your thoughts if you wouldnt mind..........

Student_Mrs

Congratulations and well done for thinking it through (with future hubby?)

Our wedding in 2008 cost £5K including the honeymoon and that was over 100 people to the church and 50 to evening reception with buffet. The wedding board on here was awesome for money saving.

Biggest costs were the venue (which you will only be able to cost 1 year, maybe 2 in advance, they don't often freeze prices), we had friends who did photos, made an amazing cake to order and church catering all as wedding gifts. We were 19 and 22 when married and 3 years later, would say the rest as the others, it's personal to BOTH of you and save as much as you can without getting into more debt. You have plenty of time to enjoy the excitement preparing for a marriage brings.

From that saving, also set money aside for after the wedding, that's where we fell short as it is a marriage after all, which you could start by going to the registry office tomorrow but do you want to start in debt etc? There can be new costs, shared bills, blah di blah. I started uni a month after wedding and best thing we ever did was getting married (plus I still have student overdrafts etc) so don't be too put off by big milestones, eg 25- is it just the debts you have and how would they be changed if you were married earlier?

Good luck

jtr2803

rachbc wrote: »

getting married costs about £60 if I remember correctly - the rest is just window dressing so entirely optional - I think the average cost is £10-15K but we had a lovely day for around £3k -could have done it for a lot less if we'd wanted though.

Crikey!! I need to move to your area.

Down here it's a minimum of £200 for a weekday and that's only if you have less than 20 guests and doesn't include giving notice and all the other fees :eek:

OP....prices could have gone up 20% in 5 years time so little point trying to work out a budget now as anything can happen in that time. Focus on clearing your debts for 3 years and then start planning :beer:

emsywoo123

thorsoak wrote: »

It's very hard to project figures so far ahead ....we're talking about Sept 2016 - which is 5 years 2 months away, people!!

Have I missed something? Is it only July 2011? Thank God I have got longer to save for Xmas than I thought but it's blinking chilly for this time of year! :rotfl:

thorsoak

emsywoo123 wrote: »

Have I missed something? Is it only July 2011? Thank God I have got longer to save for Xmas than I thought but it's blinking chilly for this time of year! :rotfl:

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:Don't rely upon me for dates ......I have just been very un-MSE, and missed my flight back from IoM (Flybe re-scheduled it back in October, I accepted, but failed to notice that not only had they brought the time of the flight forward by 4 hours, they re-scheduled it for the day before :eek::eek::eek:! It has cost me another £120 to get home!!!

(If it were not for the fact that I fly out next Wednesday to DD's in New York for 6 weeks, I might have stayed on IoM for another few days

Weird_Nev

Congratulations!

Prioritise your money.
Work out what YOU want (in life and out of your wedding)
Start working together to earn your wedding.

Really, I'd deal with your car loan first. Can you clear it quickly, sell the car and pay it off? Consider your options. If you want to keep the car, then work out how do do so as cheaply as possible. I'm not going to join in with all the loan bashing. You've done it now, so what's important is dealing with it as fact, not feeling bad about it.

Uni debts? Clear anything high interest as a priority. Some student loans are not worth clearing (i.e. those that accrue just 1-2% interest) but other loans are more pressing, and need to be cleared before savings as they attract 6+% interest.
Once you've cleared your debts you can start managing the surplus money (from not servicing debt) to start building savings towards wedding, house, whatever you want/need.

And finally, don't go mad on the wedding. We had an excellent day in a 15th century scottish castle, 60 of our nearest and dearest family friends, a great meal, free booze for all and it cost about £5k including a 2 week honeymoon for us in croatia. Our friends still remark 5 years on that it was the most unique and wonderful wedding. Of course, we did it after we bought a house! Priorities! So make sure you get the day you want, and get value for money.

rachbc

jtr2803 wrote: »

Crikey!! I need to move to your area.

Down here it's a minimum of £200 for a weekday and that's only if you have less than 20 guests and doesn't include giving notice and all the other fees :eek:

OP....prices could have gone up 20% in 5 years time so little point trying to work out a budget now as anything can happen in that time. Focus on clearing your debts for 3 years and then start planning :beer:

Yes sorry you are right - 33.50 each to give notice, 43 registrar fee and 95 for the register office. I was thinking of the giving notice fees.

make_me_wise

Congratulations OP on your engagement. My advice is clear the car loan and uni fees first, then look at saving for the wedding.

It will hopefully be the most amazing day of your life, that you only do once. I dont think throwing a fortune at it makes it any better though to be honest. However much you end up spending, there is one thing that money cant buy. Make sure you do it your way. Dont let other people make big decisions about your day. Plan it exactly as you and your fiance want it to be and stick to that.

pimento

VitaK wrote: »

We spend £3k on our wedding and we had an absolutely amazing day.

Our wedding also cost my dad £3k. He said "How much? Elope and I'll give you the money..."

Mind you, this was 25 years ago and nobody had to buy a drink all night. By the 'eck, those were the days.

We're still together.

caeler

I got married at 26, had been with OH for 4 years before wedding. We spent a total of £15K (saved up before wedding), it was fairly traditional sort of thing, church and choir, nice car to transport me to the church, hotel reception etc. He cheated on me after a few months and it ended in divorce. Total waste of money, although it was a bloody good party and still remembered as being one of the best now! I'm afraid by asking the questions you asked you've walked in to responses like mine! Sorry!

Other's have picked up on your £20K car loan, I have to say I had to wait 10 years before I could buy a new car! ;-) I'd suggest you sort out your debts, concentrate on Uni, have some fun, enjoy your engagement, then worry about a wedding nearer the time, what you both decide you'd like may change as the years pass.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Teddy_KGB wrote: »

Agree with everyone else £20k for a car is crazy at 20, the insurance must be massive as well.
.

And I'd say rather a 20 grand car than 20 grand wedding. At least you know what a 20 grand car is going to be like to drive - the marriage resulting from the 20 grand wedding is an unknown quantity.