How much should I spend on a wedding?

Many couples have difficulty paying for the wedding.

Often fiance still pay student loans and trying to save a down payment on a house. You can pay their first cars and maybe save up a family. You need to move sufficient savings between countries to pursue their career or educational opportunities, if necessary. These days, people walking down the hall and children who need support.

In addition, the income may be limited pairs. Often, weddings take place when a couple is in college or graduate school or work in an entry-level position.

In summary, there are probably a lot of financial pressure on people who marry. How much should spend on a wedding, taking into account other loads and pressures in their lives?

Read more: Are you financially supported?

Prioritize

The only way to answer this question, to set priorities. Unless you are super rich, money-management involves a series of compromises. Yes, you want to buy a car, make a down payment on a house, a beautiful wedding, and enough money to start a family, but you can not necessarily afford all these things.

Sit down and make a list of your priorities. Brainstorming a list for about ten minutes and then sort the list of your number one priority at the latest.

Starting a family can be the list, for example, but to buy a house (as opposed to rent) has a lower priority. Or maybe it's the opposite: to buy a house is a major priority, but having children is something you are willing to put in a few years.

What are willing to give you to achieve your priorities?

If marriages?

When matching wedding with this list of priorities? Remember, there is a difference between a wedding and a marriage. Maybe marriage is important to you, but marriage is not.

Or perhaps ideally like to have a big fancy wedding, but if you actually a compromise between throw a lavish wedding or buy a home, you realize that you prefer to buy a house.

The purpose of this exercise is increasingly aware of all the commitments we make. Every dollar we for X is a dollar we do not spend on Y.

You might want to want to have a beautiful wedding. After all, like the wedding industry to remind us, this is your "big day". But when you sit down with a pen and paper, spend some time to think and really take a moment of deep reflection, you realize that if you want a beautiful wedding, you do not have the peace of mind that only I know that you can buy a car want cash. Or would you prefer the peace of mind that you have repaid all your student loans, enough money for a down payment on a house.

Align your priorities with your spending

Of course, this should not be the final he reached. Perhaps, after deep reflection, you come to the conclusion that a good marriage is really important to you.

In fact, you decide it is important enough that you are willing to live in a smaller house, are repaying your student loans spend longer period of time, or a second job to work to pay for it. If this is the conclusion: on! Take your dream wedding. Enjoy it.

Budgeting is basically the art of alignment with your values, how you spend money. Personal finance is personal. "" No two people have the same values and thus no two people decide to spend their money in the same way.

Budget requests that we take the time to clarify these values, so that we can direct our money in the best way possible.

So how much should you spend on a wedding? There is no "right" answer to this question. Spend as much as you want, depending on how the marriage is your personal values and priorities.