To not want to spend ALL my inheritance on my wedding?!

[December2016]

I've NC'd for this as the circumstances are outy but I'm a long timer.

My DP and I are getting married next summer. It's not going to be a huge extravagant thing but we between us have a lot of family and friends- the guest list is currently at 130- so it's not going to be cheap either; we're aiming to keep it around the £10k mark which is pretty good value for a Home Counties summer wedding with a nice church and reception venue with halfway decent food. We're paying for it ourselves with family contributions here and there (my Mum is paying for my dress, his parents are paying for the cake and photographer- we've got mates rates on both).

At the moment we're living in DP's flat which he has on a shared ownership help to buy mortgage. We don't have a joint bank account, I just transfer him £500 a month. At the moment that money is going into our wedding fund, and he's adding another £100 himself, so we're saving £600 a month together.
Here the bit I'm not too happy about. My DGM passed away in April and left me £5000. When we found out how much she had left me (which was after we got engaged) DP said something along the lines of 'ok, well that'll get us halfway to our target.' and at the time I didn't think to argue. Since then it's just been taken for granted that all my inheritance would be going into the wedding fund.
After a long probate process, the money landed in my account today. And the more I think about it (which I have been quite a bit recently to be fair), the more I feel quite resentful at the idea of spending it all on the wedding- it's the only inheritance I'll ever have and I could do so many other things with it- pay off my student loan for example, or learn to drive- both of which DP has already done. When I've brought this up to DP he's pointed out that a- without it we'd have to save up for at least another year to be able to afford the wedding we want, and since I'm refusing to have kids before we're married and I'm already 31 we don't really have oodles of time to play with, plus we've already booked and paid deposits and sent out save the dates, and b- that when he eventually gets some inheritance all of that is going to go towards our future too. I do see what he means, but I still feel a bit annoyed about this and I don't really know what to do. Any advice?

[TheCuriousOwl]

Don't bother paying off student loan, that's a false economy anyway.

Maybe spend 2k on the wedding, learn to drive and put the rest away for nice things in the future?

I agree that it's not fair for you to spend all your inheritance on the wedding. If it were towards a house deposit (ie an investment) that's different. Putting it towards the wedding is basically spunking 5k on a party and you'll always feel it was a waste.

[QuackDuckQuack]

I agree with memyselfandaye. You need to learn to drive before having kids.

You should be in a position to save £600 a month after you get married too. If everything is booked now, I'd go ahead with the wedding and use the £5k, with the agreement that the £600 for the months after the wedding goes on driving lessons and a car for you. It should take 9 months of saving to recover your £5k.

Then work out your finances for having a baby as you might be down a whole salary then and it doesn't sound like you could actually afford that.

You also need to agree how you will deal with your finances once married. We just have one bank account and share our finances completely and I like that, but it doesn't work for everyone.

[BusyBeez99]

Not sure I know 130 people

[ThisThingCalledLife]

DP said something along the lines of 'ok, well that'll get us halfway to our target.'

So he unanimously decided how you were going to spend your money?!!!

That doesn't bode well for the future if he sees all that belongs to you as his....that comes after marriage. Even then, i'd advise you keep a secret slush fund in case you ever need to leave him.

[JenniferYellowHat1980]

Get your name on the mortgage.

[EweAreHere]

If you've decided that spending £10,000 for one day to have a big wedding in a church with the accompanying party/celebration is more important than paying off your student loans or learning to drive, both of which will benefit your marriage more long term, then that's where the money should go. You don't have enough to do both right now.

If it were me, I'd downsize the wedding to a ceremony, have a party that doesn't cost a ridiculous amount to celebrate, and have driving lessons. Anything left would go to paying off my student loans. But that's me.

[choli]

Why are you saving 500 and he is only contributing 100?

[QueenLizIII]

e booked it etc with the assumption that the £5k would constitute half the budget and we'd save up the other half.

WTF. You give up your whole £5k and then we save up the rest. No if you pay half HE saves for the rest.

[magoria]

Don't put £5k into an account in his name that you have no access to. If you split up how will you prove it is your and not his to get it back?

Keep it in your account. Learn to drive. It is a very useful life skill and once you have it, you have it and it shouldn't make too much of a dent.

I don't think you should pay off your student loan. It is not counted towards other debts and doesn't really affect much until you can afford to pay it back.

As others say if you have already booked, paid deposits & sent save the date cards you must have a budget which is achievable without the inheritance.

You need to sit and have a thorough chat about how finances etc are going to work after marriage especially when children come along and how maternity, child care costs etc are going to be done.

Better to do this before rather than after.

[ThisThingCalledLife]

Oh, you may feel you don't need to learn to drive right now - but imagine the freedom it gives you even before you can afford a car of your own. ..you can drive hire cars on holiday/days out/ in an emergency/necessity situation.
Having a licence now means you can go onto his insurance until you get your own car

You're already making sacrifices to save for an expensive wedding, and -without being a Debby Downer - you have no guarantee your marriage will last forever.

I think your GM would love to see you actually using the money to help yourself.
Like you said, gifts like this are very rare and this may the only time it happens to you.
Once you're married all gifts will automatically be his too...
...so learn to put your own needs first and feel comfortable doing it.

Pay off some of your student loan so you have less personal debts later on
Put some in your own savings/secret slush fund account
Pay for driving lessons - you may find your employment opportunities increase with this added skill

Oh.....if your dp gets all funny about it - tell him you're also thinking of forward-paying some of your national insurance contributions to make up for when you're on maternity leave/SAHM.

