'AITA for cancelling our honeymoon after my fiancee spent $10K on her wedding dress?' UPDATED

"AITA for cancelling our honeymoon after my fiancee spent $10,000 on her wedding dress?"

My fiancée and I are planning to get married late this year.

We had a small, rough budget for our wedding. It's a small wedding, only about 30 guests and hosted on a family friend's property.

We've been making the decoration ourselves, doing online RSVPs, ordering our wedding cake from Costco.As a trade off my fiancée and I would be going on a very expensive honeymoon. I left my fiancée to buy her wedding dress because I thought she would be mature enough to stay within our budget.

I found out that she spent $10,000 on a dress she will wear once. She argued that it was her dream wedding dress and she had compromised on having an ugly wedding for me. I had no idea she felt that way because she never expressed it. She says she can afford the dress. But we can't afford the dress. We don't even have a house yet.

We can't afford both the dress and the honeymoon trip and I'm pretty sure the dress was custom made and can't be returned. I immediately cancelled our honeymoon trip. It was booked through an agency and we had insurance so we only lost out on $250 each. If we had waited any longer, it would have been a lot more pricey to cancel.

When she found out I had cancelled the honeymoon, she got very angry. She said I had no right to cancel the honeymoon and if I didn't fix it she would go on the honeymoon alone. The entire wedding party has weighed in and her friends are hammering me mercilessly about it. Even her dad is mad at me. My friends and family are on my side. AITA?

Not long after posting, OP shared an update.

Edit: Ordinarily I never would have made such a big decision like canceling our honeymoon without talking it over with my fiancée. But she was stonewalling about the dress and refused to discuss how we can't afford it.

We cannot afford both the dress and the honeymoon. And we couldn't afford to wait.

We put the honeymoon on a credit card. For points. We would have been able to afford it and still have a bit of savings left over to cushion us.

She spent $10k on the dress. That wiped out most of her savings account, leaving her with a few hundred dollars left. That’s not enough to pay for the honeymoon too. There’s also additional costs that could crop up in the wedding. She will be living paycheck to paycheck regardless. But if we went on that honeymoon we’d have a credit card bill to worry about too.

The comments kept coming in.

stove1336 wrote:

Sounds like you need to postpone this wedding. She did this knowing you were going to be upset about it. You guys have stuff to work out.

OP responded:

We do have things to work out. We’ve been talking for hours but she’s been stonewalling me about our future. Her defense is that we never agreed on a budget for the dress and she can afford it. We’re been counting our coins trying to make it an affordable wedding. Why would she think I’d be okay with a $10,000 custom wedding dress?

FuzzyMom2005 wrote:

ESH, but I kinda have the feeling you're not going to have to worry about either the wedding or the honeymoon. You two are not on the same page about finances and are making unilateral decisions without talking to each other. That's not a good start, is it?

OP responded:

I would have talked to her about cancelling the honeymoon but she stonewalled me about the dress and we literally cannot afford both. I had to cancel soon or we’d be out thousands.

RayonJersey wrote:

I have so many questions. Is it paid for with her separate money? Who paid for the dress? Who was paying for the honeymoon? Did you discuss a dress budget? How would she go on the honeymoon alone if it’s cancelled? Is she going to use her own money to repurchase the honeymoon trip? If she can do that it sounds like you can afford both?

OP responded:

It was paid through her savings. We were splitting the honeymoon. We didn’t explicitly discuss a dress budget but given we’ve been trying to make everything low cost and we definitely can’t afford a $10k dress, I assumed she would be reasonable about it. She’s never done anything wildly irresponsible like this

I think she means to use her savings and paychecks to rebook the honeymoon or go on her own trip. I don’t know if she will actually do this. What I know is that will leave her paycheck to paycheck regardless and with a big fat credit card bill if she goes on a honeymoon.

Kami_Sang wrote:

OP maybe you guys should pause on the wedding. There is a significant dispute on finances - 10, 000 is a lot especially if you're trying to save money. ESH. You guys need to get on the same page re finances - clearly she's willing to spend much more than you. You really need to get aligned on finances.

OP responded:

She’s always been a careful spender and I never expected her to blow $10,000 on a dress.

Oddly-Appeased wrote:

Tell everyone that is jumping on you about canceling the honeymoon that since she spent $10k on a dress that they can help pitch in to pay for the honeymoon. As soon as the donations reaches at least $10k you’ll book the trip again. Until then it’s off.

Beyond that you and your fiancé need to have a serious discussion about how to manage your finances. Is she going to expect you to support her with the money you make and she can just spend any she makes? What if she becomes a SAHM? How does it work then?

Will she decide there is something that she just has to have or has to be able to do and just spend whatever amount on whatever without consulting you? I’m not saying each of you have to run every single decision about every dollar spent by each other, but when something goes into the $100’s or $1,000’s then it becomes a joint decision.

Exact numbers vary of course depending on income/COLA. Maybe get into couples counseling asap because this type of issue could cause the marriage to end before it starts so probably best to work that out before it goes any further.

Gimpy1511 wrote:

I'm probably going to get bashed here, but I think she was way out of line. I get that it was her money, so don't come after me about that. I'm talking about her savings being wiped out. It'll be after they are married, so if something happens, he'll have to carry her because she blew all of her money.

All of it. I mean, I'm female and I absolutely adore clothes, but I wouldn't do that without talking to my partner because deep down I know it's wrong. If he had a problem with $3000, then we have a problem, because that is venturing into controlling territory. I don't think that they are on the same page about finances, which may create other problems.

Cultural_Card_2603 wrote:

ESH. She bought an expensive wedding dress without informing you and without warning you cancelled the honeymoon. It sounds like you both make big decisions behind each other’s backs.

OP responded:

Ordinarily I would have never cancelled without talking to her first. But she would not budge and we would be losing even more money if I hadn’t cancelled the honeymoon asap. We can’t afford both.

shontsu wrote:

I mean, you just found out how financially incompatible you are.

You need to stop thinking about the honeymoon and start thinking about the marriage.

Artistic_Thought_2309 wrote:

NTA. But you need to reconsider marrying someone who buys a 10K dress for a wedding with a Costco cake. It is not only the financial irresponsibility, it is also overall maturity (or lack of) that concerns me.

There's also some serious "better to ask forgiveness than permission" vibes going on here. She could have spoken about the dress in advance, but figured if she just bought it you'd have no choice but to accept it. Thats a pretty major red flag.