Getting Married on a Credit Card and a Personal Loan

admin | November 20, 2009 | 0 Comments

A friend told me he is planing to get married last week. My first question to him as a financial planner was, how much money have you saved for the wedding? Well I don’t have anything saved yet?, I said well, when do you plan to get married? he said, probably a years time. I asked him, how much was he planing to set aside each month, he said probably £500 – £1000. Anyway to cut a long story short, his girlfriends idea of a wedding was going to cost them in the region of £35,000 – £40,000 including the honeymoon. The bride and groom to be had no savings but a good credit rating and no debts, they did plan to save around £20k and borrow the rest.

My question is, is it o.k to borrow for a wedding as it is a once in a lifetime occasion or should we live with the proper rules of borrowing, whereby we do not take loans for anything other than property and education? Should we include weddings as a long term profitable investment or should we look at it as a liability? I know there will be many school of thoughts to this.

I personally think it is o.k, otherwise the lady in the marriage will live her entire life thinking she did not have a ‘proper’ wedding, this will cost the guy more on holidays and anniversary celebrations through out the course of the marriage. I also think getting married and being in marriage is an investment but needs to be carefully planned, a working couple can often earn and have a better choice at investing in property. Lets face it a guy earning £30k a year as a bachelor will probably spend the most of it on entertainment, where else if he is in a marriage he is more likely to think about savings and investments.

Tags: borrowing for a wedding, debt after a wedding, honeymoon debt

Category: Basic Financial Management

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