NBR: Fancy wedding or down payment for a house?

[Deleted]

I was just reading an article that presented this dilemma, which I thought was interesting. The bride's family was willing to give them a large lump sum of money which they could use to pay for the big, fancy wedding of her dreams OR as a down payment for a house. The bride went for the wedding because you only get "one day." Which would you choose? 

[Deleted]

I'm torn. I am practical and cheap so I know I would go for the down payment. But the older I get, the more I see that it's true that you typically don't get that many chances to go all out on something fun and frivolous like a wedding. I've always been a little regretful that we didn't have a larger one ourselves (although I also hate being the center of attention so there's that issue).

[Deleted]

The house hands down.

I loved my wedding. It was a great day but at the end of it, it's still about BEING married, not GETTING married and anything to make being married easier trumps it all in my mind.

We had a pretty typical church/town hall wedding and it was still pretty damn magical. Overpriced napkins and booze don't necessarily make the magic, kwim?

[Deleted]

Oct 10, 2015 8:51:24 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

I'm torn. I am practical and cheap so I know I would go for the down payment. But the older I get, the more I see that it's true that you typically don't get that many chances to go all out on something fun and frivolous like a wedding. I've always been a little regretful that we didn't have a larger one ourselves (although I also hate being the center of attention so there's that issue).

I will counter that with a "I could go all out on the house/get better than what I'd have normally!" 

 

I see what you mean though. Weddings to me about tons of friends and family around to drink a beer with more than the "pretty" part. 

I do agree with you though all the same. 

[jeaniebueller]

Down payment. We had a small wedding and I have no regrets.

[aspentosh]

House.

My mom gave us $15k as a wedding gift and we took $5k for our wedding and used the other towards our DP. I don't regret it one bit.

[sewf]

House. She's right, it's just "one day". A wedding can't shelter your family for years.

[noodleoo]

Um HOUSE! You will always need a place to live, can be a very good investment and well, duh! I can't imagine being so impractical that you really choose wedding over house.

Choose house and then save for the wedding on your own.

i also think people are a lot more practical with their choices for a wedding when they have to spend their own money on it. 

[brooklyn]

The cost of my fancy wedding wouldn't be enough for a downpayment on a house here. Our wedding was an amazing party, and I'd do that again (minus some family drama) hands down.

When else do I get to have all my friends and family in one place? Especially now that I have aunts and uncles dying, I'm glad I have those fun memories with them.

[Willis Jackson]

I would and did choose house.

My parents were very proud of me.

ETA: My parents actually gave us the money with no strings attached, but we socked it away and eventually used it as a down payment. We got married at city hall w/ 4 witnesses (our parents), which we would have done even if my parents had insisted the money was only for a wedding. Neither of us like being the center of attention so a wedding with 100+ guests is our idea of hell.

[linz]

Id used most for a house but would use some to still have a wedding I want.

[brooklyn]

(Also my parents gifted us the wedding, and it wasn't an option to take it for a downpayment)

[Deleted]

House!

Omg I still resent the $10k we spent on a wedding on 2010. If we'd invested it in the market, it would be something like $35k now!

[boiler717]

House for sure. My parents gave us around $30k for the wedding and we asked if we could save on the wedding and use if for house and were told no. My SIL and bro were offered the wedding or DP deal and picked the wedding. The DP option came with a beach wedding in Hawaii too!

[sent]

I'm with brooklyn on this one.  I wasn't given a choice.  If I had asked for the money for a house, they would've still felt obligated to throw us a party.  Wedding planning was stressful (we had many events between the engagement party and the actual wedding) and my photographers stiffed me so I don't even have the albums or videos I paid $$$$ for, but I will always have the memories of it.  My dad is 1 of 10 siblings and of the 3 that were there for my wedding, the one who traveled the furthest to attend is sadly now gone.  That was the last time I saw and spent time with her.

But I'm not one who gets worked up over "a house is an investment" discussion.  I need a place to live and we seem to be doing ok renting.  We'll buy something in our budget when we need to and life will go on.  

[anna7602]

This was not a choice for me. Big weddings and family parties in general are a huge deal to my parents. We had a guest list of 300 people (thankfully not all could make it) largely due to my parents wanting to invite every single friend and social acquaintance of theirs, in addition to far-flung relatives I only saw once every ten years. I am not kidding when I say that there were people at my wedding whom I did not recognize at all.

I am honestly not sure how they paid for it as they are not great with money. DH and I paid for all of our own guests. The amount of $ my parents' friends gifted us more or less equalled what we spent, so it was a wash.

[Deleted]

God you could have such an epic wedding with the down payment money for a house where I live. Lol.

[Deleted]

Oct 10, 2015 9:06:53 GMT -5 @idaholakelady said:

House!

Omg I still resent the $10k we spent on a wedding on 2010. If we'd invested it in the market, it would be something like $35k now!

Haha, the most MM answer  

[rbp]

I really really really loved our wedding. It was maybe as fancy as you can get in small-town WV, but that wouldn't have been enough for a downpayment on a MCOL condo. 250 people, buffet dinner (food was mediocre), open bar, decent band. We got married in 2006 so no Pinterest, and I couldn't be bothered with all those details anyway. But damn did we have a good time.

