Wedding loan

Disclaimer I didn't read the comments. I'm thinking have a longer engagement or a smaller wedding. I just can't see taking out loans for something that can be saved for or downsized. Your just starting out. Give yourself elbow room.. and congrats!

I’d either plan the type of wedding I could afford or wait until I could afford what I wanted. I would not take out a loan and start out a marriage with wedding debt. I would definitely sit down with your FH and talk finances. It may be a little uncomfortable at first but in the long run you will be better off

View Quoted Comment Um I am in that situation! I don’t have $10,000-20,000 lying around my house or bank account. My parents and FH’s parents can’t afford to contribute at all. I’m still not taking out any loans! I’m having a wedding that we can afford (courthouse) and I doubt I’ll regret it.

I agree with Tara up there. A nice courthouse ceremony is nothing to be ashamed of. I am getting married in a courthouse and then after that I'm having a party at my sister's! How much I need for all that? Around 2k! I have that, thanks to the power of saving! Easy, simple and I just want to marry this wonderful man! We keep forgetting weddings are a start to a wonderful and difficult beginning! Marriage isn't easy and sometimes it doesn't work but that's the core of getting married, not having a big puffy fancy AF wedding!

So listen, you’ve had the conversation with FH and you know his feelings on taking on this loan and how he feels about paying for it. I know deep down he probably wants to give you the wedding of your dreams, however, the burden for it should not fall on him solely because pays the majority of the bills. Please keep that in mind. My FH and I got engaged in Dec 2017 at 12 yrs in and getting married in 2021 at 15 yrs in because financially we couldn’t do what we wanted. I’m planning my wedding another 2 yrs out (it’s 2 yrs out now) so we can make payments along the way. I’m just saying plan for what you can afford. To take a loan out or not is up to you but if you can’t do it financially right now and are struggling with where you are don’t put added stress on both you & your FH. If the love is true it doesn’t matter if you get married next year or 2 yrs from now.

If you cant pay for it all now on your own, I recommend having something smaller for now and maybe for your 5 year anniversary have a big vow renewal. Do start your marriage in debt if you dont have to.

I think the general rule is to never take out a loan for a one day event. Yes, a very important event but don't do this with everything else you've got going on. Plan the wedding you can afford. Additionally, if school is a priority, make it so. What's the rush to get married? The relationship will still be there. Get sound in your structure and fiances first.

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Exactly. In saying people are not in the situation is a joke. Most people have student debt, car payments(loans), house/rent, utilities. I don't even have a car because mine broke, FH and I share, and I am still planning a wedding I can afford. We came across needing to sell our house and trying to pay more off the principle. There are soooo many in this scenario.

Don't start your marriage in serious debt! Either do a courthouse wedding or wait a few years and save up. Either way, you still end up marrying the person you love.

Hi Brooke, I'm Sara and my FH is Jared. We took out a $10,000 loan for our wedding, in both our names. I don't regret it. We live extremely simply, but a wedding was important to us. Everyone's priorities are different. We both work full time, live in NYC, don't have cars, we rent and have roommates, and both have student loan debt, and it's a big deal for us to buy ANYTHING other than food. We're paying for 95% of our wedding ourselves.

Taking a loan is NOT a choice everyone agrees with, but it was the right choice for us. We've been together a longgggg time - we're not going to wait "until we can afford a wedding" and personally there are some wedding scenarios I'd be embarrassed to have. Early in the planning, my FMIL suggested we have our wedding at a rural town firehouse, ceremony in the parking lot, because it was "in-budget". Ughhhhhhh. That's when we decided we'd either have a wedding we could be proud of, or we wouldn't have one. Our wedding is just right and perfect for us. It's classy, but honestly with making savvy budget decisions, it looks like we spend 4-5X what we really did. We have a personal budget plan for paying the loan back (which will take about 3, maybe 4 months tops).

