Why would you go in to debt in order to marry? I know it's done and that is not going to undo the damage, but if you knew this was going to be the result would you do it like that again?
No, and I understand it isn't, I'm just trying to figure out how that could happen.
I see lots of people spend way too much money on their marriage (1 day...) only to be in trouble for a year or more afterwards, which, surprise, puts a huge stress on their marriage.
There is some kind of peer-pressure going on there that makes people spend way more than is smart and I'd like to understand better how that happens.
It's not thousands and thousands of dollars, it's just a bit too much to make it easy to undo on a graduate student salary.
It's small things that rack up. It's small things that don't get easily factored into budgets: flowers for the groomsmen, that case of soda you forgot, lighting for the venue.
All of the predictable stuff like catering, venue hire etc. was absorbed by our (wonderful) parents. Day to day stuff was me. Now I need to figure out what to do.
It's easy to talk about not going into debt when you have a decent job. I never had a problem when I was working. Now I'm a student on what amounts to subsistence wages in CA. That's when it gets tricky.
If you have wealthy enough parents you might suggest that you consolidate your debt with them, that at least gets you off the hook for the interest. That's the killer longer term anyway. I think that's not an unreasonable request between family members. I've done it for my mom at times and she has done it for me as well before then. Looking out for each other is better than to have everybody save and borrow from the bank, and a lot cheaper too. Assuming everybody is honorable and you keep a paper record of what gets borrowed and what's been returned to avoid confusion.
Yeah, that's the current culture here in America. I have a sister getting married Sept. 18th as a matter of fact. I had a nice talk with my soon-to-be brother-in-law, even though my parents are paying for most of the wedding. I tried to explain how financially backwards the system is, yet everyone goes along with it. The wedding industry is huge and sees its clients coming. I explained that they are currently "dinks" a marketing term which stands for dual-income-no-kids, meaning they have decent discretionary income now. But this guy wants kids soon, and my sister wants him to buy her a new SUV, and I'm trying to show them it's a great time to look at buying a house, and the financial picture over 20 years as opposed to just looking at nice-to-have things today.
Besides, aren't the main components of the wedding's cost supposed to be paid for by the bride's parents? Last I heard, the groom paid for the rings, the limos, and the honeymoon.
