Love is Priceless, but Not the Wedding
When the Beatles sang, “Can’t buy me love,” perhaps they hadn’t considered the cost of a wedding. According to a story in Kiplinger’s May issue, the average wedding now totals nearly $28,000. The story also noted that today just 30% of brides’ parents pay for their entire wedding. To save money, the article suggested holding your wedding “off season” (non-summer months); looking for creative alternatives to pricey receptions (know anyone with an especially nice backyard?); and buying a wedding dress online (a dress bought via eBay averages $267 versus a national average of $922).
Matt’s View:
After the wedding, I encourage couples to avoid the following marital money management mistakes: Keeping separate accounts (it promotes a “mine/yours” approach whereas combined accounts promote an “ours” approach); building a lifestyle that requires two incomes (a one-income lifestyle provides flexibility should one spouse want to stay home with kids, provides a stress-reducing safety net in case one person loses their job, and enables couples to do something very radical: save!); and buying too much house (if neither person owns a home prior to the marriage, I encourage newly married couples to wait 6-12 months before buying. It allows time to focus on getting the
This article filed in: Happiness , Homes/Mortgages , Marriage , Spending
Managing Money by The Book
- "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock." - Matthew 7:24-25
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