Young folks weddings: match "projected" quality of life?

sweetilemon

Just typed and lost my post Basically I said my OH proposed knowing we could afford to marry. I am 24 and spending 10k on the wedding and 4k on the honeymoon excluding the spending money. The only thing I can forsee us wishing we'd spent more on is upgrading the honeymoon again but we can always go on a second honeymoon in years to come. We try to avoid debt, if we don't have the money we can't afford it. With no interest we have more money to spend in the long run! We both worked as students to avoid student loans. We have a mortgage but after the wedding reducing it is our mission. I would hate to bank on me earning more in future, although hopeful I will, would rather just save and spend within my means.

sugarwalsh

Am I missing something? Idio, you appear to be suggesting only a 'teally good' wedding can happen on a large budget. I would really, really disagree with this. I don't quite understand what you are asking?

MrsDrink

Mmm - I'm 32 and getting married in July. Yes we're doing it on a budget (£3k) but I earn a reasonable amount (teacher) and the money we've spent on the wedding we haven't noticed missing. What I'm saying is we could have afforded to spend more, easily, but haven't wished to. Our plans are exactly as we want them to be... I think the only thing I'd change would be the cake and catering. We're doing it ourselves - that being said I would still begrudge paying a fortune for something I could do myself!!

Would I do the same if we were married at 20? Probably not - I'd have probably have wasted a lot more money on irrelevant and unimportant things. Pretty much like I did in most areas of my life back then! Ha! I most certainly wasn't very MSE in general!!

So I guess I'm the opposite of all your options Idio. If we married when I was 20, I would now be looking back with regret that we'd wasted so much money!

Idiophreak

sugarwalsh wrote: »

Am I missing something? Idio, you appear to be suggesting only a 'teally good' wedding can happen on a large budget. I would really, really disagree with this. I don't quite understand what you are asking?

I don't really see how I'm suggesting that? Seems like you're projecting a little to me...:p

Of course you can have a really good wedding on any budget - but most people, if they had loads of money, they had no other use for the money and all the rest *could* spend more on their wedding if they wanted to - they could put more cash behind the bar, they could pay for accommodation for their guests, they could buy themselves those gold-weave underpants they've always fancied - good dressing does, after all, start from the inside.

Most people have to make decisions about which things they're going to have and which they're not, based on the available budget. So, my question was simply about this budget and how people decide it, I guess - and more particularly, how much it's influenced by their financial circumstances *immediately* and how much is them thinking longer-term.

katie1812

I know this is for people who are already married but I've found it quite interesting reading people's thoughts!

I'm 22, my fiance is nearly 25 and we are getting married in September. To me, we are both young, me in particular lol, perhaps in some people's eyes too young to get married and set up life together. We both went to university, I graduated last year, my fiance the year before, and so been working nearly one and two years respectively.

We've been engaged for 18 months and our wedding is costing around £9000. We are paying every single penny beforehand, it is now all saved for and we have worked very hard to do so. Endless spreadsheets and budgets but very easily done really, on a combined income of around £36,000. We are also in the process of buying our first house, admittedly a percentage of the deposit is inheritance money but we have saved another £5000 in about 4 months to make up the rest.

I don't think in years to come we will look back and wished we had done things differently, or waited until we were a bit older. I honestly couldn't be happier with how we've done things!

sugarwalsh

I guess because you say you are 'backing yourself to have a great life' so therefore you had an extravagant wedding. You also suggest that if you don't go all out there is a chance you might regret it.
to me having a great life does not equate to climbing the career ladder. I don't aspire to drive fancy cars or have a grand castle. I take my pleasure from much simpler things.
Obviously if money were no object, is we were mega rich and wouldn't get into debt, we may have done things differently.
But the same could be said about most things in life.

KK22_2

We are a young-ish couple (25) and have a budget of £13k for the wedding and £5k for the honeymoon. I think regardless of age, we are having the wedding that we want and are paying what we want to pay. We are in no way compromising on anything or having to cut things out of our budget. We have the money saved already (almost engaged for 1 year) and are also in the process of buying a house.

I don't really think that age equates to how much you can spend on a wedding. I think that i am in a more financially secure position just now than i will be years down the line when i have a mortgage and kids etc.

wanchai_2

Idiophreak wrote: »

...and what if you could do both?

But... by spending less on our wedding, we have more for our deposit. £10k is a lot of mortgage payments!

sugarwalsh wrote: »

Am I missing something? Idio, you appear to be suggesting only a 'really good' wedding can happen on a large budget. I would really, really disagree with this. I don't quite understand what you are asking?

I thought the same tbh. Idiophreak, without meaning to cause offence, you do rather seem to suggest that more money spent = more impressive. Or that 'one must have a wedding that befits one's status'. :rotfl: Honestly, I didn't realise this when I was younger, but status symbols are not all they're cracked up to be. Some of the wealthiest peeps I know drive old cars, cycle everywhere, buy clothes only in the sales etc. And they're happy and financially secure! I guess the lesson is 'don't judge a book by its cover'. A fab wedding can be had on a small budget the most extravagant weddings that I've been to haven't been the best! Everyone has their own priorities - we're happy with our wedding plans and wouldn't change a thing. Sure, it'd be good to have a free bar or pay for everyone's accommodation, but nobody expects that tbh. Would I spend an extra £5k to do it? No blimmin' way!!!!

Are you sure that you're not trying to justify the cost of your wedding to yourself?

Roz_V

We were 23 when we got engaged, and will be 26 when the wedding comes around so fairly young. We've been together since we were 18 and were on an amazing holiday when OH proposed. We didn't get "engaged to be married" as we didn't set a date for 18 months after the engagement, instead we decided that we'd buy a house and see how much spare money we had each month with a mortgage.

This turned out to be more than we'd thought and so we started talking about setting the date. We worked out what we wanted from the wedding and costed it up, then worked out when we could afford to get married - 2014. A close family member then got very sick & almost didn't make it, and we realised that what we really wanted was for the people who we cared for there with us, so we reevaluated our plans to what we could afford this year - a small ceremony & wedding breakfast (14 guests) followed by a large reception for all of our friends & family (185 people).

We've cut back on some things that we didn't really care about (artificial flowers, no favours/table plan/place cards) and I'm making the invitations & centrepieces, but then we've spent 2k on photography as its something I really value. Our total budget is 9k but we're trying to save as much of that as possible for a big honeymoon next year, and the day is currently coming in at 7.3k (we're having a minimoon to Iceland straight after the wedding, but not counting this in the budget as its less than what we woud spend on our annual holiday anyway)

I guess for people our age we both have fairly decent jobs (household income around 50k) and no debts. Our original plans would have put the wedding in the 15k region, but as the day gets closer I'm ever thankful that we decided to do it this way and I can't wait

Roz_V

Just to add to my previous post, I think there can be a bit of both snobbery and inverse snobbery on this forum about how much people are spending on weddings. The main thing is that we're all doing what WE feel is comfortable and right for ourselves. No two couples/relationships/financial situations are the same and we all have different priorities. Doesn't make anyone more right than anyone else.