Marrying Couples: Consider Your Finances Before Having That Fairy Tale Wedding
Carol is also no stranger to spending a fortune on her weddings. She estimates that, with the upcoming one in February, she and her different husbands have paid possibly $80,000 over the three occasions.
While Carol and her beau make the kind of money that makes this kind of event possible, even people of her financial status might blanche at the concept of spending the equivalent of a modest home or extravangant sports car on ceremonies is beyond belief. In fact, some of the couples who have already gone this route develop buyer’s remorse.
Such people are like another friend of mine, and a veteran of a $22K wedding a full decade ago, who likes to say, “If I had it all to do over again, I would put the money into savings and just cook a big meal to feed the guests after the service. That would be celebration enough, and I’d have a lot more in the bank toward my kid’s college fund. My husband and I would have fought less over the bills, too.”
No matter how you plan it, every aspect of a wedding ends up costing through the figurative nose. Even if you long for just a simple, sweet nuptuals, you will still likely spend thousands. Everywhere, we see pictures and videos from weddings that remind you of Princess Di and Charles in Great Britain two decades ago. This makes the typical American believe that such grand affairs are commonplace and something they should have, too. Yet few are prepared for the pricetag: a fairy tale wedding can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars, with those in the $20,000-$40,000 range now no longer the rare exception.
Yet today’s economy – where the rich are doing better but the middle class and below are often struggle – can make this kind of ideal tougher to do without making serious sacrifices in other areas. For example, some studies show that couples, rather than plan a more modest ceremony, are burdening themselves with high-interest loans or credit card debt. Even the most generous of parents may feel pinched if they are expected to shoulder more of the costs in a nuptual snowball that accumulates mass with every day before the wedding.
Experts say the answer isn’t always to follow the fairy tale path, but to consider carefully what their priorities are. Couples should also look very carefully at their finances and what they can reasonably afford and then plan accordingly. For example, it may not make much sense to have a $30K wedding event if they want to purchase a home immediately only to realize they could get a much better home at a more advantageous interest rate if only they had not spent so much on the big day.
“I tell engaged couples the truth, which is that they can actually ruin their relationships if they expend all their capital, mental and financial, on the wedding day itself,” says M.I. Hoffman, a marriage counselor in private practice. “To finance a fairy tale rather than their futures together may tell you something about the long-term health of the union. You only need a big show when you feel you need all of the pomp to prop you up, in my experience. A truly committed couple can refocus on longer term goals and desires while still having a wonderful wedding day and honeymoon.”
“Men seem to harbor the angriest feelings about the great attention and expense paid that one day, but I see women who can regret it just as much, even if they really pushed for the bigger event. They can bring the subject up again and again in arguments. This is especially true if the couple has incurred debt to pay for the wedding, but the griping and blaming pops up regardless of the financial picture. The well heeled grumble just as much,” adds Hoffman.
Mary L. Lopez, a Massachusetts marriage and family therapist, is quick to agree. Lopez, a financial professional before she went back to study counseling, says she saw the same negative results of excess wedding spending in both her lines of work.
“At the bank, I saw newlyweds come in to try to offload high interest credit card charges into a lower interest loan. These people aren’t necessarily going to be able to buy a home soon, largely because they’re going into the marriage in debt for something that has no monetary value past the day itself. Now, in counseling, I see couples who are still bringing up this excess years later. They realized, too late, that they got themselves off to a bad start and it eats away at them,” she says.
Noting that her own wedding was small, modest, and delightful, Lopez continues, “Of course, there is also a flip side. I see people, particularly women, who regret that they did not have the wedding of their dreams. But, as I say to them, they can always renew their vows at a later time with all the extras they want. Isn’t it better to have the grander vision later, after you feel settled in life and can afford it more easily?”
Lopez finds it sad that, as she says, too few couples can see a balance between the big fairy tale extravanganza and a simple but wonderful more budget-conscious ceremony. On this point, she blames the media, where consumers are bombarded by TV and movies that show weddings “only Hollywood can afford”. As they see it, they may expect that they must have this kind of event themselves; likewise, their friends may plan such weddings which just reinforces the concept.
“Face it, there is also the great need to impress others. Since a wedding is usually the biggest ceremony of a person’s life, there is extra pressure to make the event something no one will ever forget. In truth though, details of even our own weddings blur over time,” says Lopez.
Jay and Lauri Carbondale realized they were in trouble when, months before the big day, they had already spent close to $15,000 on deposits, advance orders, and other expenses in 2003. While they started with a nice nest egg between them, they rapidly blew through their savings and began to charge additional pre wedding costs to their credit cards. Even after Lauri’s father offered to pick up more of the costs, the situation still worsened because Jay’s job was cut.
“All of a sudden, we looked at each other and said just about the same thing at the same time. ‘What are we thinking? How did our marriage ceremony turn into a monster?'” reports Lauri.
They were able to scale back their plans, through immediate discussions with their service contractors. In some cases, they received at least partial refunds for some paid items. What they weren’t able to cancel or scale back, they tried to use to their best advantage.
Yet they were only able to get back what they did because they acted quickly and decisively. Going back and forth after you contact a service contractor to cancel isn’t wise. They don’t have to accept your cancellation, depending on the location, so you are essentially asking them to let you out of a contract.
The Carbondales still were left with about $5,000 on credit cards they had to pay off over about two years. This made them postpone the process of buying a home and, with it, planning for their first child. Lauri says she regrets letting the wedding plans mushroom out of control because it meant delaying their other dreams.
“The minute you notice that your wedding plans are out of control, stop and get them back under control,” advises Lynn Murphy, a wedding coordinator who has worked under contract with various hotels. “It’s too late once you get four, six, and sometimes eight weeks to the day, and you aren’t going to recoup all you would have. But no one’s going to apply the brakes for a couple; they have to jump in and shout ‘enough!'”
“I always tell clients not to plan a massive wedding unless you really can’t live with anything less. If they must have it, then I tell them that if you have second thoughts, don’t cancel the wedding or break up. Instead, get together with your partner and your family and talk it all out. See what you can live without. Ignore the whacky emotions, don’t listen to mother crying. Once you decide, contact your service people immediately and see what you can work out,” adds Murphy.
This is advice to heed, reports Beth Brunelli of New York City’s East Village. Estranged from her husband of just four years, Beth says she still has a few months left before she pays off all the credit card-charged wedding costs from the $28,000-plus affair. The debt and the regret, Brunelli adds, weighed on the couple from the first day of the honeymoon forward until they separated a year ago. Each felt the other pushed them into having a more extravagant wedding than they wanted.
“To blame the wedding for the failure of our marriage is probably too simplistic,” reflects Brunell. “But it really has cast a pall over everything. We had to postpone other plans we had because of the wedding debt. I know now it was truly assinine to invest huge amounts of money in what was only the first day of what was to be our entire lives together. The money would have been better put to use for a house down payment or something else tangible. It’s embarrassing.”
