Do people take out loans for weddings?

random10 · 07-01-2011 12:13PM #1

I don't mean to be overly personal here but I'm wondering how people pay for their big days? Myself and my boyfriend are talking about getting married possibly in 2012. We are both working thank god and reasonably comfortable but find it diificult to save money with all the wage cuts and tax increases. While we would have a little in savings I can't imagine how long it would take us to save for a wedding, the figures talked about seem to be around 15,000-20,000. As well as that we don't own a house so have to think about saving for a deposit, we live very modest lifestyles as it is so don't know how we would save another 20000 for that. Am I doing something completely wrong, or do most people get loans for their wedding? Hope I'm not being too personal it's just depressing thinking about whether we can ever afford a house/wedding?

Magnet · 07-01-2011 01:16PM

My opinion was the long engagement was to have enough time to save and also a better chance of pinning down the band/photographer...?!?!
I recently got engaged and we`re getting married in June using our savings and pay-as-you-go for the smaller bits..
hope that helps

wildefalcon · 07-01-2011 01:29PM

Magnet wrote: »

My opinion was the long engagement was to have enough time to save and also a better chance of pinning down the band/photographer...?!?!
I recently got engaged and we`re getting married in June using our savings and pay-as-you-go for the smaller bits..
hope that helps

In my experience the more people spend on their wedding, relative to their income, the shorter the marriage.

Cut the cost of the wedding - it can be done.

Work on venues - and NEVER pay cash in advance, just in case they go bust!

Most guests don't appreciate the cost of the little things that add up. Really, really look at everything. Invitations, wines - it might be cheaper to pay corkage and bulk buy your own. Focus on those people you WANT to be there, when looking at the main guest list. Nevermind the people who your parents went on holidays with when you were 8 years old - they can come to the Insult.

For our wedding we hired the venue separately from the catering, and bought our wine in bulk in France. Saved a serious packet that way. We also had a flower arranging party the day before - all the aunts/mothers/creative people went, and spent the morning arranging flowers we had bought at the market - I know it was a cheapskate way of doing it, but they all had a ball, and it really helped the two sides of the familys get to know each other for the big event.

The whole event came in at under 5k, including honeymoon, car hire, and all that jazz.

Get a good photographer - photos will be the only physical reminder you will have in 50 years time.

As for borrowing for the wedding - don't. It cripples a relationship to have to carry that cost. Just, well, don't. Madness, and very foolish, in my opinion.

Just my viewpoint.

bytheglass · 07-01-2011 01:34PM

I was asking a girl the other day about her wedding day, she was very excited telling me all about it & then the conversation ended with "... but that was just over a year ago & we're still paying for it". (she was'nt smiling when she said it)

MIRMIR82 · 07-01-2011 01:40PM

Hi Random

I'm in a very similar position and was starting to think about going down the loan route too.
Myself and my fiance are engaged for 6 years now and we just cant get anywhere in our savings for it. We ended up buying our house since the engagement(which was more important investment in my books) and now we want to get married in 2012 for definate!!!
We have saved about 2500euro now and we are saving 100 a week at the mo - but even with that we still wont have nearly enough for a hotel wedding. We have considered going abroad/marquees etc but we've decided against it.
As far as i can see you can save money on flowers,cake,dresses etc, but the biggest part of the money is the food and the venue ie 30-50 euro a head.

Sorry for the rant - i just know how you feel and am interested in what others think.

OS119 · 07-01-2011 03:25PM

MIRMIR82 wrote: »

...As far as i can see you can save money on flowers,cake,dresses etc, but the biggest part of the money is the food and the venue ie 30-50 euro a head....

you just need to change the structure of the wedding day. if you go for the idea that a wedding equals a fancy venue, 100 people having a sit down, 3 course dinner and then having a big party afterwards, then you're structuring in costs that you can't really pare down. its like an airliner - you can bugger about with the number of seats, the trim level, whether it can fly straight to LA or needs to refuel in New York, but while you're buying something that has wings, engines, avionics, a fly-by-wire control system and can hit the ground without burning its going to cost a fortune.

you're intelligent people, you decided that having a roof over your head was more important than treating 100 people to a big party - you could easily come up with something just as enjoyable, far more memorable (as an indicator - of the last five weddings you've been too, how many of the menus can you remember?), and at 20% of the price.

how about you get married at a nice church/registry office, have your photos done there and then, meet all your guests at a 'finger food and chat' reception in a nice gallery or building of interest, and then meet close family and friends later for dinner - or you get married, meet everyone at a nice pub local to the wedding location, have the speeches, dinner (€10 a head perhaps...) and party there? the pub will do you a good deal because you're going to be ordering X number of meals, and then having Y number of people there all night getting half-cut at €4 a pint...

