Money Moral Dilemma: Should we give two of our daughters cash in lieu of paying for their weddings?

Ed264

Let's flip the scenario a little. Had your youngest daughter not been getting married, would you have given her the £20,000? Let's assume not. I personally wouldn't give £20,000 to the other two at this stage. Let that £40,000 earn some interest and when/if the other two need £20,000 from you for whatever reason, yes then hand it over. As in all these MMD's, you will read varying opinions, none of them being right or wrong! Enjoy the wedding day.

michaels

I would never give my kids money for a party etc but have large funds pencilled in to help them purchase property that they will each get when they are buying not before.

Afourteen

Simple - Yes. With today's evolving and changing TAX situation I recommend sooner rather than later. But do do it legally with the note that it's in liu of covering the cost of their weddings. 

CreativeBrief

My Mum and Dad paid for my brother's wedding and were very quick to tell me that in their Will they had put aside extra for me (equal cost of the wedding), as they knew I never wanted to marry.

The thought had never even occurred to me! But I appreciated it. It was very fair of my parents (although I suppose I could have suggested I take it then and put it in a high-interest savings!).

Whatever you do, just be fair to all children

Scillydiver

No doubt in my mind. If you can afford it, treat them all the same now. £20k each to do as they wish. If you fund the wedding now, you will only fret at some point that the value of money has dropped due to inflation, and the cost of goods will have gone up, so how do you adjust the payments to daughters two and three to keep things fair?. Chances are daughter one may even be divorced by then.... 

Tell them all this is their inheritance whilst you can see them making use of it, whether you approve or not.    

Exodi

Gift them all at once, no strings of attached. Don't tie it to weddings (odds are that at least one will marry more than once).

I don't think you should get into what you personally define as frivolous or not as personally I'd say blowing 20 grand on a one day party is frivolous (I got married two years ago for under a third of that or technically nearly a fifth if you factor in the cash gifts we received).

Gifting it all now also remedies any issues with inflation - £20k in 10 years time might lose a quarter of its value in real terms. If your other daughter gets married in 10 years, will you gift her £25k?

Just gift it all now if you can, in my opinion.

CreativeBrief said:

My Mum and Dad paid for my brother's wedding and were very quick to tell me that in their Will they had put aside extra for me (equal cost of the wedding), as they knew I never wanted to marry.

The thought had never even occurred to me! But I appreciated it. It was very fair of my parents (although I suppose I could have suggested I take it then and put it in a high-interest savings!).

Whatever you do, just be fair to all children

Yes obviously inheritances are a delicate topic, but relative to your brother that's not a great outcome for you (though some will of course suggest that you should be grateful for anything you receive).

ian1246

Gift the £20,000 to each of the other 2 children - its the fair thing to do and it sounds like they might well put it to a better use than a wedding itself. Worth remembering the Divorce rate is close to 50% in the UK - you might as well bet that £20,000 Wedding Cost on a heads or tails coin toss and have an equal to the wedding chance of the bet being worth it.

jedav

Remember the potential (current) IHT implications of giving away money - up to £3k from each donor to any one person in any one tax year, one year's worth could be carried forward from the previous year, survive 7 years for the rest to fall outside your estate(s), £5k to child who is getting married, small gifts £250 each, or "regular gifts out of income" if you can justify they don't affect your standard of living.  Check gov.uk for full rules and watch out for budgets!

If you are likely to need care financed by the local authority, then they may be able to claw back the gifts by suggesting that they are a payment avoidance strategy - there seem to be no fixed rules about amounts or timescales. 

Keep records of amounts, recipients and dates, possibly with your Will (best to make one if you don't already have one).

"Fairness" is in the mind of the potential recipient(s).  You know your children, so will know how they are likely to react when presented with a sizeable chunk of money.  

aintreemaid

I'd assume the OP is not elderly and hopefully, this won't apply, but don't forget the inheritance tax implications of large cash gifts. 

ripongrammargirl

For a money saving forum I would like someone to explain why it costs £20,000 for one day to get married 😱
My wedding was £2500 inclusive of everything (dress, cars, registry office, reception, decorations, rings, hair etc) and I hardly recall any of the day (except it snowed 6” in an hour, I was frozen in my dress and shoes and desperately needed the loo throughout the ceremony!!) so why spend all this money?
People are obsessed with the “perfect” wedding- pretty ribbons to fall over on chairs, horse and carriage, crazy 6 course menu’s, video evidence for ridiculous social media (who cares ?) 
I'm also intrigued as to how parents have so much cash to throw about for their offspring’s wedding? 

My husband and I paid for everything at our marriage and never dreamed of asking my parents. My mum made the cake and Dad got the photographer neighbour to do the pictures. 
We spent £6000 (and negotiated that down from £9000) on our 3 week honeymoon- using £1500 cash gifts from our wedding guests as we both owned our home so it seemed the sensible thing to request as we didn’t need anything material- to Australia which was money well spent with all the memories created. 

If you have spent on one child then the others should get a similar amount, better giving now than waiting for inheritance tax and carers’ bills to take it all!
Very lucky children is all I can really say. Could you please send me some cash if you are so rich?!!