Marrying for money?
Jun 13th, 2008 by Katie
Apparently the ubiquitous ‘credit crunch’ could be affecting our desire to get married.
The Observer observed at the weekend - under the heading ‘We know it’s cheap…but we love it anyway’ - that ‘Living in sin’ was on the up, being:
“Much more chic - and credit-crunch friendly - than dull ol’ marriage”
As you would expect, I disagree, believing my own marriage to be the epitome of chi-chi chic (because what could be more important?!) but in the interests of scientific enquiry, I wondered how many people will be put off getting married by tightening belts… I have often heard couples say, ‘Oh, we won’t get married for a few years yet, we have to save up’.
I absolutely agree that making a commitment to one person for the rest of your life is huge, and you should wait however long it takes before you’re ready to do it (if you want to that is). But that you should have to wait until your bank account is big enough seems a real shame.
I know the average cost of weddings is going up and up but reading the stories of many of our ‘real life ethical weddings’ and the accounts of our blogger brides, it seems you don’t necessarily have to spend a fortune to say ‘I do’.
Maybe I’m just being naive… what do you think?
Katie
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
For us, the big day is two weeks away, and there is no doubt in my mind that even with the kind donations of family members, we’ll be starting our married life broke. Pancake broke. Scraping the barrel broke. The very thought of putting off getting married for financial reasons seems like madness to me! I don’t quite comprehend budgeting to fit a wedding, rather than arranging a wedding to fit a budget, even though our own wedding is somehow stretching the boundaries of budget!
I can remember a wise man (a Liverpudlian plumber actually, in Brisbane), talking to me about having children. I said I wish I could start a family early, but there was no way we could ever afford it. He turned around to me and stopped what he was doing, and imparted the following advice: ‘You’ll never have enough money for children, but when a child comes along, you’ll always find there’s enough. A single child is worth a million, billion pounds.’ I’ve never forgotten his advice, and I think it has to apply here too. If you love someone, and want to make that special commitment, then you will find the money to do it.
Lachie laughed nervously when I said our wedding would cost about 5000 all up. Off the top of my head, I can think of about 4000 pounds worth of wedding-related expense. Had we been on a serious shoestring, we could have done it for about 500, obviously without wedding rings.