When In-laws Overstep During Wedding Planning | Wedding Q&A

Well, hello lovely humans and welcome to Engage, a wedding planning podcast for the modern day couple. I'm your host, Jamie Wolfer and I truly believe that wedding planning does not need to be complicated or time consuming. I kind of picture these episodes like jumping on a quick phone call with your wedding planner. You get your answers and you go on your merry way. Because sometimes not all of us have an hour to dedicate to listening to super long podcasts or super long intros. So without further ado, let's just jump right on into it. Today's episode is going to admittedly be a little bit all over the place. You see, every single month I sit down with the people over in the Master Plan course and answer your questions in Lifetime. So if you find yourself struggling and really need to sit down and speak with a real life wedding planner, I would love to be a part of your wedding planning journey. Join us over in the Master Plan today to get your questions answered. Until then, take a listen. How do we tell my fiance's parents that they need to contribute a lot to our wedding? Or should I even Here's a story. We had our date and all the vendors venue lined up for October 18, 2024 but then his parents threatened to not attend unless we postponed it to May 2025. We have but as the saying goes, if you have a say then you pay and then nothing more of a say than the month we get married. My parents are paying 10k and they don't have as much of a say in our wedding as his parents do. Mine live in Texas and we're getting married in Pennsylvania where his where my fiance and his family live. My dad is not super happy about this, but is fine with it because it's our wedding. I should say just I Sorry I said we should just have the wedding in October. There's no way they'd actually miss their own only son's wedding, but it's extremely important to my fiance that they be there. Originally, it seemed like the only money his parents would be giving was paying me back for the deposits if necessary. I told my fiance, cool, but they absolutely need to also pay for the part of for part of the wedding and he agreed. They're rich af, so it really shouldn't be a huge big deal. So it really wouldn't be a huge deal for them. It was already a struggle because his mom wanted him to wait at least two, preferably four years to get married. Wow. They're. My fiance is scared to talk to his parents because he doesn't want to disappoint them. The reason why we haven't got married sooner. There's a few more details, but they just paint. But they just paint his parents in even worse of a light and would make this much longer. Am I wrong to feel like they should give us at least 10k? So that's what my parents are paying. Okay, so I'm going to go based off of etiquette and facts. Most groom's parents do not pay a dime. They did not offer to pay money right other than refunding deposits. So as far as the facts go, this might be a little bit difficult to hear, but there is no expectation for them to pay anything. Right? You have a hope, you have a wish, you have a desire. If you're going to be bossy, you're going to be opinionated, you're going to be rude, you should pay. But they have no commitment to that. They have not said anything along those lines. If I'm incorrect, please feel free to correct me on this one because I definitely don't want to overstep. But you can feel like they should give 10k but they have not committed to give 10k. So they have every right to go, no, I'm not going to. Regardless of how rich they are, everyone has a right to say no, I'm not giving money towards this. And as hard as this is, you made you and your fiance chose to make that switch based on the emotional relationship, not in exchange for money. So I can also see on the flip side of that same exact coin. I can see every single right why you would go up to them and say hi and I would recommend doing this with your fiance. I don't recommend you do this by yourself. I think both of you need to do this together and I think he needs to feel confident enough to do this with you. It should not be a solo mission. That's not going to personally, I don't think that'll go well, nor will it bode well in the next 10, 20, 30 years as you age and grow with this family. Hey, we would love to create a fantastic event. Wondering what you'd be willing to contribute. We actually have a whole worksheet where you can work through how to talk to parents and or contributors about money. I highly recommend that you take a look at it because it'll give you some talking points and or a piece of paper to hold on to when you're nervous. So that's a really good option for that. Do you. Are you wrong for feeling like that? No. Is There an expectation that they should pay. Etiquette says no, but that doesn't necessarily need to stop you from having the question. And I'm not always an etiquette rule follower. Please know that. Please hear that. But this feels like something you've built up on your end without having a conversation with them at any point. So if you'd like to have that conversation, absolutely, there