<prompt> Human: Morning rpersonalfinance!As the title says, I am getting married this year to the love of my life. We are both 25 and have been together since 20. She wants a big expensive wedding, I dont.Heres the issue. We can absolutely afford this wedding because my fiancee happens to have a net worth in the 7 figure range, but me being an avid reader of pf thinks the money could be best used elsewhere. Her father cut us a very large check to do whatever with. The intention was to use it for a wedding but he made it clear he would be fine with us using it to travel, invest, or whatever. I would like to use the money for a modest wedding and then sock the rest away, she wants us to go above and beyond what the check total was for a big night. I feel like this may present some challenges for us as I am from the upper middle class and her father was an executive at a Fortune 100 company as was her grandfather. Her family has money, I have student loan debt. She receives six-figure dividend disbursements from a trust annually and I have not once told her what to do with it, always telling her it was her money but she should talk to her dad about investment advice. I do not know how to make the jump. If I am going to be married to this woman who is from a different social strata than myself, I am going to have to learn how to navigate some very tricky waters. Her family is incredible and I love her more than anything but I could really use some advice from someone who has been in this situation. How do you marry into money? My info just in case its helpful: Income- Net 3600 monthly Student Loan Debt - 15,000 Pay 1000 a month Car Loan - 4,500 owed on a 15,000 current market value car 2.5 interest Pay 1000 a month 401k- 8,000 and growing Emergency Fund - 5,000 RentUtilities - 900-1100 a month Food - 350 Phone - 80 Rest goes to entertainment, savings, or extra towards my debt So as you can see I am working hard to get rid of my debt before we are married and should own my car outright within the next couple months and begin contributing what I was paying towards my car towards student loans. I have all my expenditures accounted for on my complete cash flow schedule for the yeartl;dr - Marrying into money, want to be respectful, how do I do it?Assistant: To me it seems youre seeing a problem where there isnt one. If you arent combining finances after the marriage, I can see why you want to sock away what appears to be a gift to the both of you, because that would benefit you although it would have no impact on her. If you are combining finances, then I dont see what the issue is with using her fathers gift money for the wedding as she has significant wealth already. If you dont know if you will be combining finances, you need to figure that out before the wedding.Human: I agree, we need to have an actual conversation about this. We have lightly discussed it before but we have yet to open our books to each other.  <response>: Discussing finances before marriage is one of the most if not the most important thing to discuss. To give you context, my SO and I got married in the Catholic Church and catholic priests require every couple to go through pre marriage counseling. Finances is one of the first things that is talked about and they force all couples to have a real conversation about it. Let me tell you, not every couple makes it through that conversation. But its absolutely critical to be on the same page on this issue before marriage. 