Im meant to be getting married on June 16th 2007 but my mum has just said she isnt paying for anything?

If you’re old enough to get married you’re old enough to fund it.

Despite many misconceptions to the contrary, the parents of the happy couple aren’t obligated to fund anything. There is certainly a tradition, but it’s not something you’re entitled to.

I’m sorry your mother reneged on her promise to fund this. Blame is irrelevant anyway; let’s get to fixing this.

You don’t have to cancel your wedding. You do have to scale it back to something within your own means. Keep in mind that the wedding day is just that: a day. All that fairy princess queen-for-a-day stuff is flogged by a bridal industry with a HUGE profit margin. If you lose deposits, you lose deposits.

If my child wanted gobs of cash for a wedding, I’d decline too even if I had it. It makes no sense. For the costs of some weddings, the happy couple could put a down payment on a first home!
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P.S. Other answerers down there suggested that you ask for “donations” from wedding guests. DO NOT DO THIS. It is incredibly tacky. Would you invite people to your house for a party and then have a cover charge? Couples are supposed to invite guests to share their special day; NOT to shake them down.

Stop moaning and get yourself a job!!

you should be doing your own thing not your parents

And you didn’t know all of this BEFORE you started booking the services? Seems sort of difficult to believe…

I guess you’re stuck, until you can pay for the wedding yourself. Learn the lesson and delay the date.

Did they say they would in the first place? if not your your very rude for assumiong they would and will learn in future.

Two words ELOPE
That’s the only way you can do that if you have no cash then there is no point and having a “nice wedding” Just go to Vegas and Elope screw everyone and everything, just go with you and your man…My parents did that they found eachother on the net and they eloped to Vegas and 8yrs now they are still Happily married =D

(my step dad)-Real dad died when I was 9

ask potential wedding guests to make a donation to your big day, rather than buying u a wedding present. i’m sure if u explain the situation to them, they will be more than willing to help.

My husband and I had to get a bank loan to pay for our wedding in 1995. Took 3 years to pay it off. Good thing we’re still together.

Well the important thing is to get married cut everything to the bone just go to a registry office and do the deed cost about £100.00 thats what we done and our friends are still our friends and we are still vey happily married. just get married no matter what other people think. take your vows before god at a later stage if thats what you want

dont hung your basket higher than you can reach.
do a wedding you can aford with your partner.

That’s such a shame hun, try not to get too upset about it though, there’s still things you can do. Instead of getting a traditional wedding list (you probably have a kettle and toaster anyway!), why not make up a list for which your friends can pay for parts of your wedding day. I know someone who did this with some parts of her day, and it worked well. You could have gift options as ‘1 bride’s bouquet’, ‘10 favours’, ‘1 metre of dress’ etc – make it fun! It’s nice for your friends too to get you things that will make a real difference to the day and your memories. You may still be able to renegotiate with the photographers for a cheaper package too. I know it’s easy to say but avoid putting it on a credit card if you can. Good luck!

Way to go to plan well.. I’m sure this will be a lesson for the rest of your married lives.
Weddings shouldn’t br about the cost. I think now days if you want to get married you should PLAN and BUDGET and pay for it yourselves.
However, I would try and downsize as much as possible… maybe Ebay your dress and buy another one. Expensive isn’t always the prettiest.
Try and get back as much for things you have booked and when you can’t, maybe canceling and losing the booking fee will still be the best thing to do.
Ask that your guests bring either a digital or disposable camera to the wedding and take lots of photos. Cancel the photographer and get a professional pne done later when you do have the money.
Maybe ask for cash gifts instead of wedding gifts and ask that they be paid before the day.
Make it a “potluck” dinner and get people to bring food so you cancel the caters.
Good luck and all the best…I hope it all works out.

What’s the problem? Do you want a big wedding, if your parents and future in-laws are both in a financial crisis then you can forget it and focus on your sweetheart’s and your own love and say I do in rags and stay at a hotel for two nights. Afterward you can focus on an apartment shopping. Love is worth it!

Did you speak to your fiance about this and discuss options – eg getting extra jobs, taking out loans, see what your cancellation options are?