is a chance that they will say no. And then you need to figure out what boundaries you want to build moving forward. You need to figure out how to help your fiance have those conversations, how to help him build those boundaries. Because as we've already seen on the flip side of this, we've got another bride that's in here that's like, hey, my fiance doesn't like my parents and I have to navigate this issue. So being the center point for two disgruntled parties can be a lot for the central person. So this might be a lot for your fiance. Now, a no is no, and a yes is yes. Right? Let your yes be yes. Let your no be no. And you could just stick with it and keep repeating that word. Hey, I'm not moving the wedding again. I don't want to do that. We can't afford to do that. It doesn't make sense. And also, I feel like arming the conversation with facts instead of feelings is very, very helpful. Hey, we are having the wedding in Pennsylvania. We are super excited about that. That's obviously where we live. That's where you live. We would like it to be an event that is up to. Up to standard, not up to your standards. Up to standard. And we're curious if you would like to contribute, because we want to make sure this is an incredible event that you and your friends and family and my friends and family can all enjoy. Or you can go into it, obviously, I can't stop you for saying this. You can go into it and say, hey, you made us move things around and we lost some deposits on stuff. So, uh, if you could reimburse us for that and if there's any additional you want to send towards the event, since we did move it per your request, we would really appreciate it. Notice then kind of keeping any emotion out of it, any feelings. We're just going the facts here. And that I. I see tends to be a much better way to handle these conversations is when you stick with facts and not feelings. Sitting here listening to a podcast is all fine and dandy, right? But sometimes you need an actual person to be asking some of these questions. To and you may be sitting there going, you know what, Jamie? Actually yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. I would love to be able to ask you these questions. Guess what? You need to join the master plan. You've heard me talk about it, but do you know why I love it so much? You get over 10 lessons that walk you through planning your wedding with videos and spreadsheets and other detailed resources along the way. Join me and my virtual clients over in the master plan and get all your wedding planning questions answered. Literally thousands of couples have gone on this journey with me and I'd love for you to be next. Check it out@wolferenco.com tmp that's wolferenco.com tmp Listen, wedding budgets suck. They're just like the actual worst. And the hardest part for me is that weddings are not cookie cutter. They're not one size fits all. And I think it's important to make sure that you're budgeting according to your priorities. Build a budget that works with your vision and you'll be on the path to planning a wedding that you really want. So if you want my recommendations for making your perfect budget for you and your partner, head on over to weddingpriorities.com both sets of parents are teaming up to cover wedding costs. What is the best way to stay organized when booking and purchasing different wedding things over time? Their recommended way to divide up costs if they're going 50, 50 couple options that you've got here is you can choose a separate account and have them donate and or contribute to that account and you just pay out of it. If they would like to pay as they go, you can keep a running tab. That's the whole reason that we've got the budget spreadsheet in the master plan. You can even annotate like this one's my fiance's parents, this one's my parents, this fiance mine and kind of keep a running tab that way it's harder to go straight 5050 if you're dividing costs like right down the line. So half of catering, the other half of catering that gets more difficult. So see if you can assign photographer to one dress to the other. If you're wearing a dress catering to one rentals to another so you math the math on your own and then assign vendors for your each parent to pay for. That would be how I'd recommend doing that. If you do not have a central account that they are just going to flat contribute to flat contribution way easier, way less messy. Also you can see all of Those numbers go down, right? And then you can be really clear about what their contribution is or what you'd like for their contribution to be. You can also be really clear about your budget. And then it's just a one and done thing as opposed to kind of the pay as you go that sometimes we've seen parents be like, what, another payment, another thing going on. So the more organized you can be with your budget, more clear you could be with the expenses, the better all of this will go. All right. So hopefully that one helps you. All right. My fiance and I are having a large wedding. 