Dow99 · 07-01-2011 04:04PM

I think the best is to tailor your wedding to what you can afford and do not take a loan out.

Don't start the first day of your life together in debt!!

I'm getting married in June and we have budgeted roughly €12k for 130 guest. We are getting a lot of help from people with, photos, cars, invitation, cake, band, dj ect ect. We added up how much this is saving and it was roughly €12k.
Use what resources you have with friends and family they will be honored to help you on your wedding.

We are having a buffet and are renting a stately home for the day. It will be different from your typical wedding but it will allow you to adjust it to what you can afford no matter what your budget is..

PM if you are interested as I think we've done really well with reducing costs on ours!

carolinespring · 07-01-2011 04:19PM

IMHO it is crazy to start married life with a loan hanging over you for god knows how long after.

So many fantastic out of the way places have great deals and work out a hell of a lot cheaper than a 4 star hotel. Again look at the guest list and pick the people who are really important. We didnt ask any aunts or uncles other than my husband fav aunt. If they had hurt feeling so what but to be honest I think thay where delighted not to have to go to another wedding. All wished us well and came to visit before and after.

Again look at evening dresses and not the bridal range. You can get something that is really you and a lot less money. As for brides maids just buy party dresses. at least they can wear them again

Flowers can cost far to much so look at potted plants for the church/civil service. The last wedding I went to did this with candals in the church windows. looked really pretty. Lots of candles and tealights are great for the reception

Get a friend who has a nice car to drive you.

Go for a starter, main and not the starter, soup, main of old.

Forget the costly cake and go for one that can be used for desert.

Get all your photos on disk and do your own album.

Packets of seeds or lottery tickets which can be picked up for 1euro make great favours

Have a disco and not a "wedding" band or get a pub group which is a lot cheaper

If you put some time into it your wedding can look like it cost a bomb for half the cost of a normal wedding.

Some friends of ours who are getting married this year are going for a 40s glam wedding and are hiring the local cinema which has a wine bar to show a classic B&W 40s movie with champage flowing and black tie for the gents and a really nice pub/resturant for the meal after.A 2 man pub band playing and a cocktail master class. 110 people and coming in at under 6000 euro and I for one cannot wait. She got the most beautiful evening dress in a gold colour for 120 euro in the sales. Brides maid dress was 30 euro and I bet if noone knew how much the dress cost they would guess 1500.

We had a very different wedding and 6 years on our friend say it was the best wedding they had been to.

I heard of another local couple who had a active wedding as in horse riding, clay shooting, pottery, arts and crafts etc with a champagne picnic after. Heard it was a great casual day.Friend was at it and said it was a total blast.

Often (not always) the more money the more boring standard wedding.

I have been to quite a few different wedding and loved than, much more than the standard wedding.

At the end of the day it is for you uys to decide what you want to day but I think it is foolish to have a loan for ONE day.

kandr10 · 07-01-2011 08:46PM

Hi all,

I have to say I'd agree with the majority of previous posters. I wouldn't be altogether comfortable starting married life with a huge debt. As was said previously, decide on the type of wedding you want, price around etc and then work out how long it would take to save the majority. If it's too long a time to wait, maybe consider changing the numbers and / or venue cos they are the dearest really. Having said that, if it's only a small loan to supplement it wouldn't be such a big deal. If you're talking about borrowing a lot and can only save X at the moment, how would you envisage paying back the loan anyway?

3DataModem · 07-01-2011 08:56PM

Borrowing is mad. If you can't save 20k what makes you think you can pay bsck a loan of 20k?

Just get married.

Book the church / registry, then find a local pub or country house or nice garden or whatever, get some finger food or barbecue, a dozen cases of wine, and have a wonderful afternoon or evening.

magneticimpulse · 07-01-2011 09:30PM

had family gathering there recently in cafe en seine...they gave certain amount of platters free (loads of food on them...they went back nearly full as nobody could finish them) for each 8 people that turned up to our gathering and even a free lovely chocolate cake....some of the drinks were expensive, but heard others were cheaper then local pubs. didnt have to pay a penny towards the food or renting the tables...the manager was very helpful and there was a DJ to dance until 2.30am.

also was in dandellion recently and giving out free alcohol....

id be totally up for a pub venue. these days they are giving away food and drink just to keep people inside and to attract people.

