Who pays for what?

Traditionally the grooms parents pay for rehearsal dinner and the groom your bridal bouquet. Perhaps they can give you the amount that they had planned for since it’s included in price of venue. Honestly the best solution would have been to have these conversations prior to planning your wedding.

I would delay the honeymoon and ask if they would be willing to do the flowers. When I married the first time the groom's family only paid for the rehearsal. His brother received 10k from his parents. Situations change even for the parents.

A delayed honeymoon might give them time to reconsider or contribute more at a later date. I understand wanting to be married. But, a delayed honeymoon gives either you or them time to save for the honeymoon without affecting the wedding. Also, rehearsal dinners can be BBQs - I know it's included in the cost of the reception but you don't have to take them up on it. Especially since they could host a much more relaxed and causal (fun!) rehearsal with little angst. The price of the reception won't change either way. So - let them host the rehearsal the way they want to and then delay the honeymoon. Then you have no money shortage at all.

Hang in there!

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It's still only the responsibility of the two people getting married to pay for the wedding, nobody else's. If anybody else offers - like your parents - you can take them up on it and be thankful for the help, but you can't expect people to pay for your wedding.

"It feels backwards and archaic that the bride and her family are the only ones to pay."

You're still missing the point. It's not the responsibility of the bride and her family. It's the responsibility of the bride and groom (or bride and bride, or groom and groom, etc.). In you're case you're lucky enough that your parents have offered to pay for the majority of your wedding. Consider that a very lucky gift from them and don't expect anything from anyone else; anything else you're given will be a lovely bonus if it happens.

You are not entitled to have your wedding paid for by anyone but yourself.

I read your question but kind of skimmed most of the replies after the second page... I feel for you because this is a super awkward conversation. My husband and I have been there -- it's really awkward trying to have conversations about finances in any situation, but this is an especially tough conversation when you have two separate families with separate expectations.

My parents are traditional and offered to pay for the bulk of the wedding... but they had expectations that my husband's family would pay for certain things. And it was awkward! My in-laws are English too, so things are a little different over there.

My husband and I had conversations separately with our families. My parents offered to pay for everything except the alcohol, flowers, DJ and rehearsal dinner because they believed that's what my husband's family should pay for. They were under the impression that my husband would pay 100% for our honeymoon, but I said we would both pay for it because he and I split everything 50/50. My in-laws were paying for their international flights plus the flights for my sister-in-law and her boyfriend, a large Airbnb for ALL of the family coming from the UK, ground transportation for everyone, hotels and other rentals for two weeks, etc... It was a lot! It wasn't going directly into the wedding per say, but they had some large expenses themselves because it was important to them to have their family at our wedding. This situation might not exactly apply to you, but I make the point because you don't entirely know what his family's expenses are in the upcoming months, and even then it's their money and they can spend it how they want.

My in-laws offered to pay for our rehearsal dinner and our honeymoon flights. Knowing they had all of these travel and lodging expenses (plus they volunteered to entertain the extended in-law family for a week before the wedding), my husband and I secretly paid for the DJ, alcohol, flowers, and honeymoon (plus other misc. expenses that came up because we didn't want to re-open this can of worms). This kept my parents happy and didn't add any financial burden to his family. But before we planned anything, my husband and I made sure we could afford the entire wedding ourselves. We never assumed the money would be given to us or it would be there when we needed it.

First... I think it's up to you to pay for your own honeymoon. That's just my personal belief, but I think honeymoons are separate from the wedding altogether and should be paid for by the couple. They're really just vacations tied to an event -- fun, but not required.

I understand you and you FH are younger, so you might not have disposable income at this very moment to cover these miscellaneous expenses. But I see you're getting married in December, so is it possible to save up for the flowers? Can you take your honeymoon at a later date? If you "just want to be married," then focus on the wedding and reception costs and push off the honeymoon.

It's not going to be a 50/50 split between families, and it shouldn't be because neither family is really obligated to pay for anything. You and your FH are starting your own family, so this is one of the first things you need to tackle as a couple, separate from your families. If your family is paying for x, y and z and his family is only paying for p and q, that's that. You and your FH need to come up with the remaining funds, adjust your budget, push off the honeymoon, scale back... whatever you can do to cover expenses. You can be frustrated at the different expectations each family has, but you can't be frustrated at how people choose to spend their money. If you feel it's worth revisiting this conversation with your future in-laws, have the conversation with them about costs but have a back-up plan if they won't pay for the remaining expenses.