How soon before the wedding should we get a loan?

london00

We were looking into getting a £10k loan this weekend and I realised something - there's probably not much point in us getting it at the moment, until we have to pay everything off, right?

I wanted to get one sooner rather than later so we know how much we have to spend, but if I do that, I'll just be paying it off from now with the money I've borrowed. I think..

Pros:

- Getting loan now means that it’ll be paid off sooner (i.e. in 3 years from now, rather than 3 years from April 2012).
- reduces risk of having to pay higher interest rates if they start rising soon.
- we can pay off the loan while we can afford it (i.e. now). Might help in 3 years time when we’re trying to save for a house deposit etc.

Cons:

- have to pay off now, even while not using the money.
- Rather than getting the loan now, and making payments from now on we could save the money that you would have used to pay the monthly loan payments, then use that to pay for some wedding stuff, meaning that you can get a loan of less money.
- Not sure what else.

I really, really hate maths and even thinking about this makes me head hurt. Can you any of you offer advice please?

zcrat41

Hi, if you're not getting married till April 2012 I personally would work out how much I could save in that time and that would be my budget.

If you are in debt before you even get married it'll take soooo much longer to get a house, have the first kid etc.

On a 10k loan over 3 years you'll be looking at repayments of c. 277 per month. Over 12 months thats 3.5k. Maybe you could make it 4k by saving really hard.

I reckon if you're savvy you could get a lot for 4k but it depends what kind of wedding you want

podperson

If it were me I wouldn't get a loan until nearer the time and put aside the money you would be paying on the loan repayments into a wedding fund. Then you may only need a smaller loan nearer the time and will be saving having to pay the interest. Surely you don't need to make any of the big outlays such as venue until much nearer the time anyway?
Also don't if this helps but was reading on here earlier about someone who got a loan out for the wedding and then just asked for money from their guests which then went towards paying off the loan - so in effect the guests paid for the wedding which I thought was lovely

Kildare

zcrat41 wrote: »

Hi, if you're not getting married till April 2012 I personally would work out how much I could save in that time and that would be my budget.

If you are in debt before you even get married it'll take soooo much longer to get a house, have the first kid etc.

Absolutely agree with zcrat41, work out what you can save between now and your planned wedding date and that's your budget, large or small. When we got engaged we decided we wouldn't get married any sooner than 18 months from then so that we could save - you don't want to still be paying for your wedding 3 years after it.

For us most of the big payments are coming up now in the 3 months before the wedding. For most suppliers you only need to pay a small deposit to book them however the venue required 50% at time of booking and the other bigger deposit was the catering.

trying_2_b_good

Most suppliers will only want a small deposit now. I'm getting married in August. We had to pay 50% of the venue six months before the venue. When you find your venue, they will tell you how they want to be paid. The dress, photographer, DJ etc have also been deposits - varying from 10% to 50%.

I would strongly urge you not to get a loan now. As said above, be strict with yourself & instead of paying loan installments now, put money into a savings account every month. Set it up in a standing order so there's no excuse. Otherwise, it will be too tempting to use the loan money to pay off the loan itself - rather than really paying it off with your own money (as you won't have used the loan yet)

Perhaps apply for a 0% interest credit card. A £3k limit should be plenty for now. Do a very detailed budget. I

Oh & don't forget to factor the cost of the honeymoon into your budget - a mistake I made.

looktothefuture

Please dont get offended by my reply but it's similar to Pod's post above - I wouldn't take out a loan - I thought about it, then worked out how much I'd pay back over that time and was horrified... so i've given up smoking to save +/- £300 a month to pay for our wedding!(Ours is also April 2012) That's £4k the 12 months we have left before the wedding that I can save ... it may not be easy but I so don't ever want to be in debt ever again! I've just spent the last 18 months paying off debt of £12k, I know I can do this!

Good luck for whatever you do decide to do, but whatever it is, remember there are some amazingly savvy people on this board and they can find anything cheaper!

trinity_enigma

My advice- don't having a wedding you can't afford.

Just wait- why do you want to get married in 2012 if you can't afford to? You need to work out how much you are happy to repay for a loan each month and then pay that amount into a savings account until you have £10k.

You really don't want to start married life with a large amount of unnecessary debt. What happens if everything goes wrong- one of you loses your job or an increase in interest rates makes your mortgage payments too large for you to repay. Why make your entire life miserable just to have one special day?

Magicboo

I'll avoid the sticky subject of getting out a loan to pay for a wedding but just tell you that we are getting married in 3 weeks (:eek:) and have paid out approx £4k in deposits and purchases but are due to pay approx another £5k before the day. That is for a wedding costing approx £11.5k
HTH x

london00

Thanks for all your replies everyone - I really appreciate you taking the time.

I'm very reluctant to take a loan. I've never got one before (except for a student loan) and I hate the idea of being in debt, especially over something like a wedding which is just one day.

I think you're all completely right - it seems daft to get a loan for this and then not be able to afford kids or a home for years.

We're saving £400 a month between us and I'm looking into how I can save more.

We'd put off having the awkward money conversation with parents because of pride but I think we might need to...

RainbowDrops

Hey Lonodon00 - stick with this board & I'm sure you'll get lads of tips on how to have a fab wedding without having to get a loan

podperson wrote: »

Also don't if this helps but was reading on here earlier about someone who got a loan out for the wedding and then just asked for money from their guests which then went towards paying off the loan - so in effect the guests paid for the wedding which I thought was lovely

I have to dissagree - why should your guests have to pay for your wedding!

shellsuit

You can easily afford to get married, but if it's a 10K wedding you want, then you'd be crazy to go into debt for it.

Why not hold off till late 2012 when you can save even more money?

Can you not having a wedding of 5K instead?

Put it this way, what's more important? Being husband and wife or getting into debt for 3 years for one day?

Not a nice way to start a marriage is it?