You have popped the question and she has said, “YES!”. This is an exciting time for both of you and this feeling eventually quietens, and in the silence, you are quickly ushered into the reality of the next big step. The Wedding!
This is a conversation that must be had while you are in this space of mind as both of you are clearly on board about starting a life together. Being open to discussing just how you will go about funding your wedding should be the serious start of your family conversation. Put forward your ideas of what kind of budget you are both looking at and just how and where this funding will come. If you choose to ignore this, or procrastinate the conversation, the more difficult it will be to scale this mount together.
To help you in this front, we have put together a few suggestions of how you can raise funds for your wedding.
When you have anticipated that you will soon settle in marriage and a wedding is on the horizon, it is prudence on your part if you can consider setting up a savings account. Once you have your partner on board, it would be an even better idea, if they too join in to increase the amount you are saving. If this is done early in advance of the set wedding date, you will have a much easier time planning for your wedding and better still you can custom make your wedding budget to suit your savings. Of course, saving may mean sacrifices being made within the period you have set for yourselves, but it will be pure bliss when you are walking into your marriage debt free; and when you know that anything your friends and family may choose to give you will be considered a bonus.
Of course, there are families that may choose to fund their children’s weddings as a gift to them. In this case you may probably take care of the more personal costs attached to the wedding as the biggest portion of the wedding has been paid by your family. The family can choose to have a budget from you, and they pay it directly or they can also choose to pay for specific things for the wedding, in which case you have to figure out how to meet the other budget needs.
The third consideration would be to organize for a fundraiser where you invite friends and family to have a fund drive for the nuptials, depending on how you go about it this can raise for you an entire wedding budget.
To supplement your normal income, you can start a project on the side to support the wedding budget on its own. One may say it is easier said than done, and I agree! It may need a little more effort and time to put together but won’t you say it is also worth the risk if it can help you raise a good percentage of your budget. What’s even greater about this, is that the project can also be your source of extra income as you start your family; who doesn’t want that extra penny?
You may also have saved enough or have gathered enough resources, but your budget is still higher than what you have at hand. Solution: there is absolutely no harm in going back to cut down on the budget and on things you can do away with. You can change things without necessarily compromising quality, but I think peace of mind is the greatest incentive. You need not get into unnecessary debt.
The fifth option would be to combine all the above to meet the budget. You could have saved some cash, then have a family’s gift, together with a fundraiser you may just hit that target in no time.
Conclusion to this matter is that weddings should be joyous for you the couple and those around you. Money has a bad reputation of stirring the waters and causing great rifts between people, do not fall victim! The advice is that as you put this together, remember, to be considerate, patient, realistic and most importantly clear headed as you need this getting into a lifetime commitment with your partner.