I spent over an hour this morning with a friend who is getting married next August. We compared plans, talked about different ideas, and, for the most part, talked about money. Both of us come from single parent homes and neither of our moms have much money to contribute to our weddings. Both of our fiancées have very generous parents, but we don’t want all the responsibility going on them. Jess summed it up when she told me about finding her wedding dress last night. “It’s beautiful, and I love it,” she said, “but what I loved the most was the price. It was cheap and that was the selling point.”
Girls, you have all dreamed about your big day. Dressed to the nines, feeling like a princess, you will greet hundreds of family and friends, surrounded by flowers and a ten piece string band. You will dance all night long in a beautiful hall, or in my case a flower filled park, with your gorgeous Prince Charming. At the end of the day you will ride off into the sunset in a horse drawn carriage, heading for your honeymoon in some tropical paradise.
Reality check! That dress could cost you more than you make in a month. The hall will charge you over $100 dollars a head. Those flowers, which by the way will wilt by the end of the day, will be several hundred dollars just for the bouquets you and your girls will carry. Don’t get me started on what it costs to decorate with real flowers. And that horse drawn carriage and tropical paradise could pay your mortgage for the next six months.
Money is one of the biggest things that couples argue about. You need to determine how much money is available before you even start planning your wedding. Jeff and I planned as if no one else would be contributing. We were planning a wedding in the park near Jeff’s house with sandwiches and potato salad. The only thing that was going to cost more than three hundred dollars was the photographer. When Jeff’s grandparents offered to pay for our reception, we very gladly took them up on their offer. It allowed us to move the wedding up and put more money towards a house.
Women Today published an article about developing a firm financial foundation as a couple. They talk about debt, and how that affects a couple’s financial standing. Jeff has a car payment that is going to take over $300 a month out of our budget. When I finish school I will have to start paying off college loans. All these things need to be talked about ahead of time. Girls, if you like shopping you are going to have to warn your man and make sure that you know how much money you can spend.
One good source for financial help is Crown Financial Ministries. Crown Financial looks at finances for singles, married, and engaged couples and helps them to develop a budget, work through credit card debt, and plan for the future. One good source they have for engaged couples is the pamphlet “Before You Say I Do”. The pamphlet gives couples exercises to do to learn about each other’s money handling habits. There are sections about handling credit cards and budgeting as well as how to talk about finances. I’ll post the link below.
Money can make or break a marriage. A huge part of arguments in marriage stem from money and how it is handled. Stop the arguments before they start and figure out how you are going to handle your money even before you get married. Start budgeting while you are engaged so that you get in the habit before the wedding day. Try to have the wedding paid for ahead of time so you are not taking that debt into your marriage. And remember this. Your wedding day is just that, a day. It is not even a week out of your lifetime. It is a single day. In fact, your wedding will last less than ten hours. Find ways to make it special, but remember that that the most important thing is not that you have the wedding you dreamed of as a little girl. The most important thing is that by the end of the day you marry the man of your dreams.
Helpful Resources
Crown Financial Ministeries-Before You Say I Do Pamphlet
http://www.crown.org/pamphlets/pdfs/BeforeYouSayIDo.pdf
Mvelopes-A Budgeting Tool
Sources
Crown Financial Ministries. (2003). Before You Say I Do (PDF), Retrieved from http://www.crown.org/pamphlets/pdfs/BeforeYouSayIDo.pdf
Finicity, . (2009). Mvelopes. Retrieved from http://www.mvelopes.com/
Foreman, G. (2009). For Richer, For Poorer. Women Today, Retrieved from http://womentodaymagazine.com/money/newlywed.html
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