'AITA for losing it at my daughter over the rising costs of her wedding?' UPDATED

"AITA for losing my cool over rising wedding costs?"

My daughter is in her early 20s and getting married in a few months. She initially wanted to get married a year ago in a small intimate ceremony with 10 people. Her future MIL pitched a fit and she and fiancé settled on a 50 person wedding with an extra year before they married to make her happy.

The original budget we gave was 5k. We did not know the going rates for some of this stuff, as hubby and I eloped. Costs have been steadily creeping up but we managed to put aside enough to cover things. In the mean time her fiancé’s sister got engaged and had a 300 person wedding that was very expensive and had a lot of extras.

My daughter staunchly said at first she didn’t want a wedding video. Photos yes, video no. Fiancé wanted the video. We love them so we are trying to give them what they want, especially as fiancé’s family have not been the most supportive.

We come to today. I was working a temp job, hoping it would become permanent. All the while, I put about 25% of my pay into wedding fund and hubby’s overtime is going in there as well. Today I got let go from the job. I had already told my daughter this before the incident happened.

She calls me later in the evening gushing about this videographer she found who is going to be doing a fancy set up and how happy she is. The cost is only $1200. I couldn’t help myself. I asked she take me off speakerphone and then I told her how frustrated I am with the ballooning wedding costs. I wanted to know if this is what she really wanted.

She mentions that after seeing fiancé’s sister’s wedding a month ago she really wants this video thing to happen. I snapped. I mentioned that the only reason we were spending all this money was because fiancé’s mom threw a fit and now hubby and I keep having to pay more and more.

To make it worse, because fiancé’s parents spent all this money on their daughter’s wedding a month ago, I am having to spend even more. This isn’t the first time she has gone from “I just want this decor/dress/event to be very simple” to “I think I like this fancier thing better and really want it.”

Any other time I would have kept my cool. She knew I just lost my source of income and I am stressed because it took me a while to get that job. I had been busting my butt doing gig work while looking for a job in my degree field after getting my degree in December.

AITA for letting her know how upset I am at the continually rising costs and making her feel guilty? (I tried not to, but I totally ended up crying during the call.)

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

StripedBadger said:

It seems that the problem here is that you've failed to communicate your limits, and now you're angry that your daughter doesn't know how you feel when you haven't been communicating it to her. If you set a dollar amount that you're willing to contribute to the wedding, then when extra costs came up you should have been telling your daughter that she had to take care of them.

But it seems that didn't happen. You took the costs and didn't say a word to her. Instead of having a proper, adult conversation, you've just stewed in your own feelings without actually telling her what you felt. And then you blew up - for a lot of reasons that weren't about her or the wedding, but because of other things in your life. ESH.

Alert-Potato said:

NTA - you need to stop being involved. At all. You gave her a $5k budget, stick to that. Inform her that you will write her a check for that money by X date, and anything over that amount is not your problem. Her future MIL and fiance want this? Let them finance it.

OP responded:

You are right about it being easier to just write the check at this point and let go. It probably would be for the best. I might just do that when we go up to visit her in a couple of weeks.

Mollycat121397 said:

I’m going to have to say NAH. It sounds like her original plan was a pandemic wedding, the size of which made sense for the time. However, the longer you plan these things the more you learn and discover your preferences. It doesn’t sound like she was intentionally being entitled (a decent videographer in my area is about $4,000) and maybe even thought she got a great deal.

You were understandably overwhelmed and upset at everything going on. I think you need to sit down with your daughter and have a very honest and frank discussion about the financial aspect of this wedding. Figure out a set budget together and research money saving alternatives to things and work together on this.

OP responded:

YES! She and I usually have great communication across the board. We have discussed the costs reasonably and I know she doesn’t want to make things hard for us. I just got annoyed/worried that her future SIL’s wedding made her think she had to have a bunch of fancy stuff. I am planning on calling her tomorrow to discuss again once I am less emotional.

She did say that my concerns and frustration weren’t unreasonable. She is really the best daughter I could ever wish for and that is part of why I want to give her the wedding she wants. The trick is knowing if the add ons are what she really wants or what others/the industry have convinced her she has to have.

She accidentally got irritated at me last week because I haven’t found my dress yet (she wants to make sure one of the wedding colors is an exact match to it) until I reminded her I was working 60 hours a week. She instantly apologized so I know she is feeling the stress as well.

BoredAgain0410 said:

Info - why are you paying for increase cost? Tell you child your contribution is $X. They can budget around it or pay for extra cost for whatever they want added.

OP responded:

Because some of our estimates in our budget were WAY off from industry standard rates. The hard part has been figuring out what was a reasonable overrun and what is just excessive.

Fit-Bumblebee-6420 said:

Op YTA here and this is why- you gave a budget and you have allowed your daughter to increase the budget...because her FMIL threw a fit? Because she saw someone else's own be bigger? What did you expect? Why did you budge the first time? It should have been - this is what I have (period) and now that you've lost your job, she doesn't care cos you have let her push further and further.

Your daughter is in her 20's and I know you love her and want to give her the dream wedding but you cannot do it super stressed, super angry and going through the loss of your job. No way you will enjoy this wedding. Call her and sit her down and say- this is YOUR budget. Give her the money even. Tell her you cannot add a cent more. Breathe. All the best.

OP responded:

You know what, you are very right about something. I get annoyed when people I love give in to the demands of unreasonable people. They justify it by saying that just because someone else is unreasonable or selfish doesn’t make it right to be unreasonable. So they end up getting screwed over.

And here I am saying that it is okay to keep capitulating because my kindness is meant to balance out the unreasonable behavior of others. That isn’t right. I did bring this on myself by putting the extra weight on me to take it off them.

I should have advocated for them to confront and push back against those who put that weight there in the first place. I cannot fix this by being lenient. It is a faulty premise. Thank you!

After reading the comments, she shared this update:

I spoke with my daughter this morning. We are giving her the rest of the money we have in her account and she can use that to pay for the expenses. We agreed that any shortfalls from here out were for her and fiancé’s family to cover. She apologized for her behavior and said that she understood my frustrations.

She explained the situation to her fiancé and he is also on board with the new financial arrangement. She plans to call and chat with me again after her shift at work today, so it seems that we have moved forward from this. We both said we were determined not to let this wedding spoil our relationship and to keep communicating with each other.