Im sure theres lots of pubs out there that would love the business. I would certainly consider it for my wedding.

shezza · 07-01-2011 10:09PM

Most people I know have took out a temporary loan from the Credit union to pay the upfront wedding costs if they don't have the savings to cover it and they all said they made the full loan cost back with cash gifts with a little left over. Im currently saving for a 2012 wedding but if I don't feel we have enough cash we will defo cover ourselves with a small loan if necessary

SSFG · 07-01-2011 10:16PM

I am the same as shezza, we are saving every week, but it won't be possible to have a huge lump sum for the hotel so a small loan to be paid back with wedding gifts is how we will do it. Everyone is different do whats right for yourselves.

OS119 · 07-01-2011 11:16PM

SSFG wrote: »

I am the same as shezza, we are saving every week, but it won't be possible to have a huge lump sum for the hotel so a small loan to be paid back with wedding gifts is how we will do it.....

i'm not slagging you down, and fair play to you for sticking your head above the parapet on this subject - but i'd be really careful about banking on recieving €X in wedding gifts...

its reasonable to assume that you'll get some cash, and it would be extraordinary if you didn't - but extraordinary events have already occured in the economy, and you'd have to be pretty 'confident' (read: a lunatic) to believe that nothing else bad is going to happen between now and your wedding that might impact on the kind of gifts that your family and friends feel able to give.

a few years ago we were told (ad nauseum) that Ireland was 'the richest country in Europe', now its on economic life support, with unemployment only kept below 25% by mass emmigration, tax revenues dropping through the floor and a government that makes Zimbabwe's look professional, competant and honest.

be careful.

amdublin · 08-01-2011 01:23AM

3DataModem wrote: »

Borrowing is mad. If you can't save 20k what makes you think you can pay bsck a loan of 20k?

^
this

Sarahjune · 08-01-2011 01:39AM

random10 wrote: »

I don't mean to be overly personal here but I'm wondering how people pay for their big days? Myself and my boyfriend are talking about getting married possibly in 2012. We are both working thank god and reasonably comfortable but find it diificult to save money with all the wage cuts and tax increases. While we would have a little in savings I can't imagine how long it would take us to save for a wedding, the figures talked about seem to be around 15,000-20,000. As well as that we don't own a house so have to think about saving for a deposit, we live very modest lifestyles as it is so don't know how we would save another 20000 for that. Am I doing something completely wrong, or do most people get loans for their wedding? Hope I'm not being too personal it's just depressing thinking about whether we can ever afford a house/wedding?

Yes, couples do take out loans for weddings. I have a close family member who works in the local credit union and one of the top loan applications are for weddings.
I wouldn't go changing your whole wedding when you could get a loan to pay part of your wedding.
I have had many friends get married in the last 2 years and more getting married this year. What some of them did was take out say €15,000 from the credit union and paid it back straight away from the presents which should cover a good portion of the hotel.

Rebel1977 · 08-01-2011 01:55AM

I am getting married this year and we have decided to save like lunatics for it and avoid a loan to be honest. We have good savings build up already and are looking at ways of cutting costs i.e.print own invites etc

Does anyone have any tips on spreadsheet/budget planner, looking at doing one to monitor our costs for the wedding.

SSFG · 08-01-2011 11:21AM

This is a link to a wedding budget...
http://www.mrs2be.ie/planning-tools/wedding-budget-template-download.html

SSFG · 08-01-2011 11:36AM

OS119 wrote: »

i'm not slagging you down, and fair play to you for sticking your head above the parapet on this subject - but i'd be really careful about banking on recieving €X in wedding gifts...