Our wedding would probably cost 4x as much if we got married now. We live in Atlanta and have expensive tastes. LOL

[heygrey]

House, for sure. I wanted to elope, or at most just have our parents there, but h objected. As it was, our wedding came in under $3,000 because I refused to spend any more on a party I didn't want.

Eta: my parents paid for the wedding, and they also bought us a used car ($4,800), which was almost as good as down payment in our eyes. $8k wouldn't have gotten us anywhere near a dp in our current location.

[Deleted]

Oct 10, 2015 9:17:29 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

Granted I live in a mcol and I'm a bit of a scru (no SLs), but I kind of feel proud that we have paid for our own houses and didn't feel beholden to our parents for those long term choices.

My parents gave us money for our wedding and said we could keep any leftovers but they had expectations (like, invite all of my dad's business partners and my mom's friends) so I don't think we could have taken the money, done a tiny wedding on the cheap, and then spent most of it on a dp. Maybe we could? I dunno.

This was exactly us except our no SLs are because we both went to college on full scholarships.

I honestly think I would have chosen the wedding anyway. It was an incredible day and we had zero issue saving for our first DP in the first year of our marriage.

[rbp]

Oct 10, 2015 9:27:32 GMT -5 anna7602 said:

This was not a choice for me. Big weddings and family parties in general are a huge deal to my parents. We had a guest list of 300 people (thankfully not all could make it) largely due to my parents wanting to invite every single friend and social acquaintance of theirs, in addition to far-flung relatives I only saw once every ten years. I am not kidding when I say that there were people at my wedding whom I did not recognize at all.

I am honestly not sure how they paid for it as they are not great with money. DH and I paid for all of our own guests. The amount of $ my parents' friends gifted us more or less equalled what we spent, so it was a wash.

There were also people at our wedding that my parents had to introduce us to. 

[anna7602]

Oct 10, 2015 8:57:01 GMT -5 noodleoo said:

Um HOUSE! You will always need a place to live, can be a very good investment and well, duh! I can't imagine being so impractical that you really choose wedding over house.

Choose house and then save for the wedding on your own.

i also think people are a lot more practical with their choices for a wedding when they have to spend their own money on it. 

Why not do the opposite and save for a house on your own? We weren't anywhere near knowing where we would be long-term when we got married. Buying a house was never a "we do this as soon as we're married" consideration for me, but I'm mainly playing devil's advocate here.

[Deleted]

Here's another (more kid related) question. If you are in a position to give your kids money like that someday, with no strings attached, do you think you will mind if they spend it on a wedding or a house (contrary to what you yourself might choose)?

[anna7602]

Oct 10, 2015 9:31:41 GMT -5 rbp said:

I really really really loved our wedding. It was maybe as fancy as you can get in small-town WV, but that wouldn't have been enough for a downpayment on a MCOL condo. 250 people, buffet dinner (food was mediocre), open bar, decent band. We got married in 2006 so no Pinterest, and I couldn't be bothered with all those details anyway. But damn did we have a good time.

Our wedding would probably cost 4x as much if we got married now. We live in Atlanta and have expensive tastes. LOL

Oh yes, I forgot that I got married in a fairly MCOL location and now own a home in a very HCOL location. It wouldn't make any sense to compare what my parents spent on our wedding for a decent party with some frills with what a similar DP would get you here (ie, not much).

[Deleted]

Oct 10, 2015 9:33:19 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

Here's another (more kid related) question. If you are in a position to give your kids money like that someday, with no strings attached, do you think you will mind if they spend it on a wedding or a house (contrary to what you yourself might choose)?

i would not give my kids that kind of money if i would be genuinely bothered by their potential choice.

I don't think I would be bothered between these two choices though. Hookers and blow, yes.

[anna7602]

Also, did everyone actually pay cash for their weddings? I'm pretty sure that my parents put a lot of it on a credit card. And I can't really get too worked up about that since it was the party they wanted.

[heygrey]

Oct 10, 2015 9:33:19 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

Here's another (more kid related) question. If you are in a position to give your kids money like that someday, with no strings attached, do you think you will mind if they spend it on a wedding or a house (contrary to what you yourself might choose)?

I dont think I could do it with no strings attached. I would give them what I felt was an appropriate amount for a wedding and then later give more for a down payment. I have no plans to fully pay for anything for my child -college, car, wedding. We have a decent savings account going already for R, but it's still our money.

[krystee]

I'd probably split it, with $15K toward a wedding and the rest for downpayment savings.

[rbp]

Oct 10, 2015 9:37:56 GMT -5 anna7602 said:

Also, did everyone actually pay cash for their weddings? I'm pretty sure that my parents put a lot of it on a credit card. And I can't really get too worked up about that since it was the party they wanted.

My dad was very frugal but was happy to spend money on a few certain things that were important to him. I remember having a conversation where he said "do you want a full bar at your wedding or just beer and wine?" I was trying to be a good steward of their money, so I said "beer and wine is fine." My dad thought about it for a minute and said "I think my friends will want liquor." Full bar it was!

Anyway, I'm guessing they actually paid cash. Or possibly put it on a credit card for protection/rewards but paid it off immediately.