Help! Fiance freaking out over money

Hii!! I'm getting married 26th April 2012, so you're probably the closest to a date twin i'm going to get, as I'm getting married on a random Thursday!

What I did was sit and work out a budget, then showed it to my fiance, who is very similar when it comes to money. He would do it all as cheap as possible with about 5 people there if I agreed!

WTinnutS. Have you worked out how much you can both put towards weding stuff each month so you know you can afford everything?

My H hates spending money too and stressed out about it during the whole of the wedding planning. I barely saw him during the last 2 months before the wedding because he felt he *needed* to work insane amounts of overtime to balance out the shock of having to pay all that money.

Most of us have absolutely no idea whatsoever how much a wedding costs, until we start planning our own. His response is probably quite understandable, to be honest. Obviously none of us know (or need to know) your particular financial and life circumstances but of course what is expensive to one person is easily affordable to another.

You will see a £1000 wedding dress, he will see the flatscreen TV he can't have. You will see £500 for a photographer, he will see the new surround sound stereo system he can't have. You will see £250 for a wedding car, he will see the X-Box/Playstation/Wii he can't have. It's just the way us guys are wired

You are going to have three sets of costs within your wedding planning.

1) Fixed costs that will remain the same regardless as they are the basics. These include registrars fees, church/venue fees, a dress for you, a suit for him, flowers, bridesmaids dresses, rings, photography, guestbook, evening entertainment, honeymoon, wedding night accommodation etc - some of which can be small or large budget depending on what you want.

2) Per person costs - these will include food and drink that you are providing for your guests, and often things like favours. Obviously if you have 100 guests this will cost twice as much as if you have 50 guests as more often than not the packages are priced per person.

3) Optional extras - these include things that would be nice if you can afford them. These include transport to take you to the venue, presents for the bridal party, money to go behind the bar for your guests, fireworks, afternoon entertainment, videoing your big day, etc etc.

The only way you can really successfully plan a wedding is to weigh up what you can realistically afford to spend by the time that you want to get married, and if you can't raise the money by the date you either have to shrink your plans, put your date back further or borrow money to cover the shortfall. Of course, parents sometimes contribute money but this is no longer automatic.

I believe the 'average' wedding these days is about £21,000 although we did ours for about £8,500 with 115 guests and had a wonderful time. Of course, that sort of money can get you a new car, replacing the kitchen or bathroom in your house, or any number of big expensive things... so get him to stop comparing and think how much more important and valuable you are to him

You may find that you both have different ideas - and it's quite common - you want to have the big fairytale wedding in a meringue dress with 20 bridesmaids in the stately home or castle, followed by a 10 course formal meal and dancing until the small hours, he wants to turn up at the local registry office, have a quick ceremony and then back to the pub with your friends for some beers and a pasty. Although tradition may have taught us that the bride plans her wedding and he has to somehow find the money for it, it's wrong - both of you are getting married so you should both have equal opportunities to have a say in what your day consists of and how you can both contribute towards it. When you can't agree on something, you both have to weigh up whether your needs or objections are that important and although you may not want, for example, to have a bagpipe player at the church if you are't overly bothered about there being one and can afford it then let him have it.

Much of married life is learning the art of compromise, and wedding planning is a great start. There's no reason he can't get involved in the planning - although he's more likely to find things like cars and entertainment more interesting than flowers and favours.

Think outside the box. Off season, midweek, small weddings for closest friends and family can save you a bucketload of cash, then you can have a party when you return from honeymoon in a local pub with some nibbles and a disco for everyone else that you can't invite to the wedding itself - and if you are getting a photo package that gives you the pictures on a disc a friend or relative might be able to put together a slideshow on dvd that you can play at the party for those that weren't invited.

Persevere. You'll get there

Work out the total budget. Then don't tell him how much anything is and just get on with it. :-)

My OH and I worked out our budget. He then opened a bank account, put that budgeted amount into it and gave me the card. It's what we agreed to do & once the money is gone, it's gone. He doesn't care about the ins and outs of it. That's my wedding "allowance" so to speak so I can do what I want with it. If I want to spend £1k on a dress and only £20 on a photographer, that's my prerogative (it's not going to happen, but you get my drift).

Maybe you should suggest this to your OH?

My OH isn't tight with money, but sounds like yours! He will throw money at tv surround sound and all things boy related, yet we had an arguement once in B&Q because he refused to pay £6 for the metal strip that goes on the floor inbetween carpets

When we first got enegaged I wrote a list of things we would need, and then went online and got a rough idea of how much each would cost by looking on 2-3 websites for each one ( e.g. photography etc..) then we got our budget. Which was scary, even now I keep thinking "its the extension I've wanted for the last 3 years".

