What Would You Do and What Would You Say?

There is probably no way to keep peace. Sometimes that happens. I would say no,I can't afford it.

On 1/26/2015 ncascade said:

There is probably no way to keep peace. Sometimes that happens. I would say no,I can't afford it.

From the get go, say no I would love to but I can't afford to.

Making some kind of nice excuse will just get you roped in

So the granddaughter is your son's daughter? If you are unable to contribute financially, maybe you can offer assistance, like help with decorating or something like that. I would think that your son and DIL are aware of your financial situation. Coming up with a wedding gift is going to be tricky enough.

Jackthebear makes a valid point.

Put the "keeping peace" issue aside. You can't afford to host a shower and neither you, nor your daughter want to host a bridal shower. That's the principal concern here. You said that you were "asked"; that means you can graciously decline. You can try to keep the peace by putting your very negative feelings about this request aside. Be nice; pleasant and explain that unfortunately, you and your daughter cannot host a bridal shower. Don't go into a lot of detail, just explain that unfortunately hosting a bridal shower doesn't fit into your budget or into your daughter's budget at this particular time. Perhaps they will be miffed, perhaps not. You can't be responsible for their feelings. For what it's worth, their wedding budget is probably stretched to the breaking point and they want you to pick up some of the slack.

Perhaps I should clarify, this is not a bridal shower which I'm also expected to help with and participate in and attend more than one shower, this is a luncheon given as "thanks" to the bridesmaids.

Also, this is in addition to the shower gifts for the multiple showers as well as wedding gift and also two high school graduation gifts and a contribution to the mission trip for the bride's two sisters. All this is within a three week period.

Don't really think I have "negative" feelings about the whole thing, just wanting to keep everyone happy without totally breaking the budget. And, no, I don't think that they are aware of how vigilant we are about our income. I'm sure they know that we don't have tons of money; however that's not something we discuss.

Patticakes - forgive me for not reading your original post thoroughly. If the shoe was my on foot (so to speak), I would have no problem declining participation in the "thank you for being my bridesmaid' lunch.

Seems like the bride would be hosting this shindig and the maid of honor would be hosting the bridal shower. You shouldn't be expected to finance these things.

If you cannot afford it, you cannot afford it. I'd politely beg off. Like somebody else said, if that makes them have hard feelings toward you, well that's on them not you and there is nothing you can do about somebody else's inappropriate feelings.