'This caused a huge argument': Bride pushes back after her mother offers to pay for the wedding, then demands 50% of the gifts in return

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Isabella Penn
Apr 29, 2025 8:00 PM EDT

In many cultures, it's tradition for the bride's parents to foot most of the wedding bill, and then the groom's family typically picks up smaller costs like the rehearsal dinner or the bar bill. But with how expensive weddings are nowadays, it's not surprising that parents want to contribute less and less. I have a best friend whose parents saved up $50K each for her and her sister's weddings. It's sweet, but also bananas. But it's also tradition in her culture to have ginormous weddings, so if her parents are making up most of the guest list, it only makes sense that they cough up most of the bill too.

Nonetheless, spending $50k on one day is absurd. Not every family can (or should) go all in like that, especially if strings are attached. That's what happened to this bride, who found herself caught between her husband's values and her mom's cultural expectations. Her mom offered to cover most of the wedding, but there was a big catch. She wanted 50% of the cash gifts.

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  • The bride didn’t think it was crazy because she'd gone her whole life dealing with similar requests like this from her mom. It was the groom who finally spoke up and made the bride see things more clearly. 

  • AND THEY LIVE happe EVER MR verda EST BOOK S Wedding Day
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  • "My mom asked for 50% of our wedding cash gifts, is this crazy?"

    Hi y'all, this might get kinda long. My (F24) and my husband (M27) got married in a small ceremony earlier this year and my parents paid for everything (we did a small religious thing and took
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  • the families out for dinner afterwards, the whole thing amounted to probably 4-5k). Since I'm in school, I don't have an income and only my husband works so we planned to do a larger
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  • reception with our entire families in 2026. However, we are now at the point where we are about to sign contract with venues and I've been reconciling between all parties that will be contributing to the reception.
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  • My husband and I are from different cultures and he has a way smaller family than mine (his guest count is around 50 and mine is near 150). For that reason, we expected my parents to end up
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  • paying the majority out of all parties involved since they're the ones who want to invite all these people. The money breakdown is looking like this:
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  • My parents (150 heads) = $20k His parents (50) = $6k Husband and me= $12k =
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  • The thing is, my parents are not really well-off and are only inviting this many people bc of their "reputation" and the expectations of our culture since I'm the only daughter. I've had many
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  • arguments with them about inviting so many people and trying to match up to our other family who are more well- off. Here's the biggest issue in this whole situation thus far: my
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  • mom has recently agreed to paying for their part of the wedding as long as I give her 50% of the cash wedding gifts we receive. This caused a huge argument between my
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  • husband and I because growing up, I was used to sharing any portion of my gift money with my parents when they host events for me (grad parties, birthdays).
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  • However, he was very offended because he knows that even if he offered to give any money back to his family they'd never accept it bc it would be looked at as offensive in his culture.
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  • He's looking at our parent's contributions towards our wedding as a gift, and I'm looking at it as something stupid my parents feel obligated to do to make everyone in my family happy, while
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  • putting themselves in debt in the process. I feel bad for my parents and feel okay with their demand of giving 50% of the wedding gifts because a majority of that money will be coming
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  • from the guests that they chose to invite, and this 50% will not touch my husband family's gifts. Since they're also funding pretty much half the wedding as well I also feel okay with this. However,
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  • my husband is not budging and is offended. on my behalf and think my parent's aren't respecting me by saying from the get-go that they want half of the wedding gifts to balance out how much they paid. Who's in
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  • the wrong here and is there a solution? Thank you for reading all of this. EDIT: thank you for all of the feedback, I now understand that my relationship with my
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  • parents and money is definitely a messy one. I also learned now that my being South Asian has a huge influence on this whole situation and I have cross-posted to r/desiweddings to get some more culturally
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  • relevant advice. I love my husband and don't want to ruin our marriage bc of my parent's unhealthy and overbearing nature, while still respecting my culture.
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  • Berry_Bubbaloo Don't take the help from your parents, have a small wedding with what you can afford. You will dent your marriage if you go through with this.
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  • beattiebeats Tell your mom you aren't doing a reception. It's obvious that no one here is in a position to afford it.
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  • Also, splitting half your gift. money with your parents is bizarre. Especially from occasions like your birthday as a child.
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  • Hcmp1980 Have a smaller celebration, neither you nor your parents can afford what you have planned.
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  • linzkisloski This is crazy. A gift is a gift. I would actually be p ed if I gave you and the groom a gift for your wedding
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  • and knew your parents were taking it. If they can't afford that many people they shouldn't invite them. It's YOUR wedding.
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  • I'm actually appalled that they did this to you on other occasions your whole life.
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family drama bride finance family feud relationships parenting wedding couples argument mother in law mom budget parents entitled people
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