My In-Laws Refuse To Help Pay For My Destination Wedding

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. My in-laws said that they set money aside for my boyfriend and his brother's wedding. However, they said that they're not going to pay for a destination wedding. So we're kind of caught in the middle of deciding, do we go destination or do we do what they want, stay in town, but maybe get some help with it? I mean, do you need the money? Um, no, but it would be nice. I mean, what would the financially smart thing to do be? I mean, I know George got his wedding paid for. I would love that to happen. Well, I wish I could give that to you. Destination weddings are going to be more expensive, I imagine. Is that why they don't want to do it? Or are there other reasons? You know what? Actually, I think the destination wedding is going to be less expensive. Overall. Based on what we've priced out so far, yeah. It depends on how you're doing it. Are you footing the bill for anyone flying out? Or is it just like the wedding is here, if you can make it great. If you can't, see you later. Great question. So if we pay for it, everyone else is going to foot the bill. It's going to be about $1,500 maximum per person to come out. However, if his parents said, hey, you know, we set this money aside, do what you want with it, we might be able to help the family members and the friends who maybe can't afford to pay for it all themselves. So what if you pitched an idea where you say, hey, guys, we also have some money saved, but we really want to do a destination wedding. what if our portion of the money goes what if your portion of the money goes towards paying for like the venue and the food and those things but our portion goes towards flying out like like key family members to make sure that they can go or like subsidizing it to a certain extent yeah so we did try to pitch that already and um we got some pushback so the issue is um his dad has nine siblings and his mom has six so we can't pay for everyone to come and so i think they want an in-town wedding so that way everyone can come but we actually want a destination wedding so we can get to talk to everyone and see everyone and make sure that it's not just you know the day's over and oh my gosh we didn't see anyone can you just do it locally and limit it and you guys just do a little getaway kind of honeymoon situation we could would that be a compromise because then you get a free wedding plus the all-expenses-paid vacation I would think that would be a compromise the issue is if we do a local wedding then the people who don't get invited might feel slighted who's not getting invited yeah you're saying because now it's local more people can come but we're still limiting the invite list i mean the invite list is still nine siblings and all their kids and six siblings and all their kids and then that's not even my family right so what are the what is his parents willing to cover financially is it a dollar amount that's what they wouldn't give me a dollar amount they said that if they give us a dollar amount our mexico trip might turn into an italy trip so it's probably significant see that's strange oh wow i'd want them i don't know why they're being kind of like not telling you the details i think if i were you i would talk to your fiance and say can you please press your parents to get some actual facts so we can plan it's not because we're trying to tell them what to do or because we're ungrateful we just need to understand clearly our options so we can make a plan can you please ask them for the dollar amount if we do it local that's all we need and then we can make a decision And then I wanted to ask you, Erica, how much do you guys have saved? Yeah, that's a good question. So I only have about 7,000 saved, but I could probably do another seven before the wedding. Now, my fiance, he has about 85 to 90,000 saved. But, you know, that was actually supposed to be allotted for a house. Yeah, that's a lot of money. We could spend money on a wedding. But, you know, if it could be free, that would be fantastic, too, you know? So I think it sounds like the biggest value is not that it's a destination. It sounds like the biggest value is we get to choose who comes and we get to choose what we spend on it because we'd rather have more money going to other things like a house or the honeymoon. Is that fair? Yeah, I do still really want the destination. I think if we do the destination, it'll limit the guest list without us having to limit the guest list. But that's the reason you're doing it then, is to sort of force the issue and go, well, they don't have to invite everyone because not everyone can come. So, yeah. So to George's point, guest list is number, if we force rank these priorities, guest list is number one, destination is number two, not overspending is number three is what I'm hearing. Yeah. Okay. So I think that what you and your fiance need to do is do what you would like to do. And that's, it's your choice. if you want to do a destination wedding do it and invite who you want and the other the adults are going to decide if they can make it or if they can't the best thing that you can do is give them a save the date pretty far in advance and let them know here's when it is and here's what it's around what it's going to cost and do what you want to do it's your day it's up to you it's not your job it's not your job to make sure everyone can attend let me say that it's your job to create the wedding that you want yeah i know i really do want the destination wedding the only other fear that i have is it kind of ticks the in-laws off when we said we wanted a destination wedding that's all right so do we need to worry about that i mean you'll you'll have to live with that i don't know how long they'll hang it over your head for yeah but you're in it for the long haul so they're gonna have to learn to like you yeah and they will they will there's always some drama i'm thinking back in my own mind about my own wedding there's always some kind of drama and over time it goes away and and it just solidifies all that does erica honestly is solidify what takes place when you get married which is that bond going towards you and your husband and you're kind of moving away from your mom and dad and your family and kind of doing things the way they want you to do them and you're moving towards you two being a unit and living your life the way you want to live your life and that's it's almost like the first foray into that lifestyle yeah if you guys are in my shoes what would you do i would personally try to come up with a compromise where they feel honored and that might be you guys do the destination wedding with a small group but then at home when you guys are back there's a big celebration and you kind of make a little your own wedding out of that and that way all the people get to come there's still a celebration and who cares when the actual you know nuptials happened that's the question then we both pay for it like we would pay for the destination they would pay for them then you guys can talk about it might be you guys pay your own way to to mexico to have your your destination wedding that could cost you 15 grand and then they might cover 40 grand for an in-person wedding back home and i would say use your money that you have and have the wedding that you would like to have give everybody a fair amount of notice price some things out and let that be that on that i think you're wanting the cake and you want to eat it too in this case it's the wedding cake but it's i want to have my wedding my way but also i want someone else to fund it even though they have their own thoughts if it's someone else's budget they're gonna have some level of say i wish they said carte blanche here's a check for 40 grand do what you want erica that would have been the cool thing right yeah i think that's what dave did didn't he i'll have to check in with dave on his plan but here's what i did our wedding that we won yeah 50 people total including bride groom bridal party so we had to throw a second party just to have everyone we wanted to have and so that was a compromise and see i had a destination wedding and we invited 75 people and i think 70 came and i never did anything else that was that that was that on that create your free every dollar budget today the simplest way to budget for your life