I'm being asked to pay for a shower I did not get to help plan

Okay Mamapedia folks I really need some feedback here. I have a niece that I am very close to and I have always tried to help out financially for major life events. So she is expecting her first child which is amazing and I am really happy for her. I offered to pay for the baby shower and to help to plan it with my other sister-in-law. I reached out several times to get together for the planning with no response. Eventually my sister and sister-in-law planned the wedding without me. They went, in my opinion, overboard and now the total cost is quite a bit above and beyond what I ever imagined. I’m a little peeved that I was left out of the planning but I did originally offer to pay. However, the proposed cost is about twice as much as I imagined. Do I offer what I originally anticipated spending or eat the whole bill?

Wow. I’m a bit bewildered that when someone else is paying for the event, the other people didn’t make sure that person was part of the planning process, if only to make sure they were onboard with the proposed cost. Well, it’s water under the bridge now.

Just to get clear for yourself, are you more feeling hurt that they didn’t include you in the planning, or are you more feeling that the proposed cost is a burden for you? If it’s the latter, I encourage you to write a note or call and say something like “I have heard that the shower is going to cost (Y). Right now, my financial circumstances only allow me to contribute X amount. I realize this might be disappointing, however if you had contacted me earlier to talk about the plans, I would have been able to inform you of my current limit. Maybe one of you can fill the gap? Or if you’d like, I’d be happy to brainstorm with you on ways to reduce the cost? I could go look for other providers of (whatever service).”

If it’s more about hurt feelings, you still are perfectly entitled to say “I can contribute X amount to the cost of the shower.” If they ask, you can say that you hadn’t planned on spending more than X and leave it at that. Do you plan to attend the event? If they asked, would you be willing to help with the preparations? If so, I do think you want to avoid voicing your disappointment about not being included in the planning, since no one can go back in time to change that and it will just create tension. Bottom line, you are not obligated to pay or do anything more than you feel comfortable doing. Good luck with it! I hope you get to do something lovely with your niece at another point in time.

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Thanks so much for the feedback @alewinson To be honest, the total amount is not outside my means its just that I think the plans are overboard, although I think so many events are going overboard these days that maybe I am just a stick in the mud. My feelings, again to be honest, I’m more annoyed than hurt especially because it was supposed to be me and my sister-in-law planning and my sister staying out of it but it is not in her nature to stay out. I am also annoyed with myself that I didn’t speak up about a total budget to begin with so as you say, so much is water under the bridge. I do plan to attend the shower and to help to set up and take down.

I think I will borrow some of your words and say, “I had intended to contribute X amount to the shower and realize I never said what budget would work for me.” I also like the idea of offering to brainstorm to lower costs or maybe just take it down a notch.

I’m was trying to think of a non-confrontational way to bring up that I had also offered to help plan so how did I get left out? But to your point, what’s done is done and to bring it up will just create tension. I guess I wanted an apology but best to let it go.To clarify relationships, my sister is the mother of my niece and my other sister-in-law is my brother’s wife who does love to plan parties. So maybe she just ran with it because it was fun for her and no one was trying to thwart me.

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I agree that often events, especially anything related to showers and weddings, seem to get really overblown sometimes. Doesn’t sound stick in the mud to me! Anyway, I bet they can still scale things back a bit if they want to. You seem to have a great perspective on things–hoep it ends up being fun!

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I would not eat the whole bill. That is not fair to you. If they left you out of the planning, the least they could have done was to ask you about your budget and then plan something around it, not go crazy and just expect people can and will be willing to spend whatever they decided they should spend. It has nothing to do, in my opinion, as to whether or not you participated in the event-planning and feeling hurt that you were excluded. It’s just about being considerate and making sure you don’t create an impossible financial burden on someone.

I would not express my frustration about being cut out of the event planning and how you found it hurtful to sidestep you; however, I think you can even use this opportunity to help with the planning. Let them know that you have a budget of XYZ, and when they tell you that the event will cost XYZZZ, tell them that this is all you are able to contribute and offer to help them look at the list of costs and vendors to cut down on spending. This way, you can have some input into the planning, while at the same time lowering costs and save money. A win-win in my book.

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@Natalie_L1 and @alewinson thanks to both of you for validating that it is okay to be a little “What the heck, hello did you not think to ask me about a budget?” So I am going to reach out and let them know that $ is the amount I had intended to contribute. I’m happy to help set up and take down (and they do both work hard at these type of family events) and I also spent money on a pretty large gift (which I did) so we need to scale back to fit the budget.

@Natalie_L1 and @alewinson So I thought you might like to know how my saga continues. I called my sister to have the conversation around how I was happy to help and happy to contribute x amount of dollars for this event. Could we look at ways to trim the budget a bit? The response: “You can pay what you want. It’s fine. I’m used to people changing their mind and backing out of commitments to me.” So, I actually almost laughed. I think I would have been really upset and wondered if I was really such a bad person if I hadn’t gotten the validation here so thank you! I will go to the shower, I will help, I will embrace my niece, I will pay my very reasonable amount.

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Glad that the messages were helpful, and sorry your sister went into martyr mode. She did open the door for you to say, 'I’m sorry you seem surprised. If you folks had talked with me when you were planning the event, I could have told you how much I can contribute. Hopefully we can plan future events together." Then, you can move on to how you can help with this event.

@alewinson I needed you in my head at the time!

Haha, thanks. Naturally, I never can think of that kind of thing when I’m in a situation… You can use some variation of that reply if/when something happens in the future.