We all love a wedding, two people committing to each other in front of their loved ones and the perfect excuse for a party. Weddings are not only expensive for the bride and groom the costs for their guests seems to be creeping up too. Once you’ve bought your new outfit, booked an overnight stay at the hotel and spent a weekend binge drinking in a European city your bank card will certainly have taken a hit.
Weddings can cause financial stress for everyone. Experian’s latest Money & Relationships study shows that one in four people in the UK have argued with their partner about the cost of watching someone else say ‘I do’
The survey shows that 17% of people who are in a relationship miss hearing the wedding bells for friends as they simply cannot afford to attend. We felt quite guilty when we booked our own wedding. We chose to get married abroad which we knew would limit the amount of guests who would be able to come and those that did attend would have to do a lot of saving.
Not only are the bride and groom getting into debt, Experian’s survey shows that 5% of guests are having to borrow money to attend weddings, of those, a massive 78% have formally borrowed funds from means such as credit cards or bank loans.
Finances are a tricky subject in any relationship and can easily be the route of an argument. Experian have shared some helpful tips to ensure your relationship and your finances are at harmony with one another.
Set the ground rules. Do you want a joint account for regular expenses and separate bank accounts for personal spending? Such as wedding guest money.
Work out who does what. The more frugal partner could look after the budget, while the more extravagant works out the ‘treats’, like meals out or trips away or sav
Agree on short and long-term goals and how you’re going to achieve them, and review regularly together
Be honest about your past. If you have a less-than-perfect history of repaying money you owe, this could affect both of you in the long-term if your credit reports become linked
Take time together to understand if you need to improve one or both of your credit reports. Do this well in advance of applying for credit together
Don’t
Spend all your time together talking about money
Keep secrets. Research from Experian shows that 29% of people in the UK discovered that their partner was keeping credit card debt from them
Dig yourself into a hole. If you find yourself in debt, don’t borrow more in the hope of putting things right. Ask for help and be open about it with your partner
Talk about money issues when you are angry. Arguing about money is never going to be productive
Expect your partner to completely change. It’s unlikely an extravagant spender will do a complete about-turn and suddenly become frugal
Research was carried out online by Canadean in August 2015, and used a sample of 2,000 UK adults.
Figures has been calculated using the ONS figures for the total number of weddings in England and Wales (2012) and the average number of wedding guests, statistic attained from the You & Your Wedding Survey (2015).
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