No Money

Jessica, you put yourself in a difficult situation by booking a honeymoon before you had your wedding budget worked out. And you are sad you don’t get to see your FH very often but you refuse to live together. You’re so stressed about your wedding budget and living off rice and beans but won’t just have a courthouse wedding or elope or postpone your wedding. You hate this thread but yet you keep commenting in it. You are making everything so much more difficult for yourself than it needs to be and not taking responsibility for your actions, and lots of people are just calling you out on it. How can we feel sympathetic when most of your stress is avoidable? Very few of these comments have actually been mean, they are trying to understand what is really going on and hold you responsible for your own decisions and help you find ways to make better ones in the future. Some of the advice is good and some of it is bad, but I actually think most of it was well intentioned.

View Quoted Comment Agree ⬆️⬆️

View Quoted Comment Standing ovation for this comment.

View Quoted Comment 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Btw living together before marriage INCREASES the chances of divorce. So you keep doing you honey when it boils down to your wedding day even if you are in your sweats he will be there and you will be glad to see him and start your life together. Maybe he really likes the way you look in sweats 😊

View Quoted Comment Please show me the statistics on this.

View Quoted Comment Completely agree. You caused your own situation. You let FH not contribute and you’re spending money on a honeymoon instead of the wedding. If that’s your choice you shouldn’t be venting or complaining. If you didn’t book the honeymoon you could probably afford a half decent wedding. You set your priorities not anyone here

View Quoted Comment Seriously it hasn’t changed since I took a soc class in 98. It has gone down a bit but it’s still up. Google it straight will tell you living together before marriage (cohabitation) will increase the chance of divorce by 33 percent. It can be found anywhere online. Percentages change but it’s alwyas higher than couples who waited. More info https://www.thespruce.com/cohabitation-facts-and-statistics-2302236

View Quoted Comment 1998 was twenty years ago. Studies have came out since showing that view is outdated.
https://contemporaryfamilies.org/cohabitation-divorce-press-release/

View Quoted Comment I know when it was. I was there. I said it’s has gone down but not changed. It’s all over the internet for anyone to find. The posts online are from 2017 so you do you and let other People do them. I live with my fiancé we have for four years. It’s what we want to do. Cause it’s our choice.

View Quoted Comment Yes a quick Google search with no analysis of the articles will tell you that, but if you actually read the more recent studies divorce rates aren’t actually increased just by moving in together before marriage. It is affected by other factors like the age when people move in together (whether they get married or not) and other factors like poverty (low income people are more likely to move in together and also more likely to get divorced): https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/20386/how-shacking-up-before-marriage-affects-a-relationships-success

View Quoted Comment Correlation =/= causation. Very religious people are less likely to live together before marriage and also less likely to get divorced due to their beliefs.

View Quoted Comment The recent studies have proven that living together before marriage is not the only factor. Many other things need to be considered such as age, length of relationship before moving together, etc.

I'm just pointing out that it's not fair or statistically accurate to say that couples who live together before marriage have higher divorce rates because they cohabitated before marriage.

View Quoted Comment Not going to continue this convo because it’s not on topic with the original post. But I am glad you can find things online to support your cause. So can I and if you would like to have this convo feel free to start one elsewhere. This poor girl has had enough nastiness on this thread and I was simply letting her know her chances are improved by the choices she is making. And not to mention that she seems to be a budget wizard!!!! She seems very money conscience and I applaud her for it.

There are a lot of good options! I think you have to decide on which things are MOST important, you know him working isn’t an option. You are working yourself as hard as you can. So you probably need to:

*postpone :-(
*cut budget :-(

Maybe you COULD switch the honeymoon? I liked what someone said above that it’s about you and your FH. You want what you want and it should be amazing, but your marriage is about the future, not the party. It will be amazing because of you two!

My tip that I hope might help is can you have friends help you with jobs that will cut the cost?

Ex. My FH’s aunt isn’t a florist, but does beautiful arrangements and is doing our flowers for much less. Ask the florist what you can do to lower prices.

asking a friend to photograph the wedding or using Wedding Mix as a videographer?

my sister is putting together a framed photo to have people sign at the wedding as your gift.

Reach out to those you know with talents to maybe help with decor, favors, whatever you are desiring to make it the wedding of your dreams! I’m sure you can make any venue work if you are creative!!!!

Where is most $ being spent? If you’d like to share maybe we can help think of other ideas!

I feel ya, sis, Money is hard.

View Quoted Comment I agree, it's not the point of this post. If you want to provide her support with inaccurate information from your class twenty years ago, so be it. To each their own.

I empathize. My husband and I married early so we could afford better healthcare plans for me. We're now planning our "wedding", and he is unable to contribute, due to being in school. His degree has a tremendous workload, and when he was working (which his advisor told him, if he planned on pursuing this degree full time, he should plan on not working), he was doing poorly in his classes. Now he's not working and doing much better, but all the financial stress is on me. I work NON-STOP. It's stressful, and I wish he could help more, but it's important to us both to have a celebration of our marriage before we plan a family, and our window for planning a family is biologically dwindling, so we're making it work the best we can. I hope everything works out for you!

View Quoted Comment It’s not outdated it’s current but sorry I hurt your feelings. She is welcome to look it up herself.

View Quoted Comment No feelings hurt here.

View Quoted Comment I am encouraging couples to do what right for them. I was simply saying her chances are higher statistically by not living together before marriage. (Or at least according to the hundreds of studies that agree with that statistic of course with anything there is always someone to disagree) I had never intended to be married not that that’s really any of your business. I never had met anyone I would want to marry. My outlook changed when I met my fh. Living together works for us. I just don’t see Any point in being rude to someone for having a diffent lifestyle.