Pushing Out Wedding Date

OOOO smart!

We're old and want kids, so it was a shorter engagement (9 months), I didn't even know you could get an early booking discount.

Maybe a budget wedding? That is only IF you want to get married sooner than later. Later is good.

We rented a country hall ($700 for the entire weekend), had a good but reasonable caterer ($30 a plate). And most other stuff was very personal (and labour intensive) rather than expensive.

But seriously, if he wants the wedding he should be planning it, within a budget, which might be hard depending on how the debt was accumulated. My husband did very little and I'm still upset about it.

We did ours for under 10k (150 guests) and I didn't feel like 'i wish i had fancier centrepieces" or 'i wish I had that Instagram wedding venue' or anything. We just wanted a party with our favourite people.

A friend did hers for under 5k (100-150 guests). another friend was about 7k (70 guests), one did a potluck at a park wedding for under 1k (dress, liscence, etc still adds up fast). Truly only one acquaintance of mine had a big blow out of a wedding (65k yeesh), and she still considers it the best day of her life, so it was totally worth it. But the rest of us were happy with our cheaper weddings.

Talk to your Fiancé, why does he want the wedding, what aspect is important. If its just a big party with the boys then thats easy!

ALSO costco for boose. we had a toonie bar and instructed the bartender to be generous and never ask for payment, we made more than we spent on boose and costco took back everything we didnt drink.

READ THIS,

You might like this actually. We got married on a cliff in the middle of nowhere with immediate family and then had the reception the following weekend. Then you get your 'elopement' and he gets his wedding (unless its the religious aspect he wanted?).

I was awesome, and still so busy i have no idea how people do it in one day!

Things did not go as planned for us, we were in small amount of debt but wanted to get married, we were going to stay in our small 1 bedroom apartment to clear out the debt and save for a house, well, I got pregnant, so we are forced to rent a house, still getting married because we put too much money into the wedding already, and then baby girl is born in November.

We are digging ourselves more and more into a hole. I know the wedding will be worth it, the bigger place also worth it and the baby for sure worth it.

I think it's smart to have a longer engagement and reducing the amount of debt. Everything is just so expensive, and you do not want to debt over your head it puts a lot of stress on couples and the first year is the hardest.

Personally, I think this is a smart idea.

We were in very similar boat when we first got engaged in March of 2021. I was working a job that did not pay well, I had over 60k in student debt alone (this did not include other loans and credit cards) and my fiancé was also not in the best situation financially.

We decided to hanker down for the year of 2021 and parts of 2022 to pay as much down as we can. Luckily, at the end of 2021 I got a much better paying job and in early 2022 I got an inheritance that was able to pay all my debt off. After that, then we decided to make plans for our wedding and is now able to afford the wedding of our dreams.

There is nothing wrong with a longer engagement, especially if you have no one who is helping you guys pay for the wedding.

Sit back and enjoy being engaged for the next year and a bit. We are already half way through 2023 and next year you guys can start looking at venues in the fall because they are usually booking about 2 years out - some even three years out!

Throw an engagement party with all the friends and family. Book a huge table at a restaurant, everyone pays for themselves and no gifts (this is what we did) and have some drinks. It will be so much fun

I can promise you, your vibes and choices will change. So do not pick out anything definitive yet, but definitely start looking at different themes and styles of wedding, colour schemes, wedding dresses, accessories, etc. So when the time comes to book you are 100% ready.