Tame Your Wedding Budget | UKbride

Along with your wedding vows, here’s another important promise you and your HTB can make on your wedding day — not to let money ruin the most important day of your life.

A recent survey of brides-to-be on UKbride revealed that only 14% of couples planning their weddings will have their nuptials paid for by their parents, meaning that more and more brides are having to find ways of funding the big day yourselves.

Traditionally the father of the bride was responsible for funding his daughters’ weddings. But more recently — as our poll shows — the financial burden has shifted, and brides and grooms-to-be are increasingly financing their celebrations themselves.

Whilst many couples (53% in total) are taking a practical approach to wedding expenses by paying for each component of your wedding as they go — and very sensibly avoiding getting into any debt through making one enormous bulk payment! — a fair proportion (31%) of UKbrides are also being extremely prudent and setting money aside in preparation for the big day.

In such an unstable economic climate, it’s good to see that not too many brides-to-be are being forced to turn to the bank for help. Although it might have that ‘quick fix’ appeal, we spoke to UKbride member Joanne Flinders, who cancelled her previous wedding after becoming engulfed in the pressures of wedding debt. Joanne wants to warn others about the repercussions of bridal borrowing.

After taking out a loan to pay for her big day a few years ago, Joanne became so anxious and overwhelmed by financial burdens, she was forced to call the wedding off. Money worries prevented Joanne from enjoying her wedding preparations and, ultimately, she and her fiancé separated.

Despite having her first wedding ruined by financial distress, there is a happy ending in sight now for Joanne; engaged to her new man, she aims to do things very differently this time around. Having been through a great deal of tension in her previous engagement, Joanne made the wise decision to take a completely different approach to her wedding spending — steering clear of the loans, and instead carefully planning all of her expenses.

When asked what advice she would give any brides thinking about using a loan to pay for their wedding, Joanne said “Don’t do it!”

“The economic pressure will be a huge strain on you and your partner- no matter how secure the relationship. As soon as there’s a financial strain, you just can’t enjoy it.” she added.

Joanne would encourage other brides to follow her savvy spending, by being extremely organised, and planning each and every cost before paying any money out. “Make sure you actually have the money before you start spending, it makes life so much easier.” she urged.

In our discussion about why such a low proportion of our brides are using a loan to pay for their wedding Joanne said she was not surprised; “Times have changed.” she said. “People haven’t got a choice; they have to just spend what they’ve got and loans aren’t so easy to obtain any more.”

In her prudent pre-nuptial planning Joanne has avoided the problems she encountered previously by using a spreadsheet, which clearly laid out all expenses and prevented miscalculations on her total spend. If spreadsheets seem too complicated and your eyes glaze over when you contemplate your finances, you’ll find a similar, but easier tool on UKbride under ‘My Wedding’ and ‘My Budget Planner’, art of the site's range of free wedding planning tools.

“It made it easier to see if we had gone over budget on one thing, and where we could save on other things.” Joanne said.

Careful research meant that Joanne and her fiancée have actually come in under budget by a whopping £1,000, which proves that being practical with the pounds can save you substantial amounts of money.

We also spoke to Archna Luthra one of Martin Lewis’s moneysavingexpert.com advisers who gave us her professional advice on how to avoid busting your budget: “It may be the biggest day of your life, certainly financially it will be...” Archna said “But if you've champagne tastes on a bucks fizz budget it's still possible to have a dream wedding.”

“There's no point in pulling out all the stops for your wedding if it leaves you financially crippled for the rest of your married life,” she said. “Plan how much you're able to spend, where it's going to come from, and stick to it rigidly.” Archna added.

Whilst our poll showed that only a tiny proportion of brides-to-be are borrowing, Archna urged those who are to make sure they have considered the consequences of their spending; “If you absolutely must borrow, ask yourself if you can afford the repayments, make sure you're borrowing as little as possible and borrow the very cheapest way.” Archna said.

Above all, don’t let money matters compromise your happiness on the day itself.  After all it’s the biggest and best days of your life, and whilst it is sensible to bear your budget in mind, make sure it doesn’t stop you from enjoying your celebrations. Ensure you give it plenty of thought, but don’t let it take away from the pleasure of planning such a once in a lifetime occasion. Money saving expert Archna agreed; “It isn't about going cheap… work out where you want to spend the money; is it the dream wedding dress, a phenomenal photographer or a fantastic venue? Weigh up your priorities and allocate budget accordingly.”

Archna Luthra is a money expert from Martin Lewis's Website, Money Saving Expert.