Financial guru Martin Lewis issued a stark piece of advice to a concerned bride-to-be worried about her budget.
Anxious bride Emma was worried about planning her nuptials on a shoestring budget, reports the Mirror.
Addressing her concerns, Martin said: “Look, you don’t have to. If marriage is what counts for you.
“If you love your partner and want to make that legal, public, lawful commitment to get married – then get married.”
He continued: “You don’t have to have a huge, big ceremony. I know many people you’ll find in our MoneySaving Weddings guide, stories of people who’ve just worn a nice dress, or borrowed a dress from a friend or got something from a charity shop – and then gone to the park afterwards to celebrate with a couple of picnic blankets and asked all their friends to bring their own food and bring their own booze.”
“It is a social pressure that you have to have the big white wedding with hundreds of guests – you don’t! If you can and you want to and you can afford it, great.
“But I am always minded that it’s more important to have a happy stress-free marriage than an amazing, huge wedding.”
Money Saving Expert founder Martin reflected on the financial stress of lavish weddings, advising: “So if your wedding is going to lead you into debt or discomfort or depression because it impacts your life and your finances afterwards in a way that the two of you can’t be happy together, forget it.
“Do it on a budget. Make the pledge if that’s what you want to do. That’s what marriage is – to love each other. Make that commitment, but it doesn’t have to have all the bells and whistles.”
The finance whizz then candidly expressed: “The philosophical concept that we’ve been pushed into, the idea that it ain’t a wedding unless it’s big wedding, is a load of balderdash, baloney and another B-word you might think of.”
Contrastingly, despite his simplicity advocacy, Martin pointed Emma to the Money Saving Expert website for guidelines on planning a budget-friendly wedding should she decide to proceed along those lines.
