did/should your parents help pay for your honeymoon?

[Sarah8914]

So, hubby and I were both in school when we got married and extremely levelheaded with our money. Thus, we had a less than exciting honeymoon but we were okay with it because we didn't want to spend money we didn't have and we didn't want to spend money we got for our wedding on something like that (not to mention we wouldn't know how much we were getting until the wedding). We got married in Utah and drove down to texas for a reception because we couldn't afford to fly (and bring gifts back). We were pretty independent and that's just how we are.

Now, my brother, currently in school, is getting married in April and said "it'd be cool to go to hawaii for our honeymoon but it's expensive" and with that my mom decides to help them pay for it. hmmm. If I'd known that was an option, we WOULD have done something fun. I had to pay for my dress and photographer and pretty much all she paid for was the food for my reception in Texas. Oh, and I would think "they have more money now and feel like they can help it" but no, they put in on a credit card! Yeah, go into further debt to help your child do something he wants to, not needs to.

Vent over. Thanks.

[Paula]

My DH and I were married in Utah and we a reception in Texas since that's where I'm from. We paid for the ENTIRE thing. Neither of our parents paid for any of the after wedding stuff. I don't blame you for being a little miffed about it.

[robinforman]

My hubby's father travels extensively for his job, and racks up LOTS of frequent flier miles. He let hubs use his miles for our travel, so we didn't have to pay for it. But technically, neither did he.

I totally feel ya on the younger siblings, though, they get everything!

[cheltzey]

Not a smart move on your mom's part. DH and I paid for the honeymoon ourselves, and it wasn't extravagant, but still very nice. When my sister got married, it was a tradition in BIL's family for the parents to pay for the honeymoon. So they flew first class to NY in a nice hotel for a week. Not too shabby. If either of our parents would have offered to pay, I would have taken them up on it. But not if it meant having them go into debt.

[kscwgirl]

We honeymooned in Branson. We paid for the honeymoon ourselves, my parents paid for the wedding.

[ColleenSwerb]

Mmmmmmm that's ridiculous. My sister is a wedding with even more ridiculous issues.

My parents are paying for the wedding and are not helping with the honeymoon at all. I wouldn't dream of asking them to help with a trip that WE want to take. Jordan's parents have racked up a TON of frequent flier miles and allowed us to use those to get to wherever we wanted for hte honeymoon. We're paying for the rest ourselves though.

[Emmy]

I don't think parents are obligated or even *should* pay for their kids' honeymoon! Wowsa!

I completely understand your vent - that's totally frustrating. Parents really should treat all their kids the same (within reason of course).

[ditzyscrap]

No, the parents shouldn't have to pay for it. My parents and my inlaws put money towards our reception (my MIL paid for the catering - we only invited 30 people to the catered supper - and the food for the midnight lunch...I can't remember what my parents paid for, but know that they did help). If the trip to Hawaii is what they are contributing to the wedding and is also their wedding gift, then I'd let it go, personally.

That being said, one of DH's buddies paid for our "honeymoon" - he paid for our wedding night in a really nice hotel - which was the most expensive night (the hotel charges more for Fri/Sat nights)...we paid for the 2nd night. It included waterpark tickets, too.

[juliemarie]

That doesn't sound fair to me, and I would be upset too if I were you. My parents didn't do anything for our wedding or honeymoon, but then we got married in Las Vegas.

[WalkersMommy]

This sounds so familiar! My dh and I got married a while before he deployed to Iraq, and we couldn't afford a wedding so we got married at the courthouse. While he was gone, we saved some money and decided we would have a ceremony when he returned, so I bought a dress. Well, then he was maybe going to get extended so we called off the ceremony to be safe. Anywho, my sister got married while my dh was deployed, and my parents paid like $13,000 for her wedding!!!! They bought EVERYTHING! And now I even joke all the time about wanting to wear my dress someday and they don't even offer to give us a wedding! UGH!!!!!!!!! Not fair

[digideb]

My parents paid for our wedding & reception. DH's parents paid for the rehearsal dinner. We paid for the honeymoon!
My brother paid for their honeymoon. & my little bro is getting married in June & he's paying for his. Guess that's the only way I know it to be! lol But, yeah, I definitely wouldn't let my parents go into debt over my honeymoon!

[LeeAndra]

I understand your frustration.

My parents paid for my dress ($300), flowers ($200), & dinner for 18 people at Outback Steakhouse for my first wedding. Ex & I paid for everything else. The flowers & dinner were both a surprise and paid for by my parents the day of. Jeff & I are paying for everything for our wedding although my mom has given me a couple hundred bucks to book the church and reception hall. I would say altogether their contribution to both my weddings is right around $1000 or a little over.

