Saturday, July 12, 2008

Why are you waiting so long to get married???

Today DH and I had to run a few errands and we ran into some of his old friends. He proceeded to tell them we were getting married and when they asked when he told them the date which is August of 2010. What happened next is something I've grown accustomed to when I tell people I'm engaged. First its a look of extreme shock and then they ask the infamous question. "Why are you waiting 2 years?" and "That's a long engagement" I didn't answer the question but let DH answer it ( he is a lot more diplomatic in certain situations), but my dear friends in blogworld I will tell you why we are waiting so long to get married.

WEDDINGS COST MONEY!!!!

I don't come from a wealthy family and neither does DH. We have to work for everything we get. I worked my way through college, Rutgers University in hte house!!! In fact I worked full time overnight and went to school during the day. We are paying the down payment for the house by ourselves, although we are getting closing cost assistance from the seller.

1. Our wedding will be paid for by us. We have budgeted roughly $20000 for a wedding outside on the banks of a river in Philadelphia. The wedding and reception will be held at a historical mansion. We plan on paying for the wedding in cash split equally between us. That means we both have to save $10000. To make it easier on us we will be saving 5000 a year. That is will not be too hard for us at all. If worse comes to worse DH can always take some money from his 09 and 10 tax return and he will have his half and I can always get mine together during the summer when I teach summer school along with saving a little more during the year.

2. We refuse to start our marriage in debt so will be paying off all our consumer debt( student loans, car loans, personal loans) before we get married. The Bible says the borrower is slave to the lender, and we refuse to be shackled to any company or owe anyone money. It is going to take a little less than 2 years to pay off both of our debts (we are doing this separately and have committed to taking a portion of each of our take home pay to pay off our respective debts). I can only imagine how good it will feel to start our married life together with our only debt being our mortgage.

So people can keep on looking at us like we are crazy when we tell them our wedding is in 2 years, but we look at it like we are setting up a strong foundation for our lives, and we are changing our family trees. Dave Ramsey says live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else. That's what our plan is. If in many years we have a daughter who decides to get married it won't be no thing but a chicken wing, and we can bless her by having the cash saved up, and she can get married whenever she likes, because her parents sacrificed and planned for her.

Walking in prosperity is not just about it you. Life is not just about you. The choices that we make today will affect our children and our grandchildren, and generations down the line. My boo and I have made the decision to radically change our lives not for us but for them.

...long answer i know, but that is the very honest answer about why we are waiting two years to get married.

until next time, think prosperous thoughts!!!

YBP


5 comments:

Nicole said...

I love this idea. Your budgeting plan is fresh and makes total sense.

Ms. High Maintenance said...

It is funny how other people like to impose their ideas on other people. Mr. HM and I were married a little over a year when we decided we wanted a baby (that turned into twins). When I got pregnant, people would ask us why did we start having children so soon. Get married the way you want, when you want, and how you want!

Paula Wethington said...

My husband and I were engaged for 13 months before our wedding.
We were paying for most of the expenses, and wanted to shop around along with taking advantage of seasonal opportunities.
Yes, the additional planning time was a big help.

Unknown said...

Ha! I'm getting married in October 2010, and I've already been engaged 1 year, 5 months. I seriously considered making cards that said:

October 2nd, 2010
Because Daddy ain't paying for the wedding.

In our case, I'm straight out of college from a nonwealthy family, and this is his 2nd marriage. So we're on our own too, but want to have a nice wedding. Not big, just nice!

Anonymous said...

I get the samee reaction when I tll peeople my wedding date is June 19, 2010. Believe me we need this time to save and plan!

Best of luck!