Weddingbee boards

My husband was married before, and divorced, and has two kids, if that has any bearing on the situation.  I have never been married before.  My parents paid for the majority of the wedding, and his mother offerred to pay for the RD.  I don't think it ever occurred to her not to offer - she's just happy that he is happy.  (Although he didn't have a big wedding the first time around, so I don't think there was an RD to pay for.)  We didn't let her pay, but only because she really can't easily afford it, whereas we can.

I don't think its unreasonable to anticipate that the groom's parents, as long as they are happy about the marriage, would want to help pay for it.  It is probably unreasonable for your friend (the bride) to ask.  But I would assume that it's reasonable for the groom to ask his own parents if they would be interested in helping out with the cost, or at least in hosting the RD.

Although I think what you have to remember in this day and age is that the tradition is that the bride's family or the groom's family pays for certain things.  This is traditional mostly because people often used to get married so young that they had no real income or savings.  If you're not in that situation, it's also reasonable to think that the responsibility lies at least partly with the groom, as an adult member of his own family.  What normally happens now is that the bride and groom pay for as much as they can afford, and both families help out financially.