Advice needed - House or Wedding?

mai_taylor

Well I bet you're all fun at parties, I'd love to go to a wedding abroad (if I could afford it).

Gloomendoom

davidwood123 wrote: »

Different times.

Do that in this day and age you're either really desperate or need help

Mrs G and I did it too. Eight years ago.

Neither of us were remotely desperate or needed any help.

Red-Squirrel_2

pollypenny wrote: »

Don't blame we baby boomers, then.

We've paid off our mortgage on our modest home and haven't got time to stay home knitting. We're too busy gallivanting.

Was your mortgage ever £1000 a month though?

pollypenny

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

Was your mortgage ever £1000 a month though?

No, it was just a bit more than OH's weekly wage when we got married. Neither did we benefit from low interest rates on it.


Blowing the money on a lavish wedding, worse getting in debt of one, means less towards a home and deferred purchase, so increasing the likelihood of a huge mortgage.

Callie22

I have a relative who was given quite a big lump sum by her dad (c. £25k) when she announced that she was getting married. Her dad said that she could either spend it on the wedding, or use it as a house deposit. In the end it was all spent on the wedding (along with a fair bit more), and eighteen months later the couple split up. There were a lot of reasons for the break-up but one of the biggest factors was the fact that they'd been evicted from their rented house and, because they had no savings, they couldn't afford to rent another place and they'd had to move back in with her parents, which they found difficult. I accept that's a pretty extreme case but to me, if it's a case of money like that, then I'd pick a house deposit every time.

Red-Squirrel_2

onlyroz wrote: »

But would they enjoy it *more* if the chair covers matched with the floral arrangement, and the vases were elevated so they didn't obscure your view of the person sitting opposite?

I went to a wedding a couple of years ago and the huge birdcage and flower centrepieces made it impossible to converse or interact with people on the other side of the table, which was a bit of a pain although all the random head bobbing and message passing was quite funny.

Of course, one way to avoid that would have been no giant centrepiece of any kind!

Red-Squirrel_2

onlyroz wrote: »

If you want to do all that then fine. But should you do it if you're on a tight budget and also have a house deposit to save up for? Probably not.


People have been persuaded that all this guff is necessary to ensure you have the perfect day. It really isn't. I last went to a wedding about a year ago and I've got no idea if there were seat covers, or what colour they might have been. I can't remember if there were flowers on the table. I can't remember what I ate. But I still had a good time catching up with all my old uni friends, and I enjoyed seeing the bride and groom happy together.

When my brother got married, the venue told them the extra cost for seat covers and it ran to hundreds of pounds, so they said no just leave the chairs as they are.

The venue put the seat covers on anyway, for free, because it looks better on the facebook pictures which are promotion for the venue! :cool:

Gloomendoom

We had to keep to a strict budget for our wedding and spend our money where we thought it would be most appreciated.

Needless to say, there were no seat covers or giant centre-piece.

However, there was an all-day free bar.

Pollycat

mai_taylor wrote: »

Well I bet you're all fun at parties, I'd love to go to a wedding abroad (if I could afford it).

Oh, we can party with the best of them.
We just don't want to waste - in our opinion - thousands of £££ on a 'holiday' just because a bride and groom feel it cuts their budget.

pollypenny wrote: »

No, it was just a bit more than OH's weekly wage when we got married. Neither did we benefit from low interest rates on it.

Jeez, pollypeny!
I can remember interest rates in the teens of %.
Some people younger than me and with higher monthly payments being absolutely panicked by an increase in interest rates.

springdreams

I'd vote for a cheapo wedding and spend the rest on a house.