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No. I don't think your wants are unreasonable. However, I do REALLY think it's important that you and FI talk about why you both want what you want. Once you understand where the other is coming from, a compromise or conversion is much easier to come to. Trust me, you want to be on the same page with this wedding. I think it really sets the tone for how you will handle conflict and/or differences in your marriage.
I dont think it's asking too much if it's that important to you. My situation was in the reverse, I wanted a small destination wedding or elopmement and he wanted the big, traditional wedding. Would the wedding be paid entirely by him? Can you contribute anything?
Absolutely not!
But I do think that you should have a conversation about how you'll pay for the fancy wedding and if you can afford it without draining his (soon to be your) savings. If he wants to spend $5000 and it's all his money (i.e. you're not bringing any $$ to the table).... I guess in any case you two need to talk it through and find a way to compromise. Maybe you'll spend $10,000 or $20,000? I'd explain why having a fancier wedding is important to you, and find out why $5000 seems appropriate to him. Talk about guest lists and what he'd like to see at his weding - he may soon realize that $5000 is tough to pull off.
If it is money that he is bringing to the relationship that he has worked for over the years, I can see why he doesn't want to spend it all (or a huge chunk) on a wedding. Will he be the only one paying for the wedding and related expenses?
I think your best bet is to involve him in the planning, so if he gets frustrated with pinching pennies, he can spend more money.
I wouldn't agree with your thinking, that's just me. Can he contribute $5000 and you contribute $5000? Honestly, with him being 41, he probably wants to keep his investments because he doesn't have as much time for interest to build as he moves toward retirement.
We had enough money to have a $40,000 wedding in the bank, but we stuck to a budget and came in at under $10k. I just don't think a one day celebration is worth it to deplete your savings, especially if its not even you who did most of the saving. Its really something that you just have to discuss with him.
People have all different views on what is appropriate to spend on a wedding. I think your idea of $15-20k is way too much. Others would think it sounds very reasonable. Still others would find it wasy too small to do the kind of wedidng they want.
If he wants $5k and you want $15-20k you need to compromise. But it can't be about only him paying and you being the princess. That starts your marriage off on very unequal footing.
I think it's a matter not so much of "your" money or "his" money, but what your joint financial goals are. How much is he looking to contribute to his 401k this year? Would a wedding seriously dent that figure? Do either of you have debt? Upcoming expenditures? What do both of you want to do financially in your lives? Is one of those financial expenditures a wedding? What is important to each of you about the wedding? What do you want it to be? Those questions should help you figure out how much you want/can spend on a wedding together.
I don't think you should define the wedding by a set figure. That, to me, seems unreasonable. I think you need to sit down, think about what you want as a couple for a wedding day and find out costs to make that happen.
While it's lovely to have a blow out bash, there is something to be said about thinking about the future. He's 41 and probably considering your future together heavily.
Plenty of people have beautiful weddings on low budgets.
I agree with dadada. I'd be willing to bet that he has very little clue about how much a wedding costs that has the traditional venue, cockatil hour, four-hour reception, sit-down meal, etc. I mean, not that it can't be done, for sure, but it will probably be a LOT more stressful than he realizes. I hate saying it, but yeah, money makes things easier when it comes to wedding planning.
I would sit down with him and first explain why this wedding is important to you. Bring up that you want to show your geusts a good time by providing a nice meal and being a good host. Also, do some comparison shopping before, and show him your results. Catering alone for a 100 person wedding will likely be $5K for a sit-down meal. Do you guys take a lot of trips, buy a lot of expensive things? This is how my husband and I justified our $25K wedding. We don't travel, we'd been saving for two years, we don't have or want a fancy car, and we don't plan on buying a house anytome soon. Basically, it was a huge present to ourselves because we felt we deserved it, and it truly was a once in a lifetime chance, and we were able to afford it.
And you know what? It was 200 percent worth it :)
@shoop...it would depend on what your expectations are as far as WHO pays for the wedding.
The fact that your fiance was careful with his spending and managed to accumulate a lot of savings doesn't automatically mean he pays for the wedding soley. The fact that he was able to accumulate a substantial savings kind of tells me that he pinches his pennies and probably doesn't feel the need to spend so much on a wedding.
How much do you plan on contributing to the 15-20K wedding that you want? In theory, it would be nice to be treated like a princess....but there is a cost associated with that.
My FI has substantial savings as well so we mutually agreed that we wanted a 30K wedding...10K out of my pocket, and 20K out of his pocket. Since we scrapped that and are going to Jamaica, he is covering all of the costs at his instistence...but I would have been more than happy to pay my fair share...regardless of the fact that he makes about 6 times more than me.
So in closing...no I don't think it's wrong for you to want to be treated like a princess...but you may be coming out of your pocket in order to get that treatment.
We had a $5k wedding and it was awesome. I wouldn't have spent more even if I had the money. It is one day, not worth $20k in my opinion. I agree that you need to compromise with your FI. Think of all the wonderful things you will be able to do in the future with the extra cash!
I think you guys definately should talk about it and who can pay for what, also what his goals are with that money. If he was the one who worked on saving the money and worked hard at it before the relationship I can see how he would be hesitant to spend it all on one day. So sit down and talk and figure things out. But if he explains his reasoning I think it would be a little irrational not to consider his feelings as well, especially if he is willing to pay $5000.
I think it depends on a couple things. My fiance simply had no idea how much weddings cost - even the small ones - so it might be just a matter of explaining it to him. Once my fiance realized how much it can really cost, he was okay with it, but I've also still made an effort to keep costs low, so we've really tried to meet in the middle. Also, I think it depends on your location. I'm in Los Angeles and it would be really hard to have a wedding for 5k - in fact, it would be hard to have a wedding for 15k here! So we actually decided to make it a destination wedding to keep costs down. There are just so many factors that can affect cost and he may just not have a very good understanding of that.
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My FI has substantial savings and has a lot of equity in the house we live in, but we're not signing a pre-nuptual agreement or anything like that. Am I asking too much to want a nice wedding (which to me would be about 15-20K)? He wants a 5K wedding but I don't want to pinch pennies and stress about every cost when I know I don't have to.
He's been able to save a lot of money by not having girlfriend most of his life (he's 41) and not wasting money going to bars and trying to pick up women. We amazingly found each other, is it wrong to wanted to be treated like a princess on our special day?