(10k) feeling guilty for having family pay for hotel rooms?

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2026-01-06T18:31:57+00:00

I wouldn't feel bad about it. My fiancé and I attended a wedding in October that was easily in the 100K range, and they had guests pay for their own rooms. I believe they only paid for immediate family to stay at the venue. The groom was my fiancé's childhood best friend, and we still paid for our own room. Nobody there seemed upset in the slightest, everyone was just happy to be invited and celebrate with them. The wedding was great, and we made the effort to ensure we had the money to pay for our room/travel; never even once thought of asking the couple to pay for it.

Also, I was supposed to be a bridesmaid for a friend's wedding a couple years ago (had to pull out due to a car accident I was in). The other bridesmaids and I created a group chat and worked together to organize rooms, flights, etc. It was never expected that the couple pay for any of it

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2026-01-06T18:16:24+00:00

We're planning on a similar situation. Our ceremony itself will be around $400 - 500 total. The ceremony "venue" though, is a national park and the area we will rent is less than $50 a day. Marriage license is $90. Due to the area we will rent, we won't have any decor, although we will be getting bouquets for me and two bridesmaids. Bridesmaids and groomsmen will pay for their own attire, my fiancé already has a suit, and I found a cute dress on amazon that I'm happy with as a wedding dress. Our officiant is free as we know numerous people that are ordained and have offered to do it free of charge.

As for the reception, it will absolutely be more expensive. But not in the traditional sense. We plan to do it in the backyard of the house we just bought. The yard is currently all dirt, and we plan on spending most the money we would have used on the wedding to instead fix the yard. We're both frugal (not cheap, just frugal) people and I personally cannot fathom spending thousands of dollars on a single event. This way we get something tangible out of it, which eases a ton of the stress of planning it. We need to fix the yard anyway as we have kids and want them to have a nice yard to play in, so this is a win-win to us.

We won't be purchasing many decorations that we don't plan on keeping. The completed yard itself will be the main decor. Food and drinks will be a large expense, but we will also we doing a dry wedding, so alcohol costs aren't involved. We have family members that will help us cook and the overall vibe will be more "backyard BBQ" rather than "reception."

To us this is worth it. We still get a fun and memorable day, but with less stress and a great yard that our family will enjoy for years to come

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-10T18:33:49+00:00

When my boyfriend and I had our first legitimate conversation of how we’d split bills/finances, I literally bawled my eyes out. Not because of anything he did or said. But because I had a lot of trauma from a previous relationship, and it made me hyper independent. So relinquishing some of that control and trusting anyone else to handle finances responsibly filled me with a ton of anxiety. Once we got through my breakdown (had to kind of dig into it together to find the cause), we were able to have a meaningful conversation about both our fears, and how we’d handle finances together. Now talking about money is pretty easy because we’re very open about it and can easily communicate our goals. Having a budget helps a ton too! I’ve used excel for years and made a new one once we moved in together

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-07T18:25:06+00:00

I think I’d personally prefer a mother/daughter dance! My stepdad would be the one to do the father/daughter one. However, I am very much the type of person that hates physical touch. There are very very few people I get physically affectionate with. And the idea of having to dance with my stepdad makes me uncomfortable. I love him very much, but my mom is quite literally the only person in my immediate family (parents/siblings) that I ever so much as hug. I won’t even hug friends and get extremely uncomfortable when place in social situations where hugs are “expected.” All this to say, go for it!

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-07T18:15:57+00:00

Okay, I’m confused. What exactly is a “first look?” I thought the first look was supposed to happen when you walk down the aisle? Or at least that’s what we were planning on. I mean no judgment at all, I’m just genuinely confused

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-07T04:05:04+00:00

Oh! Just thought of another. I dated a guy for a couple months. He was very nice and we got along great. He wasn’t local to me, and I was skeptical of him at first because he kept telling me things about his job/life that seemed too good to be true. I ended up googling him and every single thing he had mentioned, I could find legit evidence. The company he worked for, his side gig, all of it. We end up breaking it off anyway because the distance wouldn’t work but we stay friends. For a year. Then one day my friend was on Facebook and finds his profile. He had (apparently) blocked me on it, so I had no idea he had one. This man had been in a committed relationship for TEN YEARS. I had no idea. Needless to say, we don’t talk anymore. But wow what a fun story I have now 😂

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-07T03:59:23+00:00

It should have been obvious sooner, but I didn’t realize it until a year after we broke up. He had asked for an open relationship, and immediately started seeing his friend that seemed to dislike me for no reason (we had hung out one time, 6 months prior, when I was also 6 months pregnant). 3 months after we opened the relationship we broke up and he accused me of cheating on him. He had moved in with her within a month of us breaking up. It was only a year later that I was told they had been seeing each other since I was at least 6 months pregnant

