Putting the money in matrimony

Planning your finances will help make your wedding go smoothly

Last week, my fiancé and I shocked our family and friends with an elopement announcement.

After careful personal and financial consideration, we decided to skip putting on a grand wedding and have reallocated that money - more than $53,000 in savings - towards our planned basement renovation that's set to start this summer.

The cost of our elopement was $2,500 (including fees and a donation to the church, my dress, which was a Kijiji find and that I plan to resell, champagne, flowers, photos and our marriage licence).

My 30-day spending detox in January paid for a good chunk of our elopement costs. And yes, we are still managing the family and friend dynamics, good and bad, from making this decision.

Thousands of engaged couples and their families are planning wedding celebrations for the year ahead. Costs range dramatically, and so do the methods of payment.

But the best financial advice I can offer to soon-to-be newlyweds is to carefully plan an event that reflects your core values and what you can actually afford. Starting out married life with a massive pile of wedding debt isn't financially prudent.

Weddings, elopements or pop-ups?

Finances shouldn't be the exclusive driver for the style of wedding you choose. You'll want to consider how many people you want to attend (this is typically the largest factor in the cost), if travel is involved, whether your family is giving you money (and what the expectations are if they do), the time of year you choose, if you have the skills and time to DIY certain elements like decorations and so on.

A good place to start is to draft a list of what you care about most like food, booze, fashion, flowers, the venue, photos - and start researching costs. Compare this to what you can afford to pay from your savings plus regular cash flow and any gifts from family.

If there's a big disconnect in what you can afford and what you want, scale it down. For context, the average cost of a traditional wedding in Canada is just north of $30,000. And many couples use debt to pay for a portion of this.

Elopements and pop-up weddings, which typically cost less than $10,000, are a great alternative to a full-scale wedding if a couple has other major priorities; houses, children, career transition and more.

Be honest about the cost

Here's how to tell if you're going overboard with your expenses: your actual vendor costs are higher than your budget, you can't keep track of the deposits and what's still outstanding, your credit card or line of credit balance is growing rapidly, and you can't pay off the full balance every 30 to 60 days.

Runaway costs can be avoided by having a firm budget. You can also rein them in by negotiating or bartering with vendors. And sadly, you can't plan on recouping costs through gifts. That money isn't guaranteed and if received, should be considered a bonus.

Avoid cash crunches

Spacing out payments so that you don't owe $20,000 all in one day can help reduce financial stress.

It also means you might be able to fund the expenses from your regular paycheques, rather than dipping into savings, or using debt.

And if you are on a tight budget to begin with, you'll probably want to cut back on unnecessary expenses so that you can reallocate that money towards wedding costs.

If you need to use debt, be smart about it. Limit the amount. Get a competitive interest rate. Formulate a plan to pay it off within 18 months of your wedding date.

Besides the joy of simply getting married, planning a wedding celebration has another very good unintended consequence.

It helps you break the financial ice with your partner, if you haven't already done so.

You'll learn to prepare a budget, have to navigate trade-offs like an open bar versus better quality food, disclose each other's bank balances and, most importantly, have discussions about what you value most when it comes to your wedding and your overall financial future.

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Soon-to-be newlyweds should focus on planning a celebration that reflects their core values and what they can realistically afford.

This article was written by Lesley-Anne Scorgie Contributing from The Toronto Star and was legally licensed by AdvisorStream through the NewsCred publisher network.