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I think you should either postpone, or have a much, much smaller wedding (like, immediate family and closest friends ONLY). You can throw a reception for your one-year (or earlier, or later depending on your finances) when things are more stable, but you shouldn't get yourself into a more precarious financial position over a wedding. I know that's a disappointment, but it might be the smartest thing to do.
What kind of venue is it, how big is it, and would you be able to get your deposit back if you canceled? How much money are you looking to spend and what is your ideal guest list?
In your situation, I'd probably have a potluck in the park or the like. I've gone to some of these kinds of weddings and they're really fun and since it's a park there's room for everyone. Many parks also have covered pavilions for you to use, which is better just in case there is rain.
If you have to stay at the venue you've reserved, you can just make your wedding immediate family and closest friends only. Or have your wedding in the early afternoon and not serve food, only refreshments, finger food and cake. Or have it really early in the morning and do a brunch reception with bloody marys and mimosas... Good luck!
I agree. Talk to you place and ask if you can postpone the date to a year later and make it an anniversay party. Still get married the same day, but just do it with immediate family and small - then a year later - same place, same everything do it big!
I think you either need to postpone or have a much much smaller wedding. I'm getting married at the same time as you and I'm worrying a little about finances even though we both work full time and *only* have to save $5000 more. I can't imagine having to finance the whole wedding from scratch at this point...we've been saving for two years.
With no savings, I wouldn't spend more than $500 on a wedding. I mean, if you don't have it, don't spend it. I think i'd have the simplest little backyard party or wait a year. Doing anything financial-based with no money is something i'm not comfortable doing.
I'm in a similar situation as you right now. I lost my job a couple of months ago and the market in California is not exactly helping right now.
My FI has been having to support me (which I HATE), which means that we don't have as much to save.
Our solution: scale back. Scale back everything. For us, mostly we're scaling back on guests which affects everything: catering, table and chair rental, your venue, everything. We've scaled back to under 100 guests, and actually we're very relieved. Not only will it cost less, but we know we'll be able to give everyone individual attention which matters a lot to us.
We're also DIYing a lot. Flowers, favors, DJ, etc.
I'd definitely cut down on the guest list. People will surely understand that its not because you don't want everyone there, its just a sign of the times. And maybe if you give yourselves just a littel extra time. That way you can have more time to do more DIY projects and get things just the way you want them. I'd also consider making things as modest as possible. At the end of the day, the most important part is having the closest people to you there and having a great party!
I'm in the same boat...haven't been at a job since June..I'm going insane. That's why we haven't set a date yet.
My fiance works, but doesn't really make at all, so he's not saving. We want to get married by next fall, so we're just doing a very small wedding..hopefully 5 -6k tops!
I also feel your pain. I have been "unemployed" since february, but have been babysitting for a wonderful family since June and have been doing ok financially. I have about 4000 in my savings and am trying as hard as I can not to touch it and add every dollar I can to it and I pay my bills with the money I get from babysitting and some child support money I still get from my dad. My fiance has a stable job which hes been at for 5 years now but is only making about 55k/year which is barely enough when he has a new truck and a mortgage and student loans to pay off, but we make it work quite well. We have never faught over money and we hope to never have to. I dont think that you should put off getting married just because you are strapped for cash. If we lost every dime we had I could guarentee you my fiance would still do anything for us to be married and I would do the same. Actually getting married wont cost you more than a couple hundred dollars if you needed to rent a church, or even less for a civil ceremony and then you could have the reception at a later time. All in all, it is about you and your hubby, not about feeding everyone else dinner...
I also wanted to add that I am graduating with my bachelors in Sociology this upcoming december and I plan on attending grad school in January at the same university, so my student loan payments will be deferred until I finish grad school. Right now I am in the process of background investigations for a research assistant position witht he deptartment of corrections in Colorado, so I should know within the next 2 weeks or so if I have gotten the job. Although the job doesnt pay much and its only part time, my fiance and I are sticking together and know its only temporary and my having a masters, in the end, will bring better and higher paying job opportunities.
You need to decide what is more important... having a big wedding or being married. If it is the latter, then there are many options for small wedding celebrations that can be just lovely. If you have your heart set on a big wedding, then you need to postpone and concentrate on securing a full time job, but just realize that it will take time. We maybe slowly out of the recession, but employment is still down.
Thank you everyone for your feedback! alishdhs4, I can totally relate to you. Although I;m not in school now, I still have the loans to pay off, we have a car we have to pay off, plus our computer, my engagement ring, etc.
It can all be so stressful when all of our money is already tied up!
One thing I wanted to add is that my fiance's family is very important to him, and, surprisingly, for the large number of them, they're very close. So while food is important to both of us, his family, all of his family, is very important to him. Unfortunately this means no scaling back on our guest list!
The reception "dinner" is already set in stone, and his mom actually put down the deposit, so I feel pretty guilty for not being able to do the rest.
We've already decided not to have a band or dj, and do an "itunes" deal, I'm doing all the decorations myself, and I'm making my dress too! But the things we can't get around are things like a suit/tux for him, the food, drinks (only non-alcoholic, we're doing a cash bar, which I guess is a big no-no, but everyone in his family says it's pretty common because they're known to be big drinkers, lol).
Anyway, putting it off isn't an option but I don't want to go into debt for it either!
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Over the past few months my fiance and I have been going through some pretty hard times. We got engaged just a few days after I left my job, and about two weeks later he was forced to resign from his. Neither of us found work right away, and I ended up only finding part time work, which now will be ending as well. With months of no steady income and no promising leads for either of us (he found a job but isn't happy there, but it's our only income), wedding planning has become quite stressful.
Before we realized what our situation was, we had already reserved our reception site and all of our families already knew about the wedding. With over 300 family members alone on his side of the family, we really are having a hard time paring down our guest list. And so far we have no savings for the big day...
I'm starting to really get worried that we won't be able to pull it off but we've been wanting to get married for quite a while and don't want to postpone it.
We have friends and family helping us out with tons of DIY projects, but we still need some money to buy materials.
Oh, and we are both cooks, so dinner is one of the most important things to us, we're not asking for the best-of-the-best (we are coming up with our own menu), but we do want to feed people!
What do you think I should do???!!!
-Broke Bride-To-Be