On the other hand, my sister is getting married in June. I have purposely not asked how they are splitting costs, as my sister & her fiance are contributing some money, but I know that my parents decided they would be paying for an open bar for the 200 guests that will be invited (because they felt a cash bar would be too tacky). Yeah, pretty sure that's going to be WAY over $1000 let alone anything else they have contributed monetarily.

That's not even to mention that my sister and her fiance both have regular jobs with minimal debt while Jeff works on straight commission, I am a temporary employee, & Jeff pays child support.

It's just one of those things. You can't complain because you don't want to be labeled a baby or ungrateful & you know Life as an adult isn't abt things being fair or equal, but it still makes you feel pretty crummy.

While my parents did (begrudgingly) allow me to live with them for 2 1/2 months immediately after my separation while I waited for the divorce to go through, I have otherwise not lived with them or taken any financial support from them since I graduated from college in 2002. My sister, who will be 25 in October, JUST moved out of my parents' house last weekend where she was not required to pay rent, help around the house, or otherwise contribute. My mom was washing her clothes for her until the day she moved out.

I've just gotten used to it.

[lovely1m]

Oh, that would tick me off, too. Etiquette says that the groom's parents pay for the honeymoon, but I think thats pretty dated. We paid for our honeymoon which wasn't much of a honeymoon. We got married in MN and I was in a wedding a month later in Virginia so we figured since we had to stay on the beach there, we figured it would be a great honeymoon. Too bad the wedding got canceled 2 weeks before our wedding. Since we already had the tickets we decided to go down there still and spend time with my cousin since I figured she would be upset about her wedding not happening. Then she called me a week before we were set to leave and said they were eloping to Vegas. So we ended up there without them.

[sammi]

I can sympathize with your frustration. My Mom & Dad paid for my Sister's entire wedding, honeymoon and gave them a washer and dryer for a wedding gift. We paid for our entire wedding, thus no money left over for a honeymoon(we went to Hawaii a few years later). My parents did give us some money for our gift, but it didn't even pay for half. Looking back it was really by choice I didn't ask them to help, dh and I had lived together for a few years and owned a home. So I felt like it was too late to ask for help. My Sister was 20 when she got married, I was 27.

[Kat Stokes]

It is definitely NOT the parent's responsibility to pay for the honeymoon. However, I would have thrown a fit it my mom had paid for my sis' and not mine.

We spent our honeymoon in Iowa. DH's dad and grandparents did pay for our airfare and his cousin paid for the first 2 nights of our hotel room. They only did this because DH had not been back to Iowa since he moved back to Cali at age 13 and his dad's family could not make it out to the wedding and really wanted to see us.

Had they not done that for us, we would have gone camping because it's the only thing we could have afforded then. LOL!!!

And, I did get to go on a cruise the next year, which we paid for.

[nikkiARNGwife]

Nope. We footed the bill for our honeymoon ourselves. My parents helped with the wedding but I paid for the dress and photographer. I just didn't feel like it was their responsiblity to pay for everything kwim? We honeymooned in Disneyworld and paid for everything. But we were both in our mid twenties with pretty good incomes.

[BrattyMeg]

I don't think parents should pay for the honeymoon..that's nuts

on that note..we eloped and we've travelled a good bit together but we never WENT on a honeymoon (we were in Vegas though when we got married)

[alansrock]

This is the story of my life. The rest of my siblings live in my hometown and get perks from family helping with lots of things that me and my children miss out on. It is very frustrating since DH & I paid for our own wedding, all the IVF cycles (meds, treatments, etc), have twins and no one bothered to even offer to throw us a baby shower. I mean I don't expect help but when my other siblings are getting things I didn't get it really hurts my feelings. Family really just IRKS me sometimes!

[jessica31876]

I think they only should if it was volunteered for...it should not be assumed that they would pay for it and if they didnt then that should be ok too IMO

[Stacey42]

My parents paid for our wedding & honeymoon. We were going to go to JP where we were living but my mom wanted me to get married in my home town so my elderly grandmothers could be there. So they picked up the tab. Which really wasn't all that much. We got married at a local resort, run by a friend of my Dad's so there was a big discount on the room rental & food. There were only 50 people at the reception. They used their frequent flier miles to send us to England for a week & paid for the hotel room. We paid for the tours & food. All told my wedding & reception cost them less than $5000.

My SIL's wedding dress cost that much. My folks contributed about $5000 toward my brother's first wedding because that seemed fair. They paid another $2000 toward his second wedding and then gave each of my boys $1000 savings bonds to balance it out. My folks are big on keeping things financially balanced between their kids. I didn't even know they paid anything toward his second wedding until they gave me the savings bonds a few months later. It would never have occured to me to ask

I don't think parents are obligated to pay but if they do I think they should keep it even.

[scarletsierra]

Yup, a big fat thumbs down to the parents being obliged or even involved in the paying of a honeymoon, imo. But to each their own.

My parents did not pay for our honeymoon, nor did we even think of asking them or expecting them to.