Not being on the same page with finances is probably the number one cause of arguments in engaged couples... or all couples really. If I were you I'd ask Adam to sit down and make a budget spreadsheet with you, and ask for his opinion. Figure out where the wedding money is coming from, what expenses you can trim down, and other ways you can budget and save and plan. You are a financial team. It worries me a little that he expects you to pay for a wedding loan by yourself. Maybe this indicates something else - Does he have a different idea of how to pay for the wedding? Maybe his vision for the wedding is different, does he want a smaller wedding that would cost that much? Find out what he's thinking.

Disclaimer: I didn't read all the comments.
My fiance and I are paying for 90+% of the wedding ourselves and we don't have a ton of extra income to put into the wedding. The first thing we did was figure out anything we could cut out or reduce in our monthly budget (Amazon Prime, Netflix, eating out, going to the movies) to save more money. Then we figured out what we could cut out, reduce, or change in our wedding budget. For us we decided on a weekday wedding (Most venues are 50% off) with just our nearest and dearest (more guests = more cost). We really wanted a beautiful location, a great meal, and awesome photos so that's where our budget priorities are. Everything else we are trying to use friend connections and deals as much as possible. Lastly, I got a credit card to act as kind of a buffer for our wedding expenses. It helps us get deposits down when we need to and doesn't have interest for the first 15 months, so we can pay it off as we get paid.

View Quoted Comment Yea that's a good idea. Most of it can be put on a credit card. I just dont know how I feel about getting married in a courthouse or putting the wedding off. We got engaged November of last year. Just now realizing how expensive itll be 😅

A $10,000 loan is a bit much..... Personally I think a small loan is okay, IF you know you can afford it. If you cannot, then don't. We are taking out a loan in FH name to help his credit bulid. It's to pay off the venue and photography. While we are capable of saving this money, we want to start building his credit for when we are ready to buy a house. So, instead of the money we would save for the money towards those things, we're just making a payment to our CU instead, while also saving for the rest of the wedding as well. As I said, only if you know you can afford it. We, can afford to do this and save for the rest of our wedding as well.

I feel like I’m definitely against the typical responses. If you think it’s a loan you can afford to pay off quickly and soon, then I say go for it. It’s not worth losing your special day because you can’t afford it right now. If you want, push the wedding back and work on paying some of the loans off that you can. I’m in grad school right now and working as well. Also, come to a conclusion WITH your FH. For my fiancé, it’s more important for us to pay as much as we can and not rely on anyone else. I won a scholarship which is going straight to me, so I got lucky. However, I would consider taking out a loan if I hadn’t won the scholarship.

View Quoted Comment I don’t understand why your only “options” are courthouse or wait? You could have a smaller wedding and a big celebration later when you have the finances. You could elope with just like 2 or 3 of your nearest and dearest. You could work your butt off, budget like crazy and plan a wedding that fits the budget. IMO it sounds like you’re dead set on taking out a loan and justifying it because you’re already in debt... that’s how people never get out of debt because they keep adding to it. It sounds like your fiancé is paying for a lot right now and really taking care of a lot for you and he wants you to contribute. I understand where he is coming from because in my relationship I’m the breadwinner right now and have put a lot of money into renovating our first home and he just pays the utilities. I’m completely debt free and he has student loans and a car loan to pay off. I get super frustrated when he wants to spend money on nonsense and expects me to contribute. So, he’s getting a better job and will become more of the breadwinner and I can be more of the stay at home mom that I want to be and he also wants me to be.

I can understand this from both sides. You want a nice wedding and a nice party to celebrate. But you also have to consider the risk and financial obligation that taking a loan out would cause you. Real World Scenario: A friend of mine got married 6 years ago. Both of their families put in a bunch of money (about 10 thousand each side) and they still spent 17 thousand themselves. They used credit cards and loans to pay for almost everything. 6 years later, they are still paying for their wedding. She has been off of work for some medical issues for the last 4 months. They currently are struggling keeping just the regular monthly bills-rent, electricity, food, etc paid. Their 17 thousand dollars worth of debt has snowballed into nearly 30 thousand with the interest and late fees and all that. She tells me all the time she wishes they would've reconsidered some of the things they spent money on for their wedding and scaled it back to a more manageable cost.

