I'm Embarrassed By My Kid's Wedding Plans

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. My daughter is getting married pretty soon, and about five years ago her sister got married, and my husband and I offered them $20,000 to cover wedding expenses, and that worked out well. And we've done the same with this daughter, but she and her fiancé are very frugal, and they would like to just spend $6,000 or $8,000 on their wedding, and have asked us if they could use the rest for other costs, you know, future house down payment or something like that. And it's great that they're frugal, we appreciate that, but we have some real concerns about not enough food, not enough seating. They're cutting corners so much that we feel it will be a regret. It'll be what? In the future. That they will regret it in the future. Okay, I gotta jump right in here, and let's lean in on this. So you and your husband feel this way. Have you brought up those concerns to them specifically? We have. And what was their response? We believe it is a waste of money to spend so much on one day, and our values are more that we just want to save money, and we're okay if it's a real minimalist day. But they do still want to have a full dinner and 150 people. Okay, so let's lean in on that one. Did you start walking through with them, how are you going to feed 150 people? We did. And what they say? And it's okay if we have minimalist food. Like what? Like pizza rolls? Like what are we saying? Well, yeah, like do they have a real plan is what I'm... So I don't keep asking 100 questions. I'm getting at, do they have an actual plan? And then the second question is, if they do, you just don't like it. Is that true or false? Hey guys, George here with an important heads up. Mortgage interest rates just dropped, and that is great news if you've been holding off on house hunting or refinancing. But it also means a lot of other people are about to jump back into the market. And my good friends at Churchill Mortgage will give you a custom plan and a special offer so you can buy or refinance the smart way before the market shifts. So go check it out by going to churchillmortgage.com slash ramsayoffer. That's churchillmortgage.com slash ramsayoffer. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. You just don't like it. Is that true or false? They do have an actual plan. Okay. You're embarrassed by it. Well, we are. We're inviting a lot of people. We're not even sure they'll have chairs. Can I just say, and Jade will not, probably will not like this. I just am thinking of past calls. I am ultra conservative on wedding costs. And I say, this is a fabulous young couple. And I say, it's either a gift or it isn't. And if the money is a gift, when I give someone a gift, all right, let me just use Sam as an example. I know Sam loves shoes, for instance. If I buy Sam a pair of custom Jordans or something or other, and I give them to him and Sam's going to be like, oh my gosh, thank you. And I go, hey, now listen, I don't actually want you to wear these outside the house. That's wild. It's too much. But my point is, I guess it's insane, but it's a true example. If I give Sam a gift of shoes, I don't get to tell Sam how and where he wears his shoes. I'm giving him a gift. And I actually think you should honor this request and you need to get over it. And I would start bragging on him. I love the fact that their response to you was our values are this. I love that they actually have a plan. And you know what? As much as you joke about it, if they want to offer pizza bagels, step into it and tell all your friends, we want you to come honor our daughter and son-in-law. And you know what? This is the most frugal couple. It's not your normal wedding, but we're so stinking proud of them and they're going to take what they save on the wedding and they're going to put it to starting their life off and paying off debt and change the narrative. Because I'm going to tell you, I'm preaching right now, but if they feel what I think they've already felt from you and you don't change that tune, there's going to be resentment around what could be the most special day of their life, but it's their special. So that's it. I'm out. That's all I got to say. I concur, my friend. Wow. I 100% agree because everybody has a picture of what a wedding should be. You gave them, you guys came up with that amount based on what you think a quote, good wedding would cost is my guess. And so the hardest part is I think for the parent and for the child is when you're not matching up. And I think everybody's probably experienced it, who's been married. The parent wants one thing, the bride or groom wants something else. And ultimately it's the bride or groom's wedding. I got a hot take. Remember this, Karen, 50% of the wedding attendees don't even care about the wedding. It's dudes. Any dude that's going to that wedding is going because his wife wants him to be there. And we don't care if there's they probably like the pizza rolls. You could, you could hand out peanuts. Yeah. Guys don't care. Only people that really care about all that is our women at the wedding. Guys have to have good food. What's that? Guys have to have good food. Don't they? No. I mean, they'd be okay with pizza rolls and beer. Are you kidding me? This guy in the audience is shaking his head. Yes. No, I'm serious. Like the average guy, the average I'm trying to, and I'm not trying to be funny. I'm actually being the average guy that you will invite to this wedding is only coming because of the social pressure to come. They would much rather send their wife and stay home and watch football. And so they're there because they have to be there. They don't want to dress up. I think most people fall into that camp. Let's be honest. Okay. See, I wasn't going to speak on behalf of women. Cause I don't know. I assume women love the pageantry and all the things. If it's a best, you know, if it's our maid of honor or like a best friend or a sister. Okay. Yeah. Family member. But if it's Linda from church or from work, it's like, ah, I gotta go. A hundred percent. I gotta get a gift. A hundred percent. You know why? The meal makes me stay at this place. I don't want to be at longer. The cake is the best part. If you have a good cake, you're fine. I don't even care. I go buy cake. If I want to buy cake, I can buy cake. People stay for the cake. I have made enough money in my life to buy cake whenever I want to. So if I want cake, I'm not staying at a wedding for cake. I'll just go to Kroger and go, Hey Stacey, I just want cake tonight. I'm just saying when you go to the wedding, the thing that you look forward to is not the ceremony. It's not the, I it's you're looking forward to the only thing that guys look forward to at a wedding is when they get in the car and go back. So the point here, Karen, I love this couple. They don't need to spend the money on it. And it's okay that they're doing something different and it's okay that you don't understand it. It's okay that it's not the way you would spend the money. I think that that's just them expressing themselves within their values. And I like Ken's idea to just, just get with it and be like, this is, this is going to be fun. It's going to be different. And I will throw out something else because I've been so, I know I've been so whatever you could call me plain spoken on this. If you guys want to do something for your closest of friends, then y'all go rent yourself a country club room that you can afford. And you do a special fancy something or other for those people. If you really want something that's super impressive, makes you feel good. But the bride and groom probably wouldn't like that because that's not how they get down. But Karen didn't call about them. She called about her. Right. But if I, if the tables were turned and I'm just going to put me in Karen's spot, if I got, was getting money from my, my in-laws or my parents and they said, here's 20,000, we said, we're going to spend it like this. And then they came to me and said, well, then you need to come to our party over here. That's our country club folk. I'd be like, I don't want to do that. I'm just trying to, Karen, I'm just trying to be nice and spare your feelings. I get it. Trust me. I get it. I really do. I understand your position, but I was just trying with a little bit of levity to go. It's not as big a deal as you think. Yeah. It's, it's, it's really not, you know what I mean? No one's going to look down at you. I'm not worried about people looking down at us. You just don't want it to be. Well, you said you were embarrassed. That's why I chose that language. As my friend would say, she calls it budge when something's like not, not up to standard, I guess like low budget, like budge. You don't want it to. Yeah. It's a new word. And it doesn't need to be glorious. Just enough food and enough, and enough basics. Yeah. Chairs. You're just trying to keep like basic etiquette, like etiquette level. Exactly. Is. Yeah. I got it. I got it. So you might, you might read the room a little bit and ask questions instead of making statements. Maybe you say, oh, if you do that, will there be seating for everybody? Or are you expecting, like, are these standing to just ask questions and then maybe offer suggestions in the form of a question? I wonder if they had a way where you could have like, you know, and just, just be very light. It's just like, you're like the breeze and you mentioned it and you move on. You don't harp on it. No, I just think get a nacho bar. Everybody loves that buffet style. Get after it. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.