Yes thats true but like I said, it will be a small loan as we are saving every week, I would be too nervous to go getting a huge loan, I'm not going to be stupid about it either!! That being said, everyone is different and should do whats right for them, it is hard to do anything these days without a little help, the trick is not getting huge loans, I think thats what has happened over the past few years...

tfak85 · 08-01-2011 03:52PM

we are getting married in may and taking a credit union loan to cover the majority of the cost.. it will be manageable repayments and we will have it cleared by the end of next year, should we get gifts of money these will go towards paying it off too.. we know already of 2 cash gifts we are getting but are not counting on anything else until we see it....

to cut costs i'm organising my own invites, printing them for not too much in a high street printing shop..

my dress is not a wedding dress, just something that looks really nice on me and suits the style of the wedding, my bridemaid is wearing what she would've worn anyway... i don't think it's any harm to ask your BMs to buy a regular dress in a colour that coordinates with the day, if they were attending they'd buy something and at least if they pick it themselves they'll wear it again!

myself, aunts and friends are each baking cakes so we will have about 8 wedding cakes and it wont have cost us anything!

we're getting married in the registry office and inviting 60people who are then all going for a meal in a lovely restaurant, got a good deal - 50/head with bottle of wine each!
our party is in a big function room, free hire, giving us corkage pretty cheap for our prosecco reception and a great deal on finger food for the night..

asking acquaintances to DJ and take photos so we know they'll do a good job and not charge waaay over the odds...

also making my table decs and other bits and pieces by having little parties and getting people involved...

use ETSY and EBAY, the internet is your friend!!

iguana · 08-01-2011 04:16PM

I had a conversation with a friend, nearly 3 years after her wedding, where she told me how much she'd love to buy a house and they would start saving for a deposit soon as they'd nearly paid back their wedding loan. I nodded and smiled politely but inside I was :eek::eek::eek:.

Apparently they'd never intended to loan to last so long but her husband lost his job and had to take a lesser paid one for a couple of years and she thought she'd have enough overtime to cover the difference but her company stopped offering it, so they spent a couple of years barely covering the interest. The problem with a loan is that it requires our future income to be at least the same as it is in our present and we have absolutely no way of knowing that it will be.

amdublin · 08-01-2011 04:44PM

iguana wrote: »

I had a conversation with a friend, nearly 3 years after her wedding, where she told me how much she'd love to buy a house and they would start saving for a deposit soon as they'd nearly paid back their wedding loan. I nodded and smiled politely but inside I was :eek::eek::eek:.

Apparently they'd never intended to loan to last so long but her husband lost his job and had to take a lesser paid one for a couple of years and she thought she'd have enough overtime to cover the difference but her company stopped offering it, so they spent a couple of years barely covering the interest. The problem with a loan is that it requires our future income to be at least the same as it is in our present and we have absolutely no way of knowing that it will be.

"Ah but sure we'll pay it off with the wedding presents"

Edit
Little face was supposed to be rolley eye sarcastic face not embarrassed face.

Although! If you have this attitude you probably should have embarrassed face!!!

tatli_lokma · 12-01-2011 09:06PM

Sarahjune wrote: »

I have had many friends get married in the last 2 years and more getting married this year. What some of them did was take out say €15,000 from the credit union and paid it back straight away from the presents which should cover a good portion of the hotel.

:eek::eek::eek:

madness, sorry, but that is madness.....
if what you are saying is true, and if your friends are being 100% honest (and I ahve no reason to doubt you) then they must have either had very generous guests or a very big wedding.

the average wedding gift varies between €50-100 (give or take) per person. to pay back €15k, you would have to invite minimum 150 guests hoping they would all give €100 per person. That is a lot to expect.

And perhaps I misunderstand, but it seems that you are saying €15k would cover a good portion of the hotel....€15k should cover the hotel for 150 guests, wine, flowers, cars, photographer.....etc etc etc.

Have the wedding YOU can afford, not the wedding your guests can afford to gift you. Relying on people giving x amount is a silly tactic and can lead to you ending up in some very hot water.

This first pay packet for most people will be a shocker - I am betting many people will be declining wedding invitations purely because they would be too embarrassed to go and 'only' give €50 in a card. Others simply won't even have €50, and won't be able to afford a few drinks or hotel, or even the travel costs.

Get married because you want to celebrate a happy event, and surround yourself with people who also want to celebrate regardless...don't spend money on dinners for people you think might judge you, or criticise you. Keep that in the forefront and suddenly a guest list of 150 becomes a guest list of 100 (or less).

(Also, if you count on x giving you y amount of money, what happens when you get invited to their wedding and have to give them what they gave you....cancels out the whole guests paying for the wedding thing, really, doesn't it?)

ThePiedPiper · 13-01-2011 11:35AM

I'd agree with everyone here saying to avoid the loan at all costs. We didn't have a huge amount saved for our wedding as we'd been building a house but because we had such a tight budget, we didn't over-spend. If you decide your wedding will cost 20,000, you'll end up spending that amount or over it. If you set yourself a limit of 10,000, then that is what you'll spend.