My FH and I have had the wedding budget talk and have discussed what we are willing to spend. My ideal budget is $2,500 but at most we can go up to $5,000. That's what we can afford to pay by ourselves. So in our planning, we are thinking of the things that make us happy and how we want to spend "our day". We've scaled back the guest list-we didn't think it was important to invite people we talk to once every 10 years at weddings or funerals. We've cut out the DJ-nobody wants to do the chicken dance anyways. We've opted for our family and close friends and a playlist set up if people want to dance. DIYing a lot of things. So far we are very close to our ideal budget. Our families have said they will pitch in, but we aren't counting on that until it happens.

You can have an amazing wedding on a budget without skimping on the things that are really important to both of you. A few hours of fun and celebration is not worth jeopardizing your home or your financial future. Regardless of everyone else's opinions and input, the choice is yours. Do what will make both of you happy. Just make sure both of you are on the same page.

In my opinion, a loan for a wedding seems a little much. I say set a budget and work within that budget. You can save on so many things. The most expensive things are venue, catering and alcohol. If you think outside the box I'm sure you can have the wedding of your dreams, and still be "wedding loan" free. I'm sure your fiance is feeling the stress as well, just sit down and talk to him, if you work together on this, everything will work out.

View Quoted Comment I really do wish I could work my butt off. I would be able to save up enough money and pay for the wedding, no problem. But I'm in school full time. Grad school. And I work full time. I'm already stretching it as far as I can go with work. I offered to stop school for a year so I can work a lot and save money but he didnt want me to.

View Quoted Comment No I know 100% that I would NEVER go into debt for a one day party. And I would NEVER marry someone who was willing to go into debt for a party. I would be equally as married if I went to a court house as I would be if I had a huge party. And I can still have pictures (phones or friends/families with cameras) at a courthouse. For the other debts that you bring up:

Car loan: you live in DC. An area with a great public transit system. Not all areas are the same. It would take me 2 hours one way to get to work without my car. That would mean leaving my home by 4:45am at the latest and not getting home until 6:00pm at the earliest. Yes my car is needed. And I would always recommend buying an affordable used car that keeps the loan as low as possibly while still being able to reliably get to work.

School: My well paying job (and most well paying jobs) requires a college degree. I could work minimum wage somewhere, but in my high COLA I could not afford to keep a roof over my head at minimum wage. Again I would always recommend going to an affordable state school to minimize the amount needed in loans.

Houses: a mortgage is always a better financial decision than paying rent. I will see my money again if and when I decided to sell my house. If I rented that would be money going out the window. Yes you pay interest on a mortgage but that is an investment in your future. An optional party is just that. A party.

I pay my credit card off every month so have no credit card debt and would tell anyone else to do the same. I would always always always recommend living and spending within your means and only buying what you can afford.

View Quoted Comment What kind of wedding are you wanting to have? A big dance party or a smaller dinner type? For a big guest list you can save money by doing a mid day or morning ceremony with just appetizers or a food bar (soup bar, waffle bar). If you don't have the wedding around a meal time you can get away with serving lighter options with less meat (which is costly). People also drink less alcohol earlier in the day and you can minimize the alcohol budget by offering alternatives like strawberry lemonade and other juice mixes. A morning wedding with a waffle bar and mimosas reception after sounds super fun to me! For a small guest list, look for companies near you that do elopments, most can accommodate some guests (probably max 20). You can get married somewhere beautiful with very little fuss. After the ceremony go with your guests to a favorite restaurant to celebrate. Or a compromises between the two, "elope" with your closest people and then have a dessert reception that night with a variety of desserts (desserts are easy to diy!). My biggest recommendation is that if you're paying for a wedding yourselves, dont let your parents invite guests. Try to get your guest list as small as possible.