Our wedding costs are spiralling. Should we put off our marriage for another few years until we can afford it?
I saw an article recently which claimed that the average cost of a British wedding is now nearly twenty thousand pounds! Even if you plan sensibly and responsibly, anything like that is a big hit.
You face the social pressure to have a ‘fairy-tale wedding’ (often fuelled by outlandish celebrity extravagance), the cultural drift toward cohabiting because you need years to save for a ‘proper wedding’, and a wedding industry with a vested interest in selling a certain kind (and cost) of wedding.
Different cultures may also have different attitudes and expectations, some of which will reflect and some of which may counteract a more restrained or indulgent approach. You are going to have to work hard to get your thinking straight.
I tell most of those to whom I give some kind of pre-marital counsel that the wedding usually lasts less than a day, the marriage (under God) will last for a lifetime. That should immediately indicate something of how you plan and prepare, and direct you to invest in what’s going to really last, not what will rapidly pass away.
I am not saying that this should not be a special day for you both. I am certainly not wanting to underplay the significance of the wedding itself (in connection with the marriage as a whole) in our increasingly godless and faithless society.
You don’t need to put marriage off, and you don’t need to start married life in a financial pit.