[laura mcgee]

We were married in Oregon and had our reception is Washington.. we flew to San Diego, CA and went to theme parks etc.
My parents paid for the wedding ( which was held at our church (no fee for the building) and so everything with food and my dress (150!!) was super cheap for a wedding. (my sister is a photographer and my aunt does wedding cakes!!) so we lucked out.
My hubs and i paid our airline tickets, theme park tickets and dinner etc. etc. Logan's dad is apart of the worldmarket hotel shares stuff so he let us use his points..

i would be upset if my younger (if i had one) got a honey moon like that paid for by my parents if they did nothing for me.. you have a right to be upset!

[joelsgirl]

Thtat totally bites!

My parents paid for everything for my wedding, and my in-laws paid for the rehearsal dinner & the honeymoon.

That's just the way things are done in my hometown; I had no idea how grateful I should have been!

[Denise Umlauf]

I don't think parents should pay for the honeymoon if they already paid for the whole wedding (or part of it). Mine was given by brother in law (DH older brother) and it was kinda difficult to make him spend the money (it wasn't expensive). He's a very cheap man..lol

[Jennilyn]

My parents paid for our wedding so my ILs gave us a cheque for $1000 for our honeymoon. We went to PEI for a week and stayed at a wonderful little cottage. We spent that $1000 plus most of the other money we received for our wedding.

[4noisyboys]

My family has hurt my feelings many times over the years, but not on wedding related things. My parents paid for most everything, but I was willing to just have a courthouse wedding, and since I was the only girl, my dad wanted the wedding to give me away! It was still a fairly small wedding, but was at the chapel at Highland's Inn in Carmel CA, so I know it wasn't cheap...but it was 27 years ago, so I'm sure it wasn't as much as it would be today for a wedding.

Fast forward...my two older boys live with their girlfriends, and have for several years. My oldest and his gf even purchased a home. I don't think I'll feel obliged to pay for anything other than a rehearsal dinner if they get married. They kind of made a choice to already live like they are married. I think I'll play it by ear with each one though. My second son thinks I love all the others more than him. YIKES. I bend over backwards for that boy...He's just a little sensitive.

It's good to hear all the stories here though, since I'm in the position of the mom now with kids that age. I'll have to be careful to make sure I know why I'm doing what I'm doing, and can make them understand if I offer more to one and not the other. My youngest is 17, hasn't kissed a girl (yet!!), is against drugs, and will be going to college. Well, that's different than my older two...so I do treat him differently. kwim? It isn't because he is the baby.

[tuneskids]

we paid for our own honeymoon - we took Cody and Jenna camping for three days, and went to the Vancouver Aquarium ... that was all we could afford. My parents paid for nothing, and my ILs paid for the church service (since we were married by her boss). We actually had very little expense for our wedding as we paid for it ourselves (less than $5000 for everything).

[aggiefamily]

We were finishing up our last semester of college when we got married and we got married on campus. My parents paid for the wedding, reception and most hotel rooms since it was out of town for everyone. Inlaws paid for rehearsal dinner.

My parents did pay for our honeymoon. But we only had 2 days before we had to be back for classes. We went to Galveston for the weekend. They just paid for the hotel and we paid the rest. I remember it was about $300 for the Honeymoon Suite. Hotels were much cheaper then!

[Kim]

Dh and I paid for our own honeymoon... BUT, his mom bought my dress and gave us $1000 to help with the wedding and my parents paid for the food. So we would have either had a smaller wedding or not as nice of a honeymoon. We were married in Oregon and traveled to Orlando for our honeymoon.

I guess I would have a problem with it if they were being uneven on their giving. It would be hard to bring that fact up with out sounding selfish or jealous.

[stayawake]

we drove to Quebec city, and had a wonderful time in a little bed and breakfast. Nothing really fancy or crazy. Modest, but fun. I wouldn't have had it any other way. We paid for it ourselves. We paid for about half of our wedding, my parents the rest (food, flowers and decorations, rental stuff for the church hall,etc). That's what we agreed to before hand, and we put some stuff on credit certainly going on our honeymoon, but it was paid off in two or three months! Not what we considered too much debt for a once in a lifetime thing.

[Nettio]

Having been on both sides of the siblings perks issue, I can definitely see why you'd be upset. At the same time, it's their money and if this is how they want to spend it, that's their choice too. It's not really fair, but that's just how things go sometimes.

My parents paid for us to stay in a bed & breakfast for I think two nights? It was their idea and to be honest, I would have rather just waited to do something. We were moving overseas later that week and I was just so stressed and upset about moving that far away and everything that I really didn't enjoy the weekend. I didn't even take a single photo the whole time if that says anything.

My DH and I then saved up while we were in Korea and spent a week in Japan that October. We've always considered that our real honeymoon and it was definitely more fun than the first weekend. So I guess my answer would be yes and no as to whether they paid for the honeymoon.