A similar thing happened to my friend.
She was distraught then the old back to the wall mentalitykicked in.
She booked an afternoon tea party at the local hotel at £3.50 per head and they allowed he to bring her own champagne for toasts with no corkage this particular hotel provide afternoon entertainment by way of a musical quartet.
She only invited 20 people to this so it cost her £70.
She bought a bunch of red roses from tesco and tied them with ribbon for her and her two bridesmaids they cost £3 She got an iced celebration fruit cake from tesco and put the flowers on it after the ceremony that cost her £8 they drove their own cars.
If you already have your dress so that’s not a problem neither are the photo’s so you only have to find about £100 and you can still go ahead with it.
In the evening they invited all of their friends to join them in the local pub. It was a great do and cost next to nothing.
You don’t have to have a lavish do – married is married at the end of the day.
I hope you manage to get everything sorted out and hope you have a long and happy marriage.
All the very best
x

OK calm down, first mostly you have put down payments on such services as a cake, maybe your dress, a hall. If you cannot afford the wedding you origainally planned on then figure out what you can afford. Cut back on the things that matter the least and emphasize those the matter the most. No matter what you will need a cake (no one has started this at this point) so go and talk to them about changing the cake to a smaller or less expensive one, you can do this with each thing you have put a deposit on. Scale down your expectations and remember every bride is beautiful and all weddings are perfect (if only for a moment). You should be able to work things out with most vendors who have not started working on your things quite yet. Good Luck on your marriage. PS if you dont want to scale down the wedding and have what you can afford-then perhaps you are too young and immature for marriage in the first place -just maybe.

You know parents are the source of our living today on this earth, and without them, we have not been born. So the best thing for you is to obey your mother’s instructions, may be she has some reasons for saying no and having some good plans for you. Mind you money is nothing. The more you live, the more you get.

There are millions of ways to fund a wedding. My hubby and I paid for our own. We were both 20 had bills out the butt from college and moving out and stuff, but we had an incredible wedding for almost 400 guests for under $5000, including my dress and I bought my brides maids dresses. I worked my butt off and had some tools to my disposal that some may not,but seriously, you can do it. Heck, my sister put together a wedding for 250+ people in 6 weeks and her’s was beautiful. And she had alot of bills and such from just buying a house. You can do it. Ask for help. Make your own flower arrangments. Do your own food. We bought the food and had friends in charge of the kitchen at our reception. We had turkey and ham and cheesey ‘tater casserol and salad and pasta salads and meat and cheese trays and veggies. Sure, it may not have been super fancy, but it was fun! Check clearance racks for items. Our cake topper was the one we were looking for orgininally and found it on clearance for half off. Our guest book, we found it on clearance fro $3! Become a bargin hunter and don’t be afraid to ask friends to help you put it together. You’d be surprised at the resources friends have!

Alright, I’ll give you a straight forward answer. I got married this past may and it was, um, a low scale event. I didn’t want anything over the top, so I was fine with it.

My parents are in the midst of divorcing so money was tight enough as it was. I had to cut corners where I could. For instance, we got married at 1:30. This was after lunch and before dinner so we only had to feed people light food at the reception. We spent $1600 on reception food.

We cut down our list to people we knew would come and not people that would maybe come. What a waste of space!

We got married in a park and it only cost us $60 to rent the garden area, $300 to rent the chairs for guests to sit in during the ceremony, my dads photographer friend did the pics for free (my dad bought his Formula 1 tickets so lets say $150), and we got ahold of a local radio DJ that happened to do for-hire DJing on the weekends. He only cost us $450.

I bought my dress in February. It was a design from the previous summer, so I got it for $250 (originally $800). Which that won’t do you any good since you said you already have your dress. My mom gave me no limits on the price of my dress, but I fell in love with that one.

You can stay with in season flowers to reduce the florist cost. I had daisies which are inexpensive anyways. For my bouqet, two bridesmaid bouqets, the boutineeres, and a tossing bouquest- I spent $280 (we also knew the florist).

Hmm, what else, oh we did inexpensive give away items. We bought those tulle circles and put the jordan almonds in them and printed cards with our names and the dates. 5 almonds in each bag and the tulle circles- it cost us maybe $30.

The cake was one thing we couldn’t cut corners on. They sell them in size ranges. We could either feed 100 people or 140 (those are the numbers closest to our guest list). We invited 125 people and only 90 came. We ordered a 140 person cake, so we had a bit left over, but it’s hard to judge those things.

Also, the invites, we had another hook up. We had a printing company make do the printing on a onion type paper. It’s not really an onion, but its that almost see through paper. Then we did everything else ourselves. We bought hand made pressed paper that was yellow with little daisy petals pressed into it. Very pretty and for the ribbon, the hand made paper, and the printed paper, it cost us maybe $200. And they don’t look homemade like you might be thinking. Everyone was really impressed with them.

