Im engaged!!!!

ja1986

So as the title suggests,someone is going to make an honest woman out of me! I have absolutely no idea where to start ,where to look and what I need. I'm not good at planning! So our situation is we have a 2 year old and a baby on the way for the summer and I'm thinking to book a date for summer 2018. I know that's a bit away but I'm not working now and we are renting so I have no idea how we'll save for this. The venue I'm looking at will cost 7500 if my numbers are right. And then there's everything else to buy! I'm thinking the wedding could set us back 15000. Now 15000 is more than a deposit I'd need for our first starter home. What are peoples views on this. I would love to have our home first and then sort out our wedding.

Gatica

You've already made a family so the wedding is more of a get-together to celebrate with family and friends, where you'd get to wear the beautiful gown. Would you consider having a registry wedding first and throwing a bash a few years down the line?
If you're estimating 7500 for the venue, then chances are your wedding will be more than double that once you pay for all the trimmings, like dress, photographer etc... if what you're planning is a traditional white wedding. Make out your budget and see what you can actually afford and if you're having second thoughts about doing this when you have a family and new home to think about, then don't feel obligated to have a big wedding.

Wesser

Congratulations!

Do you mind me asking where do you live that one can buy such a cheap house?

Squall Leonhart

I'd also politely warn against the notion of a starter home. Too many people before have bought a house as a starter home and found out that they couldn't afford to move later due to job losses, negative equity, difficulty savings... etc etc. Essentially being 'trapped' in a 2 bed house with 4 kids etc! Try hold out that bit longer on the house and get something that you could actually end up living in forever as a family.

Congratulations on your engagement

endacl

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

I'd also politely warn against the notion of a starter home. Too many people before have bought a house as a starter home and found out that they couldn't afford to move later due to job losses, negative equity, difficulty savings... etc etc. Essentially being 'trapped' in a 2 bed house with 4 kids etc! Try hold out that bit longer on the house and get something that you could actually end up living in forever as a family.

Congratulations on your engagement

+1
There's no such thing a s a 'starter home'. Another genius notion cooked up by developers and estate agents to sell substandard and undersized boxes to young couples. There are only houses and apartments, which you don't live in, and your 'home', which is a house or apartment that you do live in, and may have to for years. Make sure you want to.

tread_softly

Congratulations!!!

Well we got engaged in 2010, bought a house in 2011 and didn't end up getting married until 2015

IMO, get yourself a nice place to live first. From talking amongst my married/soon-to-be-married friends, the general consensus is getting the house before the wedding is a much better idea. A couple we know had to move back in with one set of parents to save for the wedding as they don't have enough money to rent/save/pay for the wedding! Madness.

Getting a decent home for your little family is one of the best things you can do. It's stressful but completely worth it. Once you have your mortgage approved and under your belt then you can focus on saving for the wedding.

There's no rush, look at us, engaged for 5 years

Good luck with whatever you do

ja1986

Wesser wrote: »

Congratulations!

Do you mind me asking where do you live that one can buy such a cheap house?

We're living in cork iv only looked at city houses under 100000 and I thought we'd need to save a 10% deposit. We don't mind that it would be small or anything just wanting to get on the property ladder and pass something down to the kids. Maybe I should research mortgages instead of weddings! I'm kinda running away with my thoughts!

ja1986

Ya my partner said he wants a huge wedding since he has a million relatives and wants a short engagement. Hes such a girl!!!!I'm thinking more long term plans . I'd rather have a secure home than be married and homeless! I am going to a wedding fair tonight hehe just for a nose but think il focus on housing before a wedding

janes1234

ja1986 wrote:

We're living in cork iv only looked at city houses under 100000 and I thought we'd need to save a 10% deposit. We don't mind that it would be small or anything just wanting to get on the property ladder and pass something down to the kids. Maybe I should research mortgages instead of weddings! I'm kinda running away with my thoughts!

I think that would be the sensible thing to do, especially as you will shortly have 2 children. Too many people get carried away with weddings in Ireland and end up in massive debt. Of course you will get married and will have a great day. But like one of the above posters said, it's more of a small celebration when you have had the kids/ house first.

Milly33

Hello Congrats to you and ye!! Great news, and another fellow Corkonian!!!

mmm now it all depends on what ye want to do..First of all I would suggest ye actually sit down and talk. Say right which one do ye want house or big wedding.. Ye can have both ye just need to figure out which one is more important to ye..

To be honest in my eyes I think people are mad to buy but that is just different strokes for different folks.. The place we rent in Cork is for sale at the moment for €200,000 and that's kinda good for the area but the house needs work ,. €100,000 are these places out in the country??? House prices are due to increase like mad I would think in the next year or so...anywho that's just me waffling..

