I'm paying for my wedding myself

Okay, but if he takes money out, and has to put it back in to get back where he was, doesn't that mean he will effectively have LESS THAN HE COULD HAVE once it's time to retire?

I don't understand why you would take money out of you RETIREMENT fund? I'm assuming (if it works the same way they work up here) that that money earns interest. When there is less money, it earns less interest. That is simple economics. How about you cut that guest list and not borrow against your retirement?

Also *borrow*.

The first time I thought it was a typo, but no, you just cannot spell.

That shouldn't even be your fall back plan though, @GeeQT. Your fall back plan should be to cut costs within the wedding, like for example, the guest list. I would never take money out of a 401k for a wedding.

So if one of you lost your job, you think it would be a good idea to take money from his 401k TO PAY FOR A FUCKING PARTY???

Face palm.

We looked at our finances and decided our budget from there.

Nope don't need to cut my list, don't need to cut anything we are having a wedding we are able to afford! It's a just incase for US!

Hmmm...well a just in case should come in you saving not from your 401k.

Out budget is 10k, we have been living super modestly and already had some savings so it only took about 8 months to save what we needed

No, borrowing from your retirement fund should not be a "just in case". Holy fuck! What world do you live in? I work in Taxes and I see people who "borrow" from their retirement funds only to have to pay huge amounts of tax at source then on their returns. Good luck in the future.

We are paying for our wedding & honeymoon 100% ourselves as well. We had a 22 month long engagement. We saved 2 income tax checks and DH's vacation checks. He puts a certain amount an hour away towards his vacation check money and every 3 months he gets the check deposited. Our total was 15k but we pushed it to closer to 18k plus honeymoon. It is def doable just takes patience and organization.

But it's an interst generating account.

So what you take out ISN'T Generating interest- you're losing money essentially. I find it odd my coworker does this yearly. (yes- yearly- he takes out a couple thousand 2x a year)

I admit almost pulled a loan against my pension- but 1.) it's super stupid and 2.) we actually DID have the cash (I'm just a worry wort and was concerned)

Our wedding was 13 and a half roughly- and of that 2K came from his parents- and the alcohol came from mine.

So roughly 10K came from us directly.

We saved and paid vendors off as we could, my tax return paid for a chunk of the catering.

We managed this in a year.

He worked one job up until 3 months ago- and I work several jobs. We made it work- and I tried really hard to cut back on spending (key word- tried) it was laughable. But he does a good job saving- and I pay the house bills- so we made it work.

Spend less.

Eat out never.

don't buy shit you don't need.

Have a side hustle.

My Fiance and I both worked 2 and 3 jobs for about 13 months to pay for EVERYTHING ourselves cash no loans or credit and WE DID IT!!! I Jay quit my second job yesterday. It was with having no social life because we are going to have a huge wedding, lots of food and drink, go on our honeymoon and relax

@Jo- Love it! We both had side hustles to save money for our wedding. I worked two jobs and he cut hair out the kitchen(he is a licensed barber)/uber/cleaned the church/and whatever else he could do to get cash.

MrsDavis- bonus- I love the new profile- "nothing like double fisting your coffee and half of which is out of a toilet"

I used my dance gig money to pay for the florist and the musicians.

Having a side hustle is definitely helpful.

We are lucky, in that my company provides us with shares (i.e. stock), and through that I have accumulated a majority of our wedding savings (in addition to some money we had saved previously). FW is finishing school right now, and has just started taking on paying contracts (for web design and development). As soon as she is making money again, it will all go to savings; as right now majority of my pay is bills, rent, etc. I save what I can, but with only one income for the last 2 years, at best I am able to save $100 each month (sometimes it's a good month, and I save $200). We've also had a long engagement; by the time we are married we will have been engaged for almost 3 years.

27 years

@GeeQT I've taken 401k loans out before. it IS a loan, He is paying a very small amount of interest back to, basically, himself. The only thing is, when that money is in your pocket and not the 401k account, it's not earning money for his retirement. So by the time he gets back to where it was, you've lost money.

To answer the original question: Budget is 5k and we've been saving for the dinner since the start of this year. I buy things every check as we go so we should be all squared away about two weeks before the wedding (at which point the only thing left to pay will be the check at the end of the night).

?

Wow these numbers are insane. 60k is what I'm putting down on a house. We went the cheap route for our wedding but ifffffffff I had to save, I would put a percentage of my paycheck into another account like a PP already posted.