250, 300 people. That is large wedding. Great. I love large weddings. We want it to be as child free as possible. We are basically saying that if you are traveling, driving and would not be able to attend otherwise, you may bring your kids. My family is from further away and would be flying. How do I delicately broach the topic of sending an invite to my cousins only and not all the spouses and children? My side of the family is 25 total. But if we go down to cousins and not children, that number drops to 13. Have never met spouses or children. Wedding is August in 2025. All right, Vika. Okay. General rule of thumb, if there's a ring, they can bring. So it's a lot harder to say your spouses are not invited. I get having a very large wedding and you want to cut costs. There could be some etiquette, feathers that are ruffled if you say, I don't care if you're married. You don't. You can't bring them right now. It depends on how, like, the culture of your family. It depends on how important that is to them. It depends on how frustrated they'll get by this. And usually a good pulse for that. Is your mom or your dad depending on what side of the family this is on, or a grandmother just be like, hey, so I'm thinking about not letting spouses come thoughts. And if they're like, no, that could help you kind of gauge how you'd like to move forward. You have every right to say, no spouse is allowed. Here's how you communicate that. That is on the invitation, the front of the envelope itself, right? So instead of the Wolfer family, which would tell me, it's myself, my husband, and all of my children are invited. If you want just couples, it would be Mr. And Mrs. Wolfer. That would be my husband and I. Now, if it's just me, it's Jamie Wolfer or Mrs. Jamie Wolfer. If you want to get fancy with it. Okay. But it's indicated on the outside of the envelope. In addition to that on the RSVP card. You need to tell them how many seats have been reserved in their honor. Okay, so if it's Mrs. Jamie Wolfer, one seat has been reserved in your honor. That's how you communicate how many seats are available for this person. And then make sure whatever RSVP tool you are using, which by the way, the spreadsheet, the master plan, if you export it as a CSV file, fits into almost every single RSVP tracker online. Do you know how long I, I worked on that? So long that all the categories would match up with Zola and the knot would transfer over so beautifully. So please be using that spreadsheet as you're putting your guest list together because it will transfer over so nicely. It's seamless. I love it so much. So that way when they're RSVPing, they can't add more people. You've been very particular about who is added onto this list. So etiquette wise, no, technically in most cultures, you can't just invite the cousin that you know and not their spouse. Fiances are also included. This, if there's a ring they can bring. No ring, no brain. This does get a little, you know, a little more sketch. If someone's been together for like five, six, seven years and they are considered, is it, what's the term? Common law marriage? Right. Is that what that is? So, however, if you would like to communicate having adults only at your event, and I would also recommend firming that up because the, if you're traveling from far enough, far away enough, you can bring your kids, that feels really wishy washy. And you might find people that are closer to you. Being like, that's frustrating. Just because I didn't drive over three hours, I can't bring my kids. That's not fair. You can totally be like, that's fine, cool. You don't have to think that's fair. I'm paying for everybody. You don't have to own their emotions, but you might want to draw a lot more cleaner of a line and maybe have a child free wedding altogether. Most of the time. What you'll end up seeing, especially in a situation with cousins, is if it's kid free, they're going to leave the spouse at home with kids and then only come themselves. So you kind of figure out your own, you kind of solve your own problem by inadvertently only creating a child free wedding. So the communication of only if you're close enough or only if you're traveling for far enough away can you bring your kids. Gets could frustrate people. That's totally your choice. Just saying it based off experience. So let me know if you have follow up questions on that. I think if you just go kid free it'll solve a lot of these problems. Though I do have a whole video on how to communicate adults only. If you want to go take a look at that and then Wedding Guest List Rules Again, rules are meant to be broken, so if you don't want to follow them, you don't have to. I'm just keeping you the tradition and then you can choose what you want to break. If you are struggling with wedding planning and you have questions and you just need someone to listen and to chat with, come join us in the Master Plan community over at the Masterplan. I would love to have you in there. Thanks so much for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe, jump on over to wherever you're listening to this podcast and leave a five star review so we can let the podcast people know that Jamie knows what she's talking about sometimes. And until next time, Bye guys.