[golfbuggy]

If I am reading this correctly ...

£500 is actually Op's share of the bills
For simplicity it is going in the wedding fund and DP is actually covering ALL the bills.
Then DP puts in an extra £100 into the wedding fund.

So all of the £600 is actually paid by DH.

Seems pretty fair to me that they should pay £5000 each for the wedding.

[Want2bSupermum]

I'm 8 years into my marriage and we share our finances except for inheritances. Those are separate. DH was left about £1500 from his grandmother and it's his money to do with as he pleases.

I think you need to have a sit down and talk about money. It's a horrible conversation but you need to make sure you guys are working together. The number one reason for unhappy marriages is money problems. The comment about you working is horrifying to me. If he earns enough you will stay home, otherwise you will work?!? No, you guys need a plan and goals laid out (such as driving license) so you know what you are working towards.

[PutDownThatLaptop]

Surely all money is shared money? You are getting married after all. Plus, you've been paying him £500 a month to cover your share of household costs and he has been putting that towards the wedding. I think YABU.

[Dontlaugh]

Learn to drive
Get your name on the house deeds
Don't put all your inheritance into your wedding, put maybe £1000 and put the rest into driving lessons, car.

[tootsietoo]

Like Crumbs1 said. This goes right to the heart of how you will work together financially when you're married. If you are sharing all finances then this inheritance is really for both of you, and you need to both sit down and talk about how you will use it, and all your other plans for the future too! If you are keeping finances separate then perhaps you need to even up your contributions to the wedding and sit down and discuss how you will split costs in the future.

[December2016]

Normally the £500 I give DP goes towards bills etc- at the moment he's covering all that himself and we're both living very frugally (not that we live like kings normally mind you). So it is very much an equal contribution and once the wedding is over that money isn't going to be just lying around. We'll not be looking to TTC til early summer 2018 (separate reasons but that's our plan) so there's plenty of time to learn to drive etc, it just seems that lessons would be a sensible thing to get whilst I have a decent cushion of money.

The £10k wedding isn't a set-in-concrete amount- the reception venue has a minimum spend as opposed to a hire fee and bar takings from the day will go towards it- we'll probably spend about £6/7k on the food/table wine etc and let my huge Irish family and DP's big bunch of mates take care of the rest with their drinking! Fuck knows if we went for an open bar they'd drink us into bankruptcy...

I forgot to mention that DP will be putting his work bonus towards it too, which isn't a huge amount but will make up a decent wedge of the total. What I might suggest is using it as a last resort- paying for wedding stuff out of our saved kitty and only going into this money if we absolutely must. For now it's staying nice and cosy in my savings account .

[ragz134]

Sonlypuppyfat - 6 guests for us lol, same here.
One day, 10k? YABU just for that but I know some people find that totally reasonable.
Why would you use inheritance to pay an student loan?
YANBU to want to keep part of that inheritance for something tbay is actually valuable to your lifestyle, like driving. He is BU to expect you to. Half maybe...

[DinosaursRoar]

Choi - I could be wrong, but I think her DP is paying all the bills and mortgage by himself, so he's covering all that and putting another £100 in on top of that.

OP - If you want a £10k wedding, if you want to be married before trying for a baby and want to TTC soon, if you don't have £10k saved and aren't saving at a rate to save up £10k before the wedding you have planned - they yes, you will have to use your inheritance.

If you use your inheritance elsewhere, are you expecting your DP to just sort it somehow or are you happy to delay the wedding and TTC?

[Wex]

Weddings .
IMO you should only spare spare money on a wedding. Money that you don't need for anything else. The idea of spending £10000 that you don't have and if you saved it up it could be used so much better is just staggering.
It's One Day. A day you will still always remember if you spend £0 on it.

[Poocatcherchampion]

This is so strange to me.

When we got married 5yrs ago we got a joint account when we were engaged and put all our money into one pot. He paid for the house deposit and paid off my student loan balance and I earnt more than him but had no savings, although my parents gave some for the wedding

I cannot imagine not being prepared to contribute largely to a wedding I wanted and if it was an inheritance I would consider investing in my marriage a very sensible use of said money.

I would also suggest you learn to drive and pay off your loan but I sounds like you can afford to sooner rather than later so it sounds more like principle than anything else??

Are you sure you want to get married?

Is he not planning on putting you on the house deeds?

[Dontlaugh]

Regardless of what should or should not happen regarding the wedding, I think you both need to have a very serious talk about how you view your finances going forward.
Your student debt, his name on the house deeds, wedding expectations, and inheritance money could all be on the agenda.

[Bogeyface]

Choli well he is paying all of the housing costs, bills etc so in effect they are both putting in.

When we have kids, if he's earning enough I'll be a SAHM, if he's not then I'll work.

Please dont do this, keep your job. I smell a "Yours is ours, mine is my own".

[ThisThingCalledLife]

That last sentence was mean to have at the end lol!

and i second this Get your name on the mortgage

along with arranging it as 'tenants in common'. That way he can't force you out of your home if things go belly up.

[PutDownThatLaptop]

Are you happy for him to contribute the bonus?

[MontePulciana]

DH had to sell his bmw m3 to pay for our wedding. He was emigrating so sort of needed to anyway. I contributed what I could. My parents gave us £2k. We did it on the cheap too. I'd cut back on the wedding budget. It's one day that most people will forget!