The only debt we had for our wedding was maybe 4,000 on my credit card that was paid off the week after the wedding from gifts. My wife was stressing about this before the wedding but it worked out ok. To keep your budget down, here's a few tips.

1. Do without fancy cars
2. Do without all the pointless extras at the hotel
3. Do without a video - nobody ever ever watches them IMHO
4. Do your own invites, etc
5. If possible, do without an official photographer. Get a friend who's into photography to take decent shots and make your own album.
6. Don't go on a honeymoon that'll cost 5,000 or more, it's just as easy to relax for a week or two on a budget holiday in Europe that costs about 1,000.
7. Don't buy pointless things like "favours" for your guests. They don't want them and most of them will end up in the bin or still on the table in the hotel.
8. Get your dresses somewhere sensible or online - there's absolutely no need to spend thousands on dresses that'll be worn once.

Best of luck with your planning.

carolinespring · 13-01-2011 01:05PM

One of the girls in work, her sister got marrid on the 30th dec and they where sure they would get cash as gifts and had taken out a loan on this basis but in the end got very little cash gifts. Most people gave them gifts as in bed clothes, pictures, lamps, frames. Stuff you could not put a value on plus gift vouchers for places to eat, dept stores and one4all. Needless to say the couple are in a right mess and will be paying off the wedding for the next 3 years. My work colleague says her sister and huband just feel stressed thinking of the wedding now and had very little cash to spend on the week in Prague they had booked as a honeymoon.

Maybe this is a sign of the big "R" that people are giving more cashless gifts. I personally hated giving money and most got a gift of a voucher for someplace nice to eat.

I would hope I was invited as the couple wanted me at the wedding, not to help pay for it.

D3PO · 13-01-2011 05:16PM

I tyhink its insane to

a) get a loan for your wedding

or

b) budget wedding cash gifts into the equation.

Im getting married July 2012 after getting engaged June 2010 so a little over two years for the engagement.

Why so long ? Because thats how long it will take to save for the wedding we want.

Either work within your budget or push out your wedding date would be my advice. Some people think they have to have a big gala event not because they necessarily want one but because its "the done thing"

your wedding is about the life commitment to your partner not about keeping up with the jones's

gimmick · 14-01-2011 01:53PM

I would rather take a loan and be paying for a year or two than have a cheap ass corners cut affir.

Do what works for yourselves. We will be taking a loan, not a massive one, to bump up our shortfall. I fail completely to see what the problem with that is.

carolinespring · 14-01-2011 02:27PM

gimmick wrote: »

I would rather take a loan and be paying for a year or two than have a cheap ass corners cut affir.

Do what works for yourselves. We will be taking a loan, not a massive one, to bump up our shortfall. I fail completely to see what the problem with that is.

What if one or both lose your job or have to take a paycut?

Dow99 · 14-01-2011 02:53PM

gimmick wrote: »

I would rather take a loan and be paying for a year or two than have a cheap ass corners cut affir.

Do what works for yourselves. We will be taking a loan, not a massive one, to bump up our shortfall. I fail completely to see what the problem with that is.

Wow that's very 2007!!!! Come on, be smart do what you can afford not what you can afford to pay back,,, absolutely stupid to start off life together in debt,,, What about your future together, do you want to start a family? Would that mean that you would have to defer that for a while?

gaeilgebeo · 14-01-2011 04:48PM

gimmick wrote: »

I would rather take a loan and be paying for a year or two than have a cheap ass corners cut affir.

Do what works for yourselves. We will be taking a loan, not a massive one, to bump up our shortfall. I fail completely to see what the problem with that is.

I completely agree.
If you are in the position to take out a loan, ie; both partners working, I don't see a problem with supplementing the costs with a loan.

snuggles09 · 14-01-2011 05:41PM

we booked the wedding 18 months in advance and are paying for things as we go along..we saved up the deposit for the hotel, put a deposit on suits, cake, band etc..at the moment i am going into the hotel once a month with money to pay off the reception so that when the day comes we wont owe them a penny and if i don't give it them and leave it in an account i'll more than likely spend it..the same with all the other suppliers

i can't think of anything worse than waking up the day after my wedding and realising when the dusts settled that I'm in debt for the first 5 years of my married life because of one day

Do people take out loans for weddings?

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