Extending the mortgage to fund the wedding

If you have flexibiliy with your current mortgage to draw down additional funds, and you have a good mortgage deal, then you would be much better off doing this than racking up a load of debt on a credit card or with a payday loan company.

Everyone has their own circumstances so it is hard to give advice on this in my opinion. But, we have taken out a loan to fund the wedding, we have been together 5 years but were never too bothered about getting married - we live together so it didn't seem necessary. He is in the forces and financially and personally we now need to be together more often so i am moving to his camp, for that we need to be married. I realise that is unromantic but that is just the way it has worked. Anyway, we had no savings having moved into our first home 2 years ago, we managed to save a couple of thousand pounds quickly (he was away) but took the view that if we were going to get married it would be exactly how we wanted it so have budgeted more than we would have thought. We took out a loan as we didn't want to wait, this way the money is there when we need to pay people and we are paying it off already, in my head it is like a backwards savings account, it is working well so far and we expect it to be paid off a couple of months after the wedding.

sorry i have rambled and gone all about me there but i couldn't think of a better way of explaining!

It looks like we will be able to borrow the money at quite a low rate using this method. We are waiting to hear back as to how much additional money we could take out if we need it. Hopefully it won't take long for them to come back to us.

That's fantastic! If you can pay it back quickly. I think that's my main concern, as we are earning a lot less than we did a couple of years ago. However things do seem to be picking up again now.

Personal opinion here but I could never do it. I just wouldn't be able to bring myself to borrow money, especially secured against your home, *just* to get married.

However, day to day, I am very much of the view of saving to get something rather than bunging it on a credit card and if I can't afford it I don't have it.

Im with holey on this one. Its one day in your life. Important yes but nothing is worth that

No I would never ever do that. I have always been brought up to only have what I can afford. I don't have a credit card or anything.

Because of this, our wedding was very small (8 people at the ceremony, lunch with 6 and a big evening party) we didn't have a budget as such but spent around £1800. We could have easily had a big £15k wedding but we would have been in serious debt.

I guess you have to weigh up what is more important to you.

I'm going to go against the OM grain and say I don't see a problem with it if you know you can borrow cheaply and pay it back.

We were lucky that our parents contributed to our wedding but if I'm completely honest I probably would have looked into financing the wedding some other way if they hadn't.

People take out car loans and nobody bats an eyelid. As long as you pay it back I don't see a problem if there's no other way.

I'm with Kharv on this

the thing that matters, can you afford to pay it back, and have you got the best rate possible...

people borrow for holidays and cars. and they can be seen as luxuries, so this is another form of luxury y it

I'm with the last few Hitchers. I would never get in debt for my wedding, regardless of how quickly I think I can pay it back.

Thanks for all your replies. I am not surprised that the comments are divided, I must admit it has taken a while for me to get my head around it!!

Ah see I wouldn't borrow for a car or holiday either!

Horses for courses, Tiz! ?

I'm really careful with my money - I've only ever had one loan apart from my mortgage and always pay off my credit card in full when I (very rarely) use it. Having said that, I don't see any problem with funding your wedding through a mortgage or loan if you need to, so long as you can pay it off comfortably and won't get into any trouble with it. It's not something we do every day and if you need a bit of extra cash to make it the day that you want it to be then why not?

I've been with my OH for five years and we've only been abroad together once which was only for a couple of nights to Paris. Although we can afford the wedding without a problem, we may well end up taking out some sort of loan for our honeymoon if we need to. We've already decided that we're not going to hold back and we're going for luxury so if we need a bit more cash then we'll borrow it.

I would never consider getting in to debt for a wedding, it just isn't important enough to me. We had 2 wedding days (a small legal thing first) and overall spent 9.5k (excl honeymoon), only because we had that cash available at that time. If we'd had 1k that would have been what we spent.

I would, however, consider debt for cars (minimal) and household repairs etc. So it's a very personal choice.

I would say though, if you can't pay it back within a year, or maybe two, it might not be the most sensible option. I wouldn't like to be paying for something 2 years after it's over when there's things needing doing to the house, or holidays to be had, or whatever.

Have you looked into interest free credit card OP? Ours is interest free for 16 months, so we just worked out what we could afford and how much we would need to save per month to pay it off within 16 months. It's v easy and I don't see it as getting into debt as we're not paying interest on what we're borrowing. If you can afford to pay back what you borrow, I personally think it's fine. It's all very well and good people saying "I would never borrow money" but what happens if an emergency happens e.g. your boiler breaks or your MOT ends up costing £1k? Most would have to pay on credit card for this.

Thanks Wifey to be. I hadn't thought of 0% credit cards! such a good idea.

The way that we both get paid (commission and bonuses) means that we could potentially pay back the full amount over just a couple of good months unfortunately because the economy has been slow our wages have dropped although the last few months have been better. I do think that even if things stay as they are we should pay it off over the next couple of years.

I really don't think it's a good idea, the economy is still fragile - what would happen if your wages didn't increase or you lost your job?

I don't see the problem of having an intimate, or just the two of you budget wedding, surely it's the getting married part that counts? You could save up and do a big party when you have the money?

Imagine getting into more debt for one day then having it hanging over your heads as you start married life? Maybe you will feel ok about it, this is just me.

If you can definitely afford to pay for it after and you feel ok about it then go for it, I am just pointing out realities to think about.

I agree with you on the economy and it does slightly scare me! The economy is starting to feel better and each month is improving slowly. I don't want to count my chickens as they say but it is feeling better.

I've seen weddings done happily and cheaply on less than 1k, it might be worth seeing what you can do with your current budget and working it out before taking on the loan?

I think the 0% interest credit card is a better option than extending your mortgage - there's always hidden costs involved with mortgages, and (in my experience) they keep moving the goalposts.

I have a 0% interest card for 24 months, try on moneysupermarket.com - use it for your wedding and then cut it up and pay it off. They are far too handy, as I have discovered in the past, much to my chagrin.

Credit cards are great as long as you are sensible with them (I wasn't).

I would say the problem with extending your mortgage to fund it is what ever happens this will be the most expensive debt as you will be paying interest on your mortgage for the longest amount of time. Say you have taken out your mortgage for 20 years at a rate or 2.5% (example) if you were to borrow an extra £5k, you may well be able to pay back the money you originally borrowed sooner, but work out the APR on that and it is quite scary! Correct me if I am wrong but that is how I understand it. This is a good little tool for making it a bit clearer https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/everyday-money/credit/loan-calculator?source=mas

*just getting my geek on!*?

The little loan calculator tool is really good. Albeit a bit scary! Loads of interest if the loan goes full term. Our aim is to have paid it back sooner, however once it is on the mortgage it would be extremely easy to forget about it and just end up paying it off over the term of the mortgage.

I think I will look it to these 0% credit cards this one here is 27 month 0% deal! Whilst we might not get it paid off over the 27 months, we could then get another 0% card to cover any outstanding balance (hopefully none) :-)