Right renting and saving you would be surprised how easily you can do it..I know we just had ourselfs but we went from saving nothing to saving around €500 - €800 each a month.. You can do it just have to take it out and pop it into the bank out of reach..

You can be so savie with things for the wedding like cars, photos, outfits, decorations...You don't have to do it all by the book there are so many options out there now.. We had a weekend wedding as such in a rented location, think if you done all the bills out it came to €17,000 that was with sit down meal, breakfeast every morning, band, wine, decorations, suits, dress all of it..And we didn't even need half of it..

Best advice would be go out and get a book..Sit down with eachother write down what ye both want, house and wedding wise and work it out..

jlm29

I just realised (and I genuinely had to have a good think to figure it out), that I've been engaged for 3 years! And I haven't a notion of getting married!
I had a one year old when we got engaged, and I've since had another baby. We also have an old house, which requires work, so that's sucking up all our spare money these days! A couple of times (pre house and second baby) we started to think about getting married, but we didn't want any more of a gap between our kids. It's become more important to me finish my family (though I'm very aware that out family doesn't have quite the same security as we would if we were married) than to have a "big day", so I think it's quite likely that we'll have an extremely low key event at some Point.

OP, my advice would be to think about what's really important to you. If you really want that traditional Irish big day, then have it! But you'll need to be very realistic about budget- two kids are expensive! I have two sets of friends who got married (saved while renting), then had a baby (or two), and have realised now that buying a house is out of their reach financially, they just can't save enough!

ja1986

Ya guys I'm going to forget about the wedding and focus on houses. It's still going to take us years to save but never mind. Just off to do the euromillions now!

Keane2baMused

ja1986 wrote: »

Ya guys I'm going to forget about the wedding and focus on houses. It's still going to take us years to save but never mind. Just off to do the euromillions now!

You can still get married if you'd like to be able to do it sooner Have lovely intimate day with just immediate family in very nice restaurant. Then you could have a big party with everyone else or wait until you can save enough to have your 'big day'

Milly33

Keane speaks wise words.. Ye don't have to have a big made wedding..Ye could do anything from spending €500 - spending €20,000 so don't be put off getting married for this reason at all... The only set, set cost you have for getting married is €200 or is it €250 for the reg anything else is up to ye...

fixXxer

Gatica wrote: »

You've already made a family so the wedding is more of a get-together to celebrate with family and friends, where you'd get to wear the beautiful gown. Would you consider having a registry wedding first and throwing a bash a few years down the line?
If you're estimating 7500 for the venue, then chances are your wedding will be more than double that once you pay for all the trimmings, like dress, photographer etc... if what you're planning is a traditional white wedding. Make out your budget and see what you can actually afford and if you're having second thoughts about doing this when you have a family and new home to think about, then don't feel obligated to have a big wedding.

The missus and I eloped to San Francisco and got married on the sly there. We had a lovely 2 week holiday and used the wedding money for a house deposit.

It's not for everyone sure, but it suited us as we had a baby on the way at the time.

fits

For us, the wedding had less of a financial impact than I would have expected. That said we are dinkys (double income, no kids yet). We had a lot paid for by the time the day came around and my mum paid for the meal. Once we decided on a date, we were paying deposits in dribs and drabs and stopped going on holidays or buying unnecessary things.

A couple of areas where you could save money.

Start looking for the dress now! You can look at second hand boutiques, bridesmaid dresses (often come in white) or regular white dresses. Modcloth do a bridal range. IT should be entirely possible to get a dress for reasonable money but you'd need time for it.

Getting a band is a big expense, you could consider having a dj instead.

For our day, flowers and cakes were diy, and we had no cars.

The house is important though too. you could prioritise that. But having the big party is great as well. Family occasions are important, in my opinion anyway.

Deer

First of all congratulations . A baby and a wedding!

I can tell you from my own experience the house should definitely be the focus. It is absolutely lovely to have a nice big wedding if that is what you are into but coming from someone who has just moved from a two bed with four kids the home is the most important thing. If the house you ar looking at is small believe me you will kick yourself in the future when the clutter is closing in on you and the kids are crying and there is no room to escape to that you didn't use the money for a big budget wedding towards a bigger house!

Of course if the place you are looking at is suitable for your needs or has enough room to extend etc then ignore me.

But if it's between a wedding and a better house - the house wins for me!

You can still have a great wedding, maybe less people or a venue with a smaller budget.

Go off to the wedding fair and get a price for everything and also take a look at houses for sale and how much deposit you need for the more decent ones you could afford the deposit and mortgage for. Then look at the list of prices for the wedding and see where the priority would be.

Good luck!

Broken Strings

Congratulations on your engagement

We were 3 years into the mortgage before we got engaged and now another 18 months down the line we are getting married in 8 weeks. It definitley worked out better for us this way. We had all the major house stuff financially covered and well out of the way before we had to worry about wedding plans.

