house or wedding?

It's not silly you do whatever u want, it's not like you haven't got a house if your renting.

We are putting off selling our house until after the wedding as can't afford both.

Plus we were told when we got our mortgage it improves yours credit rating if your married (not sure how true that is but seems like a good enough excuse for a wedding first).

It depends how much you are planning to spend on your wedding, and how soon you want to own your own house.

We got married first, but 14 months later (after renting) we also moved into our own home, so the wedding didn’t stop us from owning our house (and we were within our 2 year plan).

It’s a very personal decision, but you have to think sensibly. If the wedding will kill you financially for years and stop you from owning your own home for years, then maybe you should consider dropping the budget ?

A wedding doesn’t have to cost thousands.

We wont be renting though, we're moving out at the end of this month back to his mams so we can save up for the wedding thenw ill be living with her for.. i reckon itll be around a year after the wedding while we get a deposit together.

i think people have just come across as they think a married couple shouldnt live at home :/ xx

It's not silly, but personally I'd go for the house. It's a lifetime investment, the sooner you start paying into a mortgage the sooner it'll be paid off!

Also a part of me thinks weddings are a huge waste of money. It's only one day and so many people get into debt over it (not sure I should say that sort of thing on Hitched!)

In the end though you have to think about what's more important to you. If you want to be married you could have a simple ceremony for very little money - but I know how the whole 'big wedding' thing is what most people want.

I think you answered your own question...that you just want to be married :-)

We're not going to get in any debt over the wedding, were waiting until 2015 when we will have saved up the money so as soon as weve finished saving for it, we can start saving up for a mortgage... is it 10% deposit you pay? i know this isnt very wedding-y related! xx

This concerns me. You’ll need A LOT more than just the money for a 10% deposit.

Our wedding cost us around £12,000. Moving into our own home cost more like £23,000 (our deposit was about £16000 of that). You will need the deposit plus many more thousands to pay all your solicitors fees, stamp duty, appliances, furnishing the house, insurances, etc etc. It’s a very expensive process unfortunately.

Sorry if this isn’t what you want to hear, but I got a nasty shock when I realised it was going to cost so much more than what we thought, and we have only just scraped through by the skin of our teeth to avoid getting into debt.

I don’t think this is possible for 99% of people these days, especially first time buyers. We had a 15% deposit and got a pretty good rate.

We did house first then wedding. got a 95% mortgage with a decent rate. Didn't have much money for a deposit so we borrowed from our wedding fund. bank and mum and dad helped with covering extra fees as a gift so we were extremely lucky.

our thing was we wanted security over luxury. having a house just seemed more important to us and solid base for us to go to. where as a wedding is more of the fun (ish) celebration of that.

Wow we are in almost the same situation! We too are moving back to my mums. We plan to save the money for the wedding in a year then have 9 months to pay off debt from previous relationships (wont bore you with that). We then want to save for a deposit for a house. It's so hard isn't it?! We want this wedding more than anything but part of us still thinks we should scrap he big do and get a deposit together. We are very lucky that my parents have said we can stay as long as we need to, oh wants to move out as soon as we are wed though. I totally understand your predicament.

We live with oh parents at moment and will be for about another year whilst we finish saving for a house.

As new time buyers there are some good deals to get people on the property ladder. We are looking at buying a new build and for that you need to find 5% of an 80% mortgage and the rest is government backed or the is a 95% mortgage out the for first time buyers. You also need to consider solicitors fees, furniture etc.

It just makes life a bit boring at the mo as we aren't having any hols except honeymoon and some camping trips. Nights out are limited and we try to get deals for going out. We only have a small amount on one credit card to pay so we are getting there

We are getting married first then buying a house but we already have 20K for a deposit and are in no major rush to buy so once the wedding has been paid off we can start either saving more money for the deposit or looking at houses to buy.

Perhaps if we didnt have a good chunk of deposit and OH wasnt earning as much as he is we might have to reconsider how much we are spending on the wedding. I would prefer to be married before we buy a house anyway so it would be a matter of having a cheaper wedding so we could afford a house.

Neither way is the right way, its all down to personal preference.

Living with the in laws bring you a whole new set of issues to deal with!

Well im glad im not the only one!

Thanks foall your comments everybody x

If we were renting and still saving for the wedding, then I'd probably have the big wedding.

However, I personally think it would be silly to spend all that money on one day and still live at my Mum's/his parents'.

I think what I would personally do in your situation if you do want your own home is to save madly, have a small intimate wedding in 2015 and move into a lovely marital home with the deposit you have saved.

Then if you REALLY want the big wedding then have a renewal of vows later on.

Personally the wedding isn't as important as the marriage, and I only had a wedding that cost what it did as I could afford it

This seems to be a very common issue with couples at the moment! We had very different views on the subject, I was adamant we were going to live together before we were married. Partly because we have never lived together by ourselves (we rented with friends then moved back to my parents) and partly because I think that owning a house is beneficial to our future. OH on the other hand was happy to get married first and then save for a house. We then were very fortunate that my parents have offered to pay for the bigger parts of the wedding. This has enabled us to save for a house we currently have enough for a 15% deposit just need a few more to cover fee's etc.

We will hopefully start looking around Easter time, any spare cash we have then will go towards wedding.

I totally agree with this. OH and I are currently renting a 2 bedroom house, saving for our 2015 wedding. We are having a small intimate do (of 35 guests) and no after party. And then we will get ourselves (hopefully!) a mortgage. I wanted to cohabitate first to see if he could handle me and I want to tie myself to him before I tie myself down to a mortgage.

We married in September 2011 and we put an offer in for our first house in January this year so only 15 months later.

Our wedding probably only cost about £8k all in all, we have managed to save and get some help from parents too. A few people thought we were silly to spend all that money on one day but actually- I diddnt really care! We wanted to get married and that was that. Sid what anyone else thinks.

Hi aimee-marie94

Myself and my fiancee are in the same position. We currently rent a flat although we are moving back in with my mum in june until we can save for a deposit on the house. Our wedding is in November, thankfully our wedding is paid for and we currently have 1/5th of our deposit already although Fiancee is leaving his job in May so money will be tight.

My thoughts are that I do not want to be living with my mum when I become married, although I try to look at the bigger picture that is we are saving for our future house and to start a family..

Don not worry about what people presume, only you and your finacee matter.

Good Luck x

We are getting married first and having the wedding we want as figured if we brought a house first there would always be something in the house that needs doing so the wedding would always have to take a back seat.

We got married first and are still renting our house with the option to buy it, the wedding was really important to us. Theres no rush to buy our house but we really wanted to get married! We spent a lot more than a deposit for a house on our wedding but we can always save that up again. We had a fabulous day and don't regret a penny of it! We are very laid back.. can you tell??

House prices are such that if buying a house is definitely on your agenda I'd recommend doing that first.

The people are silly, it's entirely up to you what you do and not everyone is made of money so how can they make you feel bad for being financially sensible?!

We personally bought our house first and we were both only 21 years old. Although it leaves us with less spending money each month, it is more than worth it because we see as an investment and building our future. Once we get married next April, we would have been homeowners for over 2 years. However, everyone is different and see different things as more important/urgent to them, for us it was definitely a house but for others, they just want to get married to that special person first and neither is right or wrong x