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Bride-to-be threatens to elope after parents ‘only’ offer $20,000 to pay for her wedding

<p>The bride-to-be said her parents backtracked on their original promise</p>

The bride-to-be said her parents backtracked on their original promise

Getty Images/iStockphoto

A bride-to-be has divided opinion online after she complained of her parents’ flawed generosity.

The Reddit user explained that she is the only daughter in her family so her mum and dad had always said they’d pay for her wedding.

When she got engaged, her father estimated that the festivities would cost $40,000. However, the woman said she’d decided to set her budget at $25,000, assuming that her parents – who she claims earn around $450,000 a year – would still be happy to help.

As the planning got under way, her mother began asking friends how much they’d paid for their own daughters’ weddings – “all of which were over $25k”. She agreed that she and her husband “could swing that financially.”

The Redditor went on to say that her mother was “pushing [her] to use the vendors her friends used” rather than letting her “find people my that fit my style,” explaining: “She wants a southern barn wedding, I like more modern elegance”.

She added: “Note: my mom is notorious for backtracking on promises when it comes to money.”

The fiancée said her parents then did a u-turn on their original estimates and, instead of the original $25,000-40,000 suggested, they “gave [her] a final wedding budget of $20k”.

“I wouldn’t be so upset with them had the budget been $20k from the beginning but it seems as if they pulled that number out of thin air,” she protested.

“They also created this budget after my mom spent $3,000 on my dress and veil so I’m now left with $17k.”

The bride said her mum was pushing her to divert from her dream wedding plansGetty Images

Ending her post, the narrator said: “My fiancé and I are long distance and will be until we’re married and when I told my mom I’d rather elope than dance around a wedding budget and not be able to enjoy my day, she flipped.

“She’s pretty much refusing to let me elope and when I told her to plan the wedding herself because she’s being so picky, she had a problem with that too.

“I feel as if there’s no winning in this situation. Quite frankly I just want to be married to the man I love instead of arguing over [the] wedding budget with my parents.”

r/AmItheAsshole/Reddit

Her story racked up more than 4,500 upvotes and 1,400 comments within a day of being shared on the platform, as some Redditors branded the bride “entitled”, while others criticised her parents for going against their word.

One wrote: “Sorry but you sound incredibly entitled whingeing about your parents only giving you 20k for a single day event. That’s an annual salary for some people.

“Your mum is being overly pushy which I can imagine is really annoying. If she offered to pay for a wedding as a gift then it should be yours to design.

“If you want to elope then do it.”

Another suggested that the original poster (OP) had been motivated by spite, and was trying “to threaten the mum into behaving how she wants”.

They went on: “It’s a tricky one because it’s OP’s wedding, but it’s the parents’ money, so who gets a say in how it’s done is up for negotiation. It could have been handled much better on both sides.”

However, another argued: “While I understand and agree that this insanely expensive wedding is a clear example of entitlement, OP is not the a**hole in this situation.”

They continued: “OP’s parents gave them an original budget, one that was 15k above what they were planning on using.

“Then after planning begun, the parents went back on their word and cut the budget in half. It doesn’t matter if the original budget was 40k or 4k, they still went back on a promise and are trying to control OP’s wedding.”

Another commented: “OP’s reasonable, perfectly understandable to be hurt. And... Honestly, the parents don’t seem to be... Thinking?

Imagining the mum and dad’s argument, they added: "’You’ve got 20k. Actually, 17k because we got the dress already, when you thought you had double that amount. Also, you should use the services and venues our friends used, you know, the friends whose weddings cost more than 25k? Because you’ll be able to afford that on a budget that’s less than theirs?’"

And a third wrote: “They’ve told OP her whole life they’ll pay for the wedding, so she hasn’t felt the need to save towards it herself. They gave her a clear budget. They then cut the budget in half without explanation. I think she’s allowed to be annoyed.

“She’s offered to elope and not cost them anything, they don’t want that. She’s offered to let her mom plan the wedding that mom wants, they don’t want that. All they seem to want is OP to think like mom and autonomously choose exactly what mom would choose, without Mom telling her what to choose. And that’s just a ridiculous demand.”

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