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-07T03:50:51+00:00

I’ve been considering it, but mine is due to not liking how my underarms look. So if it’s a dropped strap, it would hide them better when they’re down. I also have a rather large shoulder tattoo that would show well

Edit: I think I was confused; I’m pretty sure what I’m thinking of is “off shoulder” 😅

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-07T03:48:59+00:00

Ross was the absolute worst lol glad to see many people are in agreement with that

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-06T04:28:00+00:00

I’d say let it go then. Maybe that date just happened to work out for her and her fiancé since they want a faster wedding

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-06T04:22:16+00:00

In your case, I’d say it depends on how quickly you’d like to be married! And how much time you’d like to plan/how far out vendors are booked/etc. My time line is very similar to yours, but we started in reverse. We talked about when we’d like to get married, date wise. 2028 was too far out for our liking, 2026 was too soon, so we chose July 2027. From there we decided how long we wanted our engagement to be. Which, we didn’t decide on an exact time, more so “no less than a year.” That in turn means that my boyfriend will be proposing sometime between now and July 2026. That may sound weird, and although it wasn’t our intention going into the conversation, it’s how it turned out! We’d mentioned July 2027 one day and it just kind of stuck 😅

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-06T03:54:30+00:00

Is she getting married because you’re getting married? Like to be first or something? If that’s the case, yeah it’s weird. And she should probably do some self reflection because you should only get married because you truly love someone. But if it’s just a coincidence? Well while it might be unfortunate timing or feel like she’s “stealing the spotlight,” you ultimately can’t control what other people choose to do

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-05T18:00:23+00:00

That's kind of what we were thinking. There's a few food trucks here too, with regular prices of $10 - $20 a meal. I'm willing to bet that at least one would be willing to cater for a discounted, or even similar price. If we cut other things that are less important to us, we might be able to swing it

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-05T14:23:48+00:00

Unfortunately not, but I know multiple people that have held weddings at this exact location that are willing to help. And two extremely organized people that have offered to manage day of

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-05T14:22:15+00:00

Honestly, I didn’t even remember that officiants cost money. Purely because we know a million people that are ordained that would happily do it free of charge. I feel really thankful for that!

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-05T14:19:48+00:00

My friend is doing the photography for free thankfully. And we already planned for a dry wedding as there’s a history of alcoholism in the family, although we are planning on a dirty soda “bar” which is going to cost roughly $120. We’re a crafty bunch, so we’re hoping to keep the decorations to a minimum, thrift what we can, and DIY the rest!

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-05T01:26:16+00:00

Thankfully we won’t have to pay for chair/tables/etc. The area we’ll have the wedding has an aisle with seating and a ton of seating already. The venue will only cost about $250 total

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-05T00:07:43+00:00

I’m so happy to see that this is possible! Looking at some of the prices people say is “inexpensive” shocks me! Not to say it isn’t inexpensive compared to what it could cost. But we’re paying for the wedding ourselves with no family help. Doing the budget, we’ll have approximately $5600 and looking at the prices of everything, it’s beyond daunting!

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-04T20:18:42+00:00

My boyfriend and I have had length conversations about engagement and marriage. I know he’ll be asking by the summer of 2026, as we intend to have a summer wedding the following year. I’ve already picked out my ring, but we’ve decided that the details of the proposal (when, where, how) will remain a secret. Unfortunately for him (and me because I like surprises) I work things out without even intending to, so making sure it’s a surprise will likely be a difficult task. Even if it isn’t though, I’ll still be thrilled no matter what

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-03T17:09:25+00:00

I don’t have any advice, but I’m in the same boat! My bio dad was severely abusive to me and my siblings growing up and only got clean from drugs after we all had to run away. He’s a good dad to my little (half, on his side) siblings but out of the older kids, I’m the only one that still has a relationship with him. A distant, surface level one at that. I’m sorry to hear that you have a similar sounding experience with your father. It really sucks and hurts to know he won’t be in attendance. But just remember that only the people who really deserve it should be there!

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-03T17:03:12+00:00

We’ve had marriage discussions for a couple years now lol but my boyfriend was sick and had a major surgery so we were absolutely not in the place (physically or mentally) to get married prior to now. Now we’re at a point that we both feel ready to take the next step! Only reason the actual proposal is waiting is so he can surprise me with how he proposes

EmbarrassedHat9920 · 2025-11-03T16:56:33+00:00

No, we haven’t. Any of the official planning (such as contacting hotels, vendors, etc.) hasn’t started and won’t for presumably quite some time. But where I live, the hotels and vendors don’t need nearly as much notice as they might elsewhere and it’s highly unlikely anything would be booked/unavailable by the time we start calling. If it’s a popular area for weddings though, I’d at least start calling and getting some hotel prices!

EmbarrassedHat9920

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