I'm probably the wrong person to ask for advice since my views are usually the outlier, but I feel compelled to say that you should probably think twice about marrying this girl. I'm not saying that she's necessarily a bad person, but if she really is the type of person who would feel that it would be degrading for a girl to chip in on her own marriage or to find ways to minimize expenses, then she's not my type. Since the TS felt that he had to complaint about this mindset, I'd kindly suggest that she might not be his type.

People who write that this is "normal" or "expected" are being ridiculous. This is his marriage, not yours. Marrying someone is probably the most momentous decision in any single person's life, and he has to live with it for the rest of his life. As such, he should get married only under terms that he feels comfortable and happy with, whatever they are. I predict that the TS and his fiancee is going to have an argument even over this. then they're unlikely to have a happy marriage.

Of course, moorish has her point as well. The girl seems to have her own mindset and she shouldn't be obliged to compromise on her dreams. Unfortunately her dreams and expectations seem to conflict with those of the TS, so the TS needs to decide if it's worth it.

Heh, my wife would disagree with you. In fact, I had to talk her into having a wedding dinner together with my mother-in-law. My own parents don't care much about the formalities. They're the very Western-educated type. My wife's parents are mostly okay too, but still feel like it was necessary to put on a show for the other relatives on my wife's side of the family. Personally, I don't care much for the tradition or being put on display but I was willing to put up with it for one night. Even so, neither of us put any effort into it whatsoever because we just couldn't be bothered. No speeches, no fancy music, no wedding car and decorations, no alcohol and toastings. We wanted to greet everyone, let them eat and send them on their way as soon as possible. I am proud to say that we were very poor hosts and it was a very, very bad wedding dinner.

Even to this day, 3 years later, my wife sometimes expresses regret that I managed to talk her into agreeing to have a wedding dinner at all. She thinks that it's a vain, meaningless and unenjoyable event held just to please others and not the two of us. She thinks that we should just have spent the money on increasing our honeymoon budget instead. Hehe. In general, both of us are not very sociable people and we hate doing things just for the sake of satisfying social conventions and showing off. We felt that it was much more meaningful to do different things for different sets of relatives and acquaintances together. For example, having lunch with our old school mates around a table, taking some of the younger members of the family to a karaoke etc.

This is also why the two of us get along very well.

Just a post to show that not all girls are like that, or enjoy the same things or think the same way and that it is not necessary to do things just because it is "expected" or "customary".