By Isaac Opiyo-BusinessDaily Africa.com
Many friends and relatives are averse to being invited to sit on wedding committees for fear of incurring financial burdens that come with the task. Photo/COURTESY
Calm is yet to return to Derrick’s household two months after his wedding.
Looking back at his big day, he can hardly remember a task that was harder to accomplish all his life.
He almost lost interest in the event when the escalating budget pushed him to seek additional sources of money to finance the ceremony, despite having already taken a personal loan from his bank for the event.
But even as the occasion drew closer, he was often greeted with pleas from wedding committee members to consider cutting the size of the budget since they too had exhausted their resources — but still the deficit was large.
Like a majority of bridegrooms, he ignored the suggestion and opted to go for another loan from the bank, without informing his bride, to raise the deficit so as not to compromise the standard of his dream wedding.
Fortunately, the bank gave him the loan and he witnessed his dream wedding become reality.
After the wedding, Derrick decided to move into a new residential suite where rent was higher.
Two months down the line and Derrick is now overburdened by debt and is forced to live beyond his means, by borrowing from colleagues to meet his monthly expenses which have surpassed his take home income.
The bank still deducts a big chunk of money from his salary to service the loan.
Derrick’s distress has elicited frequent quarrels with his new bride, with the couple now wallowing in financial difficulty.
Between August and December, the peak wedding season in Kenya, this scenario becomes familiar and is replayed many times over by new couples.
Many new couples have plunged straight into quarrels, or outright divorce, soon after their honeymoon is over.
Often, they enter into the new phase of married life with difficulty beyond their imagination.
This usually emanates from lack of financial planning when it comes to weddings.
Financial planning is not only vital for investments, savings and retirement, but also weddings.
Due to lack of financial planning by most brides and bridegrooms, many friends and relatives are averse to being invited to sit on wedding committees for fear of incurring financial burdens that often come with the task.
Financial planning starts the very minute you and your spouse-to-be agree to come together as a couple.
What follows should working out a budget in terms of how much it will cost to organise a wedding of your choice and standards.
Once the wedding cost is calculated, just like other financial plans, figure out how you will raise the amount from your current sources of income without laying too much hope on the committee that you will constitute.
This is where many would be lifetime partners flop.
Most brides are quick to abandon the duty to their partners, while their only input stops at the point of setting out the kind of wedding they would wish to have.
Consequently, many grooms rush for debt funding either from friends, colleagues or banks to make the day a success — without revealing to their spouses their sources of income.
Cost beyond your means
If the cost is beyond your means, you can consult with your partner on how to cut on some items and reduce the budget but still have a modest and affordable wedding that will keep you away from debts.
With cost in mind, you can schedule your wedding to a future date to create time for you to raise the funds through your own means.
Discussing with your partner how you plan to finance the wedding will enable your bride to see the need to cut down on the wedding budget and have a modest ceremony that will help you stay away from debts, which would later affect your marriage.
Try to figure out how your financial life will be after the wedding.
As you draw closer to the wedding day, say two to three months to the event, recruit a committee to assist you raise funds.
Without subjecting committee members to raising the full cost of the wedding, request them to help raise some of the cost.
Meanwhile, your own fund raising programme should still run mutely — without interfering with the committee’s programme.
In weddings where the cost is reasonable and affordable, committee members find ease in raising funds and sometimes raise more than the set amount because of the fact that the set goal is attainable and reasonable.
Also, when you run your own fund raising plan you will only require a little assistance from the committee.
Consequently, any slight shortfall would not affect your plans.
With a proper plan in place, your wedding will not be stressful.
It will only be a pretest of how you need to persevere to accomplish any given financial plan.
Opiyo is a personal finance consultant.
Commenti