"But you are an adult, you don't have to listen to your parents!"

Hi Charlene. Thanks for sharing. I'm not sure who is the primary wedding planner (your Mom is doing budgets). But if it is you and FS, your conflict is not as different from other couples whose weddings are funded by someone else. It can be quite frustrating being infantilized! My recommendation is to inform your mother you want to budget with her, rather than her deciding the allocation and giving you extra $ for your choices. How to do this? Start by researching how much wedding venues and individual vendors actually are in your local area. With your fiancé, decide which 2-3 elements of the wedding are the most important to invest money into, the rest can be cheaper or excluded. With Mom and fiancé, tackle each vendor one at a time. Present 2-3 options you all can review. Or plan with fiancé only, and present Mom with your top 2 options with costs before booking interviews/ tours. You don't want to have a meeting to only find out, it's not affordable and a waste of everyone's time.

Start with venue as this will be the most expensive and will give you a wedding date. Good tip: the larger the wedding, the more costly for food, flowers, etc. Possibly include Mom on venue tours. You all should review contracts. After venue, many couples pick their photographer, but it's up to you. Don't worry, it's all a learning lesson. Not many individuals have planned an event as large, as personal, or as expensive as a wedding. Who knows, maybe $2k is enough for a honeymoon. But, first you two have to choose where you want to go.

Oh, and those wedding dress shows often have brides try on their mom's choice just so they can see how disappointed and awkward it really is. Eventually, brides choose the dress right for them. Best wishes!

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That is all nice, but again, she is my legal conservator so she controls how much money I spend so that won't really work because she has the final decision.

I will be honest, I have never seen anyone planning a wedding who has a legal conservator before. It is different from a legal guardian because it is just for finance stuff and unlike a guardian, you can still get legally married (though there is some cases that the conservators refused to give their wards the money for a marriage license which often turns into a legal battle, I don't want it to become a huge legal battle)

Is your FH putting any money and planning into the wedding? Weddings are expensive and a lot of older generations have a difficult time with how willing we are to drop money on a nicer wedding. I think if you can't have the wedding you want with your own money you two should just elope at a court house.


Will your husband become your conservator once you're married? Will he become your care taker?

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No, my mother will still be my legal conservator and continue to be my caretaker, she plans on when she dies to have my brother be my conservator/caretaker, my husband is also disabled himself so he has his own issues to deal with and is unable to have that role.

Also, no, that is not possible to use my own money because she controls my money. Also, I want my Godzilla themed wedding and to celebrate my wedding with all of my family there so I have to play by my mother's rules to get the wedding I want because I don't want to elope, I want an excuse to see family members I don't get to see on a regular basis.

I also fear that eloping will really affect my relationship with her as my conservator and can affect how strict she is with my finances and her quality of care if I don't play her game. That is something people don't seem to understand.

Unfortunately, due to your conservatorship situation, I think you are going to have to accept you are not going to be able to have your wedding exactly the way you want it. (For what it’s worth, most brides without conservators also don’t get exactly what they want either-especially when a parent is helping fund the wedding). I think you are going to have to make concessions. Sit down with your mother, tell her the top three things that are important to you, and see if you can work out a compromise for those three items. After that, I think there is going to have to be a lot of compromise on your part, if you want to have the big wedding.

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Thanks!

Luckily, I think I can make do with that 2,000 dollars she gave me for stuff she doesn't want to pay for. Like I mentioned in another thread, we have a lot of Godzilla monster figures that we could use that aren't super valuable (the valuable ones are in their boxes still). I also talked to my fiance said he could pitch in another 1,000 or so for what we want if he buckles down and saves meaning we will have a total budget of 3,000 to pay for the stuff we want that she won't pay for herself which I think is totally doable, especially if we DIY and use what we have.

I know I am making my mom sound like some evil controlling monster, but she really isn't most of the time when it comes to managing my finances, it is just weddings can make people a little bit crazy and I think that is the case with her. I don't think it has reached a point where I have to have a huge legal battle with her.

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I can understand that. I think figuring out the main elements you want your wedding to have and the vibe you want to have the wedding will need to be your focus. Also, humoring your mother with the wedding dress is a solid option, most moms can tell on their daughter's faces if they don't like the dress, and if she's got your happiness as the forefront she should be more focused on making sure you feel good in what you're wearing on your wedding then what she wants you to look like.

Sticker shock is real! If you tell your mom that the venue costs $$$$ she might take a bunch of steps back. Instead you could show her 3 different venues and the prices of each and what they include. If she goes to see the cheapest one in person she might say to herself “gee, you really don’t get a lot at this venue and it’s old and dirty” she might then start to realize that hosting an event is indeed expensive and there are a lot of components that need to be included to ensure guests comfort.



I know when I told my dad how much my venue cost he was like WhATtttt. But that’s because he hasn’t booked a venue for an event in 40 years. Prices have gone up due to inflation in the last 40 years. older generations shouldn’t assume an event will cost a certain amount. They need to do research.


Good luck with whatever you decide!