Who pays for what in a wedding, then and now

The classic American division came from a time when brides married young and lived at home. The Emily Post Institute’s list gives the bride’s family nearly everything: the venue and every reception cost, invitations, the dress, flowers, music, photography, transport for the wedding party, and the groom’s wedding band.

The groom and his family covered a shorter list: the bride’s engagement and wedding rings, the groom’s clothes, the rehearsal dinner, the officiant’s fee, the marriage license, boutonnieres and family corsages, and the honeymoon. Attendants paid for their own outfits and travel, and guests paid for their own travel, lodging and gift.

Emily Post itself calls these guidelines variable and says to assign costs to fit your circumstances. In the UK the old pattern is similar, with small differences: Bridebook, a UK wedding planning app, says the groom traditionally pays for the bride’s bouquet and the groom’s side for the ushers’ outfits and ceremony fees, while hen and stag parties are paid for by the people who go.

Couples marry later than they used to. The Associated Press, citing the US Census Bureau, put the median age at first marriage at 30.2 for men and 28.4 for women in 2023, against 23.7 and 20.5 in 1947. Their parents are often nearer retirement, and the couple often earns more, so the bride’s-family model has loosened.

The surveys disagree on the details because they measure different things. The Knot, which sells wedding services, says parents on average contribute slightly more than half of the budget; Northwestern Mutual, citing The Knot in 2024, puts it at 52 percent from parents and 48 percent from the couple. Zola’s First Look Report 2023 (Zola is a wedding registry), as reported by Fortune, found 42 percent of 4,000 engaged couples had all or part of the wedding paid for by parents, and only 16 percent planned to pay in full themselves.

A LendingTree survey of 1,050 US newlyweds, run in March 2025, asked how couples mainly paid. Personal savings led at 46 percent, credit cards came next at 24 percent, and only 16 percent named parents or relatives. Two in three had taken on some debt. Read together: many parents still help, but the couple is usually carrying a large share, and often borrowing to do it.

In the UK, Bridebook says its annual UK Wedding Report found 41 percent of couples pay for the whole wedding themselves (its page does not say which year’s report).

Have it before you book anything, because the answer sets your budget. Lizzie Post of the Emily Post Institute told the AP to treat it as a candid conversation with anyone who wants to contribute, and never to assume anyone else will pay.

Talk to each family separately first. Emily Post advises that the groom’s side is best asked by their own child, privately, rather than by the other family. The same applies to any couple: each partner raises it with their own parents.

Keep the opening simple. Emily Post’s suggested line is close to this: we were hoping to sit down with you and talk about the wedding budget. Then ask two questions: would you like to contribute, and is there an amount you are comfortable with? A parent does not have to name a figure on the spot.

Ask how the money comes: a fixed sum, one named cost such as the photographer or the rehearsal dinner, or a share of the total. Emily Post lists all three, plus the couple paying for everything, as normal today. Northwestern Mutual tells parents to say up front if there is anything they would rather not pay for. Write down what was agreed in a short, friendly message afterwards so nobody remembers it differently in six months.

Unequal is normal. Etiquette writer Nick Leighton told the AP that with no fixed rule, each party gives what it wishes, so the amounts often differ, and that is reasonable.

Do not report one family’s figure to the other. Paperlust, a stationery seller, calls sharing one household’s contribution with another poor form, and suggests fixed sums rather than percentage splits when the families’ incomes differ a lot. A three-way split in thirds only works if everyone can genuinely afford a third.

Thank both sides in the same way. The family that gave less may have made the larger sacrifice. If one side gives nothing, that is their choice to make; build the budget from the money you actually have.

Emily Post’s answer is clear: the wedding belongs to the couple, whoever pays. Parents can suggest, but colors, food, flowers, music and design are the couple’s choices. In return the couple respects the agreed limit, because pushing past it is where the conflict starts.

In practice, money can carry expectations. New York planner Jove Meyer told the AP that money is power, and that some couples pay for the wedding themselves to avoid conditions attached to a parent’s gift. Agree any strings before you accept: a guest list allowance for each family is the most common one, and it is easier to settle as a number in week one than as a fight in month eight.

If a gift comes with conditions you cannot accept, you can decline it politely and plan a smaller wedding you control.

The bride’s-family and groom’s-family columns simply do not map onto two brides or two grooms, and they do not need to. Jove Meyer told the AP that same-sex couples are the largest group he sees paying for their own weddings. The Knot’s Sarah Hanlon told the AP that couples are increasingly dropping gendered and heteronormative rules. Each partner talks to their own family, and the cost list is shared out by what each side wants to give.

With divorced or remarried parents, Emily Post notes that stepparents are often part of the money conversation, and in some families grandparents or siblings too. Treat each household as its own contributor: ask each one separately, keep each figure private, and thank each one directly. Paperlust describes this as each household giving what it is comfortable with.

Seating, the guest list and who hosts which event can follow the same principle: decide them as a couple, then tell each household plainly, rather than letting the size of a check decide who stands where.