Paying For Your Wedding

Once your man finally pops the big question and you’ve (hopefully) said yes, things really start moving fast, with the biggest concern being the wedding itself. With so many logistics involved with planning a wedding, I thought it would be good to discuss one of the most important aspects of planning a wedding: figuring out how to pay for it.

A lot of the price of a wedding comes down to the number of guests that you invite in the first place. Although the media can often give a misleading idea of how big weddings should be, with their celebrity weddings that can potentially have thousands of guests, for the average American couple, weddings typically have guest lists of a little over 100. Doesn’t sound too bad right? Fifty plus people for your side of the family, and the same for his side?

However, while 100 people may not sound like a lot, when the cost of each person’s attendance (including dinner, drinks and other fees based on headcount) goes well above $200 a head, you are looking at $20,000 just taking into account the guests themselves. Add on other fees such as photographers and live entertainment for the reception and you start looking at quite a bill to pay.

In this day and age where money is often in short supply, sometimes the only thing you may feel you can do is to limit your guest list to that which you can actually pay for. But while this makes sense from a financial standpoint, you may ending leaving all sorts of moderately close family and friends that you legitimately would want to witness the occasion, if it weren’t for the price.

However, there is a way to avoid such a dilemma. The answer is to use a money tree! In short, it is a cute, decorated tree that lends itself for people to provide monetary gifts, often in addition to actual wedding gifts. It is usually a supplement to the main gift giving, but you can just as easily get the word out that you are requesting only money tree “gifts” rather than your typical wedding gifts.

Most people will psychologically gift you with enough money to cover the cost of attending. But even if some guests fall short in the amount of their gift, you still cover most of the wedding through the money tree. Yes, you won’t have any physical gifts to help you start and grow as a new family, but covering for the wedding costs, which are unavoidably expensive, is probably more preferred anyway.

Plus your guests won’t have any difficulty finding you the perfect gift, with no stigma involving gifting you with money, since you specifically requested such monetary gifts. It’s definitely a win-win for everyone involved, helping to simplify the gift-giving process for your guests, while at the same time helping provide much needed financial relief for your wedding. Definitely something to look into for your wedding, especially if money is particularly tight at the moment!