I loved our wedding so much. It was exactly what I wanted. It was big and happy and US. I wouldn't change a thing. It was $15-$20K and my parents paid for most of it.
I didn't want a house then and don't even really want a house now. $15K would be nowhere near enough for a down payment, nor have any of our parents ever expressed an interest in paying for us to buy a house.
I mean, if my parents had $50K they wanted to give me, I guess we could have spent $20K on the wedding and saved/kept $30K to eventually buy a house....
Yeah pretty much this. I have no desire to buy a house so if the money HAD to be used for a down payment then I'd take the wedding.
And yeah a DP for an apartment in NYC would be way over 20k. And if my parents could easily afford to give me a 20% DP then I'm sure they could also throw in a little extra for a wedding
If I have lots of extra cash hanging around for my hypothetical kids I think it's kind of unfair to make them pick one or the other if you're trying to be generous. I'd just give them the amount I can afford and let them decide how to spend it (assuming they're responsible and productive members of society).
I mean, now I would pick a house, but when we got married 5.5 years ago, we were not settled and not ready to owe a house. So the money we were gifted was for the wedding. We spent about $12,000 on our wedding and HM. $7 was from my dad, $2 from my my and we covered the rest. I don't have any regrets.
We got the same offer and used the money for the wedding. I sort of wish we had gone for the down payment instead, but I don't regret our decision per se. If we had gone for the down payment I'm sure I'd feel similarly about not having a pretty pretty princess day.
Post by oregonpachey on Oct 10, 2015 18:53:24 GMT -5
I already owned our house by the time we got enagaged so if the $ had been offered to us, we would have chosen wedding. We paid cash for our wedding. We were gifted a small amount but paid 90% ourselves.
The wedding. We had an awesome party and I regret nothing. (Full disclosure: we ended up getting a DP as well, but I didn'tknow that at the time of the wedding.)
rbp If you don't mind sharing, which small town in WV? When we got married, we were living in Atlanta and had our reception at Canoe.
House. I hate being the center of attention so I insisted on a small wedding despite my IL's objections. My mom gave me money, but it was after I had planned everything and was going to pay for it myself, so, since we bought our house shortly after we got married, it was kind of a gift before both.
I am hoping to gift the boys a very generous amount for their first homes. I hadn't considered weddings. I will probably give a generous gift but not necessarily "pay" for it. So they plan based on their budget then my gift can be used for whatever.
A friend of my mom had a huge, blow out wedding, paid by her parents. I thought it was weird that she and her new hubby then moved in with the same parents for a year+ to save for a down payment on a house. It might have been 2 years.
Well, my dad just spent a significant amount of money on my wedding. I wasn't offered a choice.
It's something I've been looking forward to since I was a little girl and it was everything I imagined and more. Plus, we already own our home, so no regrets.
Wedding. I didn't have much interest in buying a house when I got married, I wasn't even living in the same city as DH full time at that point. As it was, our wedding cost about $25k, our parents collectively gave us around $20k and we paid the rest, plus our honeymoon and I wouldn't change it. Like another poster said, we also ended up with a good amount of cash gifts, about $11k or so, and that actually did end up as part of our down payment 5+ years later.
To answer the other question, we paid everything wedding related in cash (I don't count putting stuff on the credit cards and paying the bill in full every month). If we didn't have enough to cover it between the amount our parents gave us and our own money, we didn't do it.
I've been married for 8 years and still have little interest in owning a home so wedding for me, hands down.
I think my parents gave me that offer (well, it wasn't going to be down payment -- it was "or we'll give you the cash). But I wanted a big, fancy party so wedding it was.
To anna7602's question, everything that could have conceivably been put on a credit card (pretty much everything) was put on a credit card. My points-loving tendencies are inherited Not sure how that figures in, though?
Post by steamboat185 on Oct 11, 2015 8:57:35 GMT -5
Down payment. I loved the wedding we had and I wouldn't have wanted a big fancy wedding. Not having to sell all my Apple stock to buy this place would have been awesome.
My parents gifted us our wedding reception and my dress. Taking it for a DP wasn't an option, but we owned a condo so it's not like we needed it necessarily right at that moment. The money we got as wedding gifts from being able to invite everyone we wanted resulted in about the same amount my parents spent on our wedding. We did end up buying a house on a whim a few months after our wedding so that money did end up being a large part of the DP. So I guess we got both in the end.
My parents gifted us our wedding reception and my dress. Taking it for a DP wasn't an option, but we owned a condo so it's not like we needed it necessarily right at that moment. The money we got as wedding gifts from being able to invite everyone we wanted resulted in about the same amount my parents spent on our wedding. We did end up buying a house on a whim a few months after our wedding so that money did end up being a large part of the DP. So I guess we got both in the end.
I wouldn't have a super fancy wedding, but I had a big wedding and never regretted it. Our wedding ceremony was for US. We saw our reception as a big party we threw FOR our friends/family, as a way to thank them for their love & support and for coming to witness our vows and the beginning of our lives together. I had a nice gown and beautiful flowers, but it wasn't my "pretty pretty princess day." I would do it a million times over.
So large, but not crazy fancy wedding, then use anything left over for the house.