But in order to get him onside you need to sit down and discuss exactly what you want from your big day - I promised my OH an ice cream van and he was fine ever since

Totally agree with you there. You need your h2b to feel involved in the wedding, it's not just your day but both of you, and if all he feels like is a cash dispenser he's likely to get irritated by all things wedding. I know I certainly did for my first wedding.

Not my husband! That couldn't be further from the truth where he's concerned.

OP - do you talk openly about your finances with your fiance, and does he with you? Aside from the emotional aspect, a wedding is a significant financial commitment to each other. You need to set some time aside to discuss not only the sort of day you each want but how much you are prepared to spend. Only once you have had that discussion can you really start to plan anything. Good luck .

WSS. AJ you are terrible for sterotyping!

I think I literally had kittens the first time we sat down and worked out a 'rough' budget ! - To me it was another deposit on a second home or such like !

But then the more I thought about it, the more I realised how important it was to the future Mrs Chippers etc, the more I want exactly the same.

I still cringe when I am paying a deposit or get a quote back, but then its always going to be expensive its a wedding. I am no in the mindset of as long as we are sticking to our agreed budget and we can afford it and are not borrowing then lets spend it all !!!!!!

OK, maybe not all, I am still trying to save as much as possible, but thne thats just in my nature !!!

DOTTY PANTS!!! YOUR MY DATE TWIN!!! x

WTS! This comes up a lot on Hitched "Men are like xxxx" and "Women are like xxxx" It doesn't work that way! I'd be quite happy to have a small, no frills affair but it's my OH who wants the works and I'm having to rein him back by asking him how he's paying for it all LOL!!

To the OP you need to tell him that he can't bury his head under the sand, you will have to come up with a budget together if he wants to get married. Things cost what they cost and you'll have to compromise somewhere but he needs to understand it's not free or cheap in most cases!!

Bluntly

You are getting married, for the rest of your life you are commiting to share

That means you both should have input on the lads things and the girls things, rather than you both going your own way

What's important to you, might not be important to him. However you are both committing yourself to a future together, and like it or not, you are both going to have to make compromises and start agreeing about things

Sit down with him and explain that you both are committing to each other, and that you both need to start agreeing on things, and start planning things together. That includes the wedding budget. That means you might need to make compromises, and by the sounds of it so will he

Me and Mr C are wired very differently when it comes to money. He had the same reaction when we first started researching and we both had to compromise on most things to meet somewhere in the middle.

Start by having an open discussion with how much you feel comfortable with spending, and if you can afford it. Then you can start looking realistically.

Not everything is necessary, a lot of it can be DIY and a lot of things can be found cheaper/negotiated.

Very true. Whilst there are some things you can't do without (such as a registrar and licensed venue) do you need 20 bridesmaids or will two do, for example.

Much of what we are constantly told is 'essential' is simply the wedding industry serving its own interests, and with so much from celebrity weddings and suchlike all over the papers, make the day your own and not just have something because everyone else is, or because people "expect it" as it's a wedding.

That would be true if it were the wedding industry saying it is essential. This one in the main is "customer driven" The industry merely supplies what is demanded. Nowhere is it written

Thou shalt have

- personalised anything

- sweetie tables

- stuff in the loos for the ladies

- a free bar

- cup cakes and a normal ccake

etc.

However if you go to a cake maker and ask for cupcakes and a regular cake they are not going to say no

I agree, you can DIY a lot if you are happy to do so - I am very busy (possibly 'lazy' is the more accurate adjective there...) and it just isn't for me, but I do think it always genuinely looks lovely when people really put thought into things.

I would say though, that if he is really concerned about money, why not hand over the planning to him for a while, get him to scout out prices etc to create a provisional budget sheet, this will inevitably go one of two ways:

1. He will realise that, inevitably, feeding a large group of people and holding an event is quite expensive

2. He will turn out to be an amazing bargain-hunter and save you both thousands

Either way, you can't go wrong!

Mine freaked out over photographer costs - he refused point blank to spend £800 on a photographer but is quite happy with my dress costing that much - it's a case of priorities. For us food was the major priority, so we're spending a large proportion of our budget on that.

We have a total budget and are aiming to keep below it - budget is rather less than the average wedding cost, but still a decent amount of money.

Flowers are the difficult one for me as I don't really want to spend a massive amount on something I'm not hugely interested in but equally it's not something I can DIY as I have black fingers when it comes to flowers... they just seem to die! So we've budgeted more for the flowers and less for the cake which I'm perfectly happy to DIY...

The main essentials for a wedding are the ceremony, the couple and the legally required witnesses - everything else is optional!