Our Non- FI Wedding

The process of planning and throwing a wedding can be one of great contention in the finance world, let alone actually planning a wedding. Kayla and I struggled with what we wanted to do to celebrate this momentous occasion. In terms of finances and stress levels, going to the court house was an obvious choice. However, we thought about all of our family and friends and made the conscious decision to go the more expensive and stressful route. While this may not have been the wisest decision in terms of spending, we do not regret it.

We had several things that we had to agree on first. Mostly, we wanted to try to keep the budget down as much as possible. We did as much work ourselves as we could and recruited our friends to help us with things like tailoring our dresses, being the DJ, performing the ceremony, making our cake and choreographing our first dance. We are forever grateful to these friends and family that helped us make our day special.

We had enough savings to cover our remaining costs and agreed that no matter what, we would not go into any debt for this wedding, which we did not. I had read too many horror stories about couples that were still paying off their weddings years later or even after their divorce!

Even though our spending was more than we would have initially liked, we got a once in a lifetime experience for it. Most importantly, we consciously made the decision to go down this route of spending fully knowing that there were other options. We took the time together to go through our choices and decided that this is something that we truly wanted to experience. From there, it was all logistics, but most importantly we knew that putting our $ towards this meant not spending it somewhere else.

Every cost is a trade-off. Taking that fancy trip can mean not getting as new of a car or waiting an extra year to get the car. It’s all a balancing act that must be performed in order to keep spending in line with values.

It is important to weigh expenses in terms of what is best for each you, as an individual or a family, and not base decisions on what you are “supposed” to do. If you examine your options and happen to choose the more expensive option because it is truly what you want and something that you are willing to sacrifice elsewhere for, then so be it. Just do your research and make the conscious decision to go that route.

What are some of your trade-offs that you’ve made in your life? Do you regret any of them?