are only slightly ($50) over favor budget. Minnie mouse chocolate covered pretzels matching our hint at Disney theme. She hates them. She likes favors that are $200-400 over budget. Customized M&Ms.
I'm okay with both honestly but I'm okay taking $200-$400 away from another area when I like the pretzels slightly better.
Advice of how to deal with my mother? haha
Re: Aruging with mom over her money/my budget
a) Skip favors, no one needs them. It can be a nice "extra" if there's extra money, but clearly in your case there isn't. Very low priority overall.
b) Show her your budget, and also ask if there's any category that she sees as a major priority. If she can see that customized M&Ms are going to mean $200 less to spend on something else that she also considers important, she may not see them as that crucial. If the budget is finite, not everything can be vitally important or of the highest quality, and maybe she needs a visual of that.
If she doesn't have further input at that point, say that you appreciate her ideas but unless she has a better and comprehensive idea of how the money should be distributed across all areas, you'd like to stick to the budget you planned.
ETA - Also, unless she insists, don't show her every decision you've made, if you think she's going to try to "upgrade" it.
While it's true that "they who pay have a say," I also think that once your parents said, "here's the money, spend it how you want," that meant you didn't necessarily have to run every little decision by them. Unless you believe your mom's input would truly be helpful with something, I suggest you stop sharing every single detail with her.
Here's the thing - Favors should be your "Hey, I've got $30-500 left in the budget and for some reason I feel compelled to spend it because I can (WHY?!?!?), what can I get for the money that MY GUESTS will enjoy..." Otherwise, they should not be impacting any aspect of your budget, go ahead and skip them because really, I'd rather have a larger slice of cake or a larger portion of protein for the meal instead of some piece of outdated food (smores bag), random candle, random whatever..
You might say to your mother something like, "Mom, it's really important to me that you have a good time at our wedding. Please realize that FI and I are trying to stick to our budget and make the decisions that work the best for everyone. If we don't agree about something, I hope we can agree to disagree without it affecting our relationship. If FI and I aren't on board with something, we'd appreciate it if you wouldn't take our decisions as personal rejections."
Did you tell your mom that you allotted $X for the favors and the m&ms are way over budget? Could you offer the m&ms at your rehearsal dinner and the pretzels at the wedding?