Fiancés Parents Are Hurt By My Wedding Package
I recently got engaged to my boyfriend and we are both in our 30s. This would be his first marriage and my second. I have two girls (15 and 11).
So his job was giving away these vouchers to a venue if you wrote a love story so he sent it to me and we put in. We won! The voucher covers $5500 and a 12 hour rental with tables, chairs, and a decor warehouse included.
The only rules were that the date had to be in 2026 but his work sat on these vouchers for months and so when we won, the venue only had 3 dates left: July 25th, November 28th (2 days after thanksgiving), and december 26th.
We called the venue as soon as we won to discuss details. The lady said she felt so bad but those were the only dates left. We offered to include some add ons since we were getting the venue for free and she perked up and gave us the end of March which gives me about a year and it would be less stressful. She also offered a package that wasn't shown on the site. The package is normally $17,700. It includes:
the original amenities of renting the venue above, catering for 50 people and they do all the prep, serving, and cleanup, also includes all plates, cups, napkins, and table linens
fresh flowers for the bridal party, the groomsmen, and silk flowers for the ceremony and reception,
dj services for 4 hours,
a 3 tiered cake with serving tools and champagne flutes, bar service for 6 hours which includes cups, ice, straws, just BYO beer.
A photographer for 8 hours and digital release of all photos
bubbles and a fog machine for your entrance
coordinator 10 hours of the wedding and. 4 planning meeting before
Basically the package makes it so all you have to do is clean up what you bring and they do everything else. She discounted it down to $8900 because of our voucher. I thought that was a pretty good deal.
Im not close with my family but we told his family and they were so excited until we told them that they can relax and everything will be taken care of. They got their feelings hurt really badly.
We thought this was important because I helped with the last family wedding and everyone was so stressed out and even one of his aunts sajd "Im never doing another wedding again!" so I wanted to pay to make sure everyone can just be there for us. Apparently that was the wrong answer.
His aunt is a professional photographer but has not messaged me directly that she wanted to do our photos. My fiances mom said his aunt could do our engagement photos but that she would really want to do the wedding ones. His other aunt is a florist and would do the flowers but she also hasn't told me directly it hurt her. His mom told me to please give them those jobs.
The contract said services cannot be removed, but we havent signed yet. Even his dad was hurt (parents are divorced) saying that he wanted to bring food as well but the venue has strict rules on that for food licenses if contamination occurs. He grumbled about it. He also wants to do my flowers.
My fiance keeps encouraging me to try to ask the venue if we could take off flowers and photography in exchange for elevated catering or something else and not ask off money. I feel weird about it because she already bent the rules of the contest for us. I asked him if he would talk to his aunts today but he didnt.
I keep trying to offer up jobs for them that woild be less labor and more meaningful like his dad stock the bridal suite with food, set up the guest book, help his son pick out a tux and a gift for his best man
For his mom, shes crafty like me so I suggested we make some gifts or something with the Cricut. She just kept saying "we really want to help if you could just talk to the venue"
I don't want to be difficult and Im already feeling like I dont even want to do this. They told their son hes robbing them of a milestone. NOTE: They are not paying a dime of this. We are paying for it all on our own if that helps.