On the other end of the spectrum we have friends who are getting married in July who have a 7 month old baby, are just after buying a house and the stress they are under is unbelievable. It's actually serving as more of a test to their relationship than a time to enjoy being engaged and taking all the wedding plans in!

That being said, if you really do want to do both then there are so many cool ways to do a wedding on a budget!:

• My first piece of advice would be to get people involved if possible. Family and friends. We have my fiancees cousin making the cake, my best friend is doing the photography and my stepdads cousin is lending us his vintage car. Aside from the cost it will save you, it's very personal to have people that know you involved in your day, they'll know lots of extra details about you that will make it all the more special rather than a stranger who mightn't know your tastes and they may be happy to help you out in lieu of wedding presents.
  
• Secondly if you're into hand-making things and DIY then you can do so many things yourself to keep costs down. We aren't having flowers as they are so expensive, so I've made satin flower boquets for myself, the 4 bridesmaids and the 4 flower girls. Total cost for materials has so far only come to €200 and I think I'll have enough stuff left over for the buttonholes too.
  
• There's an Irish website selling favour boxes for about €110 for a batch of 200. I got the exact same boxes on Wish.com for €24 for a batch of 200. Online shopping is your friend!
  
• The bridesmaid dresses cost only €45 each online on Etsy, my own dress I got on JJ's House using my own custom measurements for €187 and the suits are only costing €180 each. That includes pants, shirt, dickie bow, waistcoat, jacket AND shoes. We've had friends rent suits for the day which have worked out more expensive than buying them.
  
• We got Ferrero Rocher in duty free on the way back from Manchester - 200 of them worked out at €40, bought custom laser cut MDF ferrero rocher birdcage stands online for €25 each. Works out at €90 for the whole lot and we end up with Ferrero Rocher stands that we can keep and pass on to someone else we know afterwatds. Whereas I've seen people on those FB event pages offering hire of a Ferraro Rocher stand with 150 sweets for anything up to €250.
  
• DJ's will certainly work out more economical than bands but if you were to go with a band look out for a real energetic duo rather than a 4 or 5 piece band. We are using a Duo in Cork that are great and one of the band members is staying on to do DJ afterwards. Came in at a 3rd of the price of if it was a 5 piece band. The bigger the band, the bigger the cost!
  
• For Hair and Makeup I've went with people who are freelance and are not in full time work. A lot of people in places like MAC can do wedding makeup for you, but will often take a day off working in store in order to call out. This means they are losing out on wages and will incorporate that cost into your package. I know a girl who works in BT's and does this all the time and her packages can cost twice that of someone who is full time freelance.
  
• One of the most important things to get right is your venue. Above all it would be better to sacrifice smaller details like favours etc in favour of having a good venue with good food. I've tried to do both but if you had to chose, definitley make the venue your bigger splurge!

We are having 200 guests and I wanted a lot of the frills, so my wedding is budget in the sense that we still got to have the big wedding and all the bells and whistles for much less than other people would spend but of course it's still a lot of money. That's how I wanted to do it, but at the same time you can completely shave it back aswell and go with simplicity and just have a smaller group without the extras

Those were just my experiences so far, hope that's of some help!

baldbear

I'd prioritise a home if I had 2 kids & not bother spending 15 k on a wedding.

We are married a year ourselves & to be honest in the whole scheme of things a weddin day doesn't really matter. It was a nice day out for us but its only one day .

Or maybe have a small inexpensive wedding?
PS my wife has a 3k wedding dress gathering dust if you want to take it off her hands.:)

eviltwin

Congrats OP on the wedding and the impending baby. You have lots of time to plan so I would allow yourself a bit of time to get used to being engaged first and then when the dust settles approach your plans with a rational head. Maybe suss out some houses first so you have a good idea of what your budget is going to be. We had a house and a child when we got married and ended up having a very small inexpensive wedding. We just couldn't justify spending so much money on one day when we knew that money could pay our child's college fees or help pay for some work on the house. Looking back I'm glad I kept it small and put the money to better use. A great wedding isn't about how big it is or how much you spend, what makes a wedding great is the people and the sentiments behind it and you can have that on any budget.

Jbubs

We bought our house 3 years ago and we have an 18 month old and 1 on the way. Got engaged during the summer and toyed with the idea of saving for a wedding before having our 2nd baby but we're mid 30s so we were looking at a good few years and didn't want that much of a gap between the kids.
I realised that by having 2 children before getting married that an expensive wedding is way down my list of priorities which is fine by me. I wouldn't feel right about spending that much money on 1 day when I have 2 children, but that's just me.

I suppose it depends if a big wedding is important to you, it wasn't to me so I didn't mind giving it up.