I'm a real estate broker and I work with many young couples buying their first home. I have a friend who just recently married and learned (the hard way), that the advice I gave her a year ago proved to be true. She spent almost a year and about $68,000 on "the perfect wedding".
I had told her long ago that the best advice I could give to her as a friend was to have a small conservatively priced wedding and to spend her real cash on a down payment for their first home. She and hubby-to-be paid for this wedding themselves from their savings and a small inheritance. It was beautiful BUT after their honeymoon, she called me to begin looking for houses only to find they would have to compromise their "wants" and future "needs" in this new home because they didn't have enough down payment to buy the size of home they really wanted. They seemed to take this information in stride although I know she's reconsidering the "value" of her big perfect wedding.
The bad thing is that after all that planning and expense, she and the groom were both so tense and stressed on the big day that she says most of the day (including the ceremony), was a blur. I can't imagine choosing one day over several years of contentment. Not to mention that her almost $70,000 wedding is money spent while using that money toward their home would have given her a considerable return on her investment in the long run.
I think in our society, girls are raised on what I call the "Cinderella principle" and taught that the wedding day is the most important day of our lives when, in reality, having a big wedding does nothing for our future let alone ensure that the marriage will last.
If we could begin teaching our young girls to prepare for the future and to invest while they're young, maybe they would be better off in the long run! Just makes sense to me!
By Angela from Central Florida
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