DO NOT EXPECT anyone to give you any money towards your wedding, this way you avoid setting yourself up for any unrealistic expectations or disappointment. Start by approaching your wedding planning with the assumption that you will pay for your wedding in full. The key to avoiding any awkward exchanges regarding money lies in being totally open, honest and in control of your finances from the very beginning. However, guest lists are a very different conversation if someone else is paying for your wedding, especially if they’re paying for the venue or catering, which we will talk about later. In our case, (except for my wedding dress) we paid for almost the entirety of our wedding ourselves, personally I felt like this gave us more control over what we did and did not do on the day. But, for many other couples, their nearest and dearest may not be so understanding and this is usually the first awkward conversation regarding money that occurs. We’re very lucky that our family & friends were extremely respectful of our choices and when we explained our reasoning behind the decision, they commended our desire to not want to go into debt for our wedding. We applied this rule to both family and friends and this of course meant that several people were left off our guest list which understandably raised questions. Take for example the guest list, we were adamant that due to having a restricted budget, we would only invite people to our wedding that we’d physically seen in the last 6 months, unless there was good reason why we couldn’t, such as living in a different country. There are lots of uncomfortable discussions to be had whilst planning a wedding, I can now officially say, I’ve been there, done that and wore the t shirt, but from experience, most difficult exchanges revolve in some way, around money. In a couple of weeks I’m going to do a full budget review so you can see how well (or not so well) we stuck to our wedding budget, but for today I wanted to discuss the awkward money conversations that arise whilst planning a wedding and how to handle them. So, it probably won’t come as a surprise that we also budgeted our wedding within an inch of our lives. It was this way of thinking that eventually helped me rid myself of thousands of pounds of debt, how as a couple we bought our first house together and last year paid for our wedding (without the risk of sounding like Martin Lewis, LOL) IN FULL! We’ve done this every year for the past three years and I like to call it ‘mindful money’. Similarly, we do a big budget review at the end of every year and categorise all our spending to see where we can save money and set ourselves new savings goals for the next 12 months. Mr T and I religiously review our previous months budgets and set ourselves new financial goals at the start of every month. HOW TO HANDLE AWKWARD MONEY CONVERSATIONS WHEN PLANNING A WEDDINGĪnyone that knows me, will tell you that I’m a budget nerd.
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