Also, for the money, my husband bought a black suit instead of renting a tux. For the same price (the suit was actually less than a tux rental) you get something you can use again. Another wedding, funeral, whatever. Plus, it kept with our less than formal wedding plan. We just wanted a really comfortable setting. Heck, I was wearing flip flops because no one was going to be seeing me feet and I refuse to be uncomfortable on my weding day.

Also, be aware your families aren’t cash cows. My husband and I helped out where we could. We paid for the reception hall which ended up being quite reasonable. It was a small local place and only cost us $500 since we were married in May. I guess June would cost more (wedding season).

In the end, just try to do as much as you can yourself and cut corners as needed where you can’t.

I wish you the best and I’m sure you can make it work. Just keep your eyes open for where you can help out and maybe even save some money. In total, my wedding didn’t cost more than $10,000. I would actually say it was under $7K, but you’d never think it to see the pics.

I’ve got some wedding pics on my 360 page if you’re interested.

Simple… Don’t have a reception… it’s a money vaccuum. Get married in your church and then go out to a nice dinner with your immediate family. End it there… You’ll save thousands…

The reception is just a bunch of fluff anyway.

Go to a scenic area… and arbouritum or indoor horticultural center, they often have indoor gardens, and have the photographer shoot you there.

The wedding is about getting married to the man you love, not putting on a show for all the world to see. It’s not worth all that money to have a 5 hour catered party.

Maybe rent an empty hall and ask friends and family to prepare dishes for the event. Then all you’d need is a DJ and a Cake…

Anyway, best of wishes…

what you need to do is start shopping around.

Work out a realistic budget, – if it means you can’t socialise for a while, – is it really that big of a deal?

Remember it’s only one day, I don’t know about others but I’ve noticed some truth in the saying “you either have a wedding or a marriage”.

Seriously though, money isn’t the be all and end all, often due to advertising sources, people will look in the wrong place, and pay 10+ times the price.

If you’d like to, email me and I’ll discuss further with you and tell you how I did it (well, what we were going to do, but had to change cause of health reasons) I’d be happy to help.

I was in similar possition to yourself, – we payed for our wedding and neither of us were able to work cause of my health and trust me, benefits are a lot less than people think.

Seriously, contact me and I will help you to find a way to have your special day.

You haven’t told us where you are, which can affect the way things are done.

You’ve booked the church — but that presumably hasn’t or won’t cost a fortune.

You’ve paid the photographer — but you haven’t said for what you’ve paid him/her.

You’ve got your dress.

Your parents and your future in-laws are broke.

You’re facing life in the real world.

Weddings, as has been pointed out to you, don’t have to cost very much. Just be thankful you appeaer not to have booked the hotel.

Has the church got a hall that can be used for a reception, in return for a donation?

Have you investigated local halls available for hire?

Have you looked at the possibility of both families getting together to prepare a buffet which can be done with relatively little effort and very cheaply?

Weddings are what you make them.

If it’s a church wedding, there will be some cleric of some sort involved — have you asked for advice from that source — they’re generally a mine of information if you ask nicely. After all, they’ve attended more wedding receptions than anyone else in the community and they know the ones that have gone well and the ones that have been a disaster.

I think I can honestly say that the “do-it-yourself” ones that I’ve been to have been the best, by quite a long chalk.

And you can always ask for futher advice here!

Dang, the world is getting tougher.

Consider cancelling the bookings, and instead invite a clergyman whom you know to your house. That is what my dad did for his second wedding. The reception, if it could be called one, was just in the house, too. It was cheap and really just as good as any other wedding.

Bookings can be cancelled you know. If you simply can’t accept that idea, then I suggest you have the church, the photographer, etc. Just have no reception for people or have it at someone’s house. Tradition says the bride’s parents should try to cover some of the wedding.

This day and age, marriage isn’t as secure as it used to be, so don’t worry about scaling back the ceremonies. It will get more and more common, as people realize they probably won’t be having just one wedding in their life.

PS I READ YOUR QUESTION 3 WEEKS AGO. SHOULD I GET RID OF HIM? YOU TOLD ABOUT AN INCIDENT 3 WEEKS AGO INVOLVING YOU TWO GETTING VIOLENT WITH EACH OTHER, AND HE HIT ON YOUR SISTER IN LAW. BY THE SOUND OF IT, YOUR RELATIONSHIP WON’T LAST LONG, SO DEFINITELY DON’T SPEND TOO MUCH ON THIS WEDDING. BETTER LOOK AT SOME HOOP EARINGS.

Fruit Cakes are quite addictive and my mom always bake them every month..”`