For many people, planning a wedding is a huge and exciting experience. For others, it is something that they want to keep small and intimate.

What would you do if you wanted a very small wedding, but your family kept sending you money as a gift, but then demanding that you spend that money to have a bigger wedding?

That is what was happening to the couple in this story, so finally they sent the money back and told everyone that if their gift came with stipulations, they didn’t want it.

Here are all the details.

AITA for telling my family that if they gift us money for our wedding, there will be no “strings attached” or we will politely decline it?

My fiancé and I thought we would escape the drama of a wedding and save money by having a small thing.

A big wedding is important to some people.

Well, family started trying to throw money at us to make it bigger and more spectacular.

We were surprised, but it was a good surprise.

Then the demands started coming out. They wanted this, they wanted that, they wanted this person to come, these colors, dresses can’t do this, this person has to be flower girl, this person HAS to be a groomsman, etc etc.

Suddenly it didn’t feel like our wedding, but an excuse for our families to have a family reunion.

Setting boundaries is so important.

We put our foot down and said:

Thank you all for your kindness and generosity when it comes to our wedding.

Unfortunately, it looks like we may not have been on the same page as the rest of you. When we were offered money for this wedding, we did not realize it came with strings attached.

With so many requests and so many demands from people we didn’t expect would think they had a say in our wedding, we have decided to give everyone their money back.

Our understanding of what a gift is must be very different.

If you would like to give us money without strings attached or requests or demands, we will gracefully accept it. But if you believe a gift should come with stipulations, we must regretfully, and politely decline.

They were very polite, but direct, which some people will hate.

This has caused an epic mess with our friends and family.

Such to the point where I have people saying they will never come to our wedding (honestly, not the worse thing in the world), that we are spoiled, we’re jerks, etc etc etc.

How can people be upset about this?

My parents are rather upset about it, but hers (who never made any demands and gave us a small cash gift) said we did the right thing.

We are halfway to canceling the whole party and just absconding into the wilderness to do the wedding the way we want.

AITA? (Are We?)

Sometimes family can drive you to elope! Nobody besides the couple getting married should have a say in what happens at the wedding unless they are asked.

Take a look at the comments below to see what other people have to say about it.

Does this family know how gifts work?

They are true partners.

The letter was too funny.

This commenter says they should run away.

Yup, this is exactly right.

There are only two people who get to plan the wedding.

Period.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.