What is the number one thing breaking up marriages….MONEY.  What do you do together when you are planning your wedding…. Spending MONEY.   It starts there. It is uncomfortable to think about but this will be something that you and your hubby to be will be talking about up until you say I do.  In order for you to start off on the right foot here are four things you should do.

Be Honest About Your Debt

Please don’t hide this fact from your significant other. If this person is going to be your partner life you should be upfront about what you are bringing to the table.  School debt, credit cards etc… all of it will belong to the both of you. This conversation is crucial because you will then understand your financial position and what you should and shouldn’t be doing when planning for your wedding.  Most importantly and makes you both think about what things you should focus on after the wedding to reduce your combined debt and focus on your next milestones in life.

Create a REALISTIC Wedding Budget

Taking out a loan for your wedding is not good idea. No seriously… stop doing the extremes…. There is no reason you should be going into debt for your wedding! If it means that you need to have a two year engagement in order for you guys to save what you need then do it.  You will actually appreciate the additional time you have to save and plan for your special weekend. If the big budget is due to family members (ahem… all habesha parents are guilty of this) insisting it be a 500+ wedding then they should contribute financially to ensure that their guest can attend. There are tons of tools out there for you to utilize when setting up wedding budgets that have all the fields pre populated for the expenses you will have.  Just be sure to include additional line items for the traditional events to calculate the true budget for your wedding.

Invest The Money You Get From The Wedding

Most habesha weddings end up getting back half of what they spent to have the wedding which is amazing! What is not so amazing is that the newlyweds usually have to take that money and pay back the debt they created for the wedding or spend it all! The ideal thing to do is to invest in things that will make your money work for you. Use it as a down payment on your first place or invest it in a Roth IRA.  The point, is to use that gift from your community to prepare for the LONG future of forever.  You will look back and be so thankful that you did!