Wedding or MBA

[TheHappyShark]

So this is a long one. My fiancé and I are planning our intimate wedding for summer 2025. Quick snap shot of our lives, I am 29 and DP is 33. We own a 1 bed flat in Zone 2 in London and have a combined salary of £156k. We have £35k in savings with potentially £20k coming from my parents when / if they sell their home and downsize (waiting for the market to improve) both our parents said they would gift us £5k each for our wedding (we are very grateful). For context I currently pay their mortgage as they have hit hard times, so I’m not able to save myself. This is not inheritance.

Anyway, we feel like we are at a very strange part of our lives. The last few yrs, DP has been going to Ireland for work every week (flying out on a Monday and back on a Thursday) this is coming to an end and we want to get into a normal pattern at home and live as a couple more than just visitors at the weekend. A big part of that is buying a bigger flat / house which we are aiming to do next year. This would take the majority of our savings which is fine.

this leaves us to most likely taking out a loan to pay for the wedding. We have costed a wedding at an iconic london venue for 60 people to be £26k (£16k after parents gifts) this doesn’t include our outfits which we would self fund from our salary or credit cards. Speaking to DP, he’s frustrated at his lack of work progression - this is totally self inflicted. He’s on £91k and is an Associate Director at 33. I’m so proud of him and tell him so, the issue is he wants to take on more responsibility at work and thinks he needs an MBA to do so. Looking online, this will cost about the same as a wedding from a decent uni.

I actually don’t care about the wedding, I want to be married to him and start a family. A £25k wedding seems frivolous to me but it’s important to him as he wants a day to share with his friends and family / wants to have a memorable day which he can look back on. I have said let’s take out the same loan amount but pay for the MBA but this has caused fights - he feels like I’m trying to avoid the big wedding when actually I’m trying to provide a solution for him. also I see it as a long term investment- it will enable him to make career progress , that is worth more than one day. Especially as we want to start a family soon.

what do you think ? Wedding or MBA?

Wedding and a do the MBA on a student loan?

I know student loans are hideously expensive, but if it leads to an increased salary, might it not be worth it.

You say the wedding party would be important to him, and I don't think that's the sort of thing he'll change his mind about easily, which may lead to resentment.

He doesn’t need an MBA to take on more responsibility or seek promotion and unless he’s discussed this with his line manager as part of his performance reviews and they’ve indicated they feel it would be beneficial, he’ll likely end up disillusioned when it makes no difference to his progression. He needs to seek feedback on why he isn’t doing as well as he feels he can and ask for mentoring or shadowing opportunities.

He could look at a gov funded senior leadership diploma on an apprenticeship and they pay the top up fee for an MBA (usually only a couple of thousand). They offer senior leader apprenticeships at many universities.

It sounds like a lot of money for the MBA which isn’t guaranteed to improve his job prospects - could he go for a promotion without one? Or look at other companies? I don’t know about the field he’s in but I would be concerned that it is very expensive and he might be able to achieve the same result without it.

I am also conscious that you would like to start a family and if you’d like to be married first I think this needs to be quite high up your priority list. 29 is still young and you have time but if you pay for the MBA first you could be waiting a while to be married? Just depends on your priorities!

Get married with two witnesses for a couple of hundred quid. Your partner needs to explore whether an MBA will actually benefit him significantly, and see whether his employer will contribute if so. Or he takes out a student loan. The two things aren’t necessarily related.

It sounds like it’s his decision to make as it’s him that feels he needs to do the mba but also him that wants the wedding. He needs to prioritise then stand by his decision. But really 25k for a wedding, I couldn’t contemplate that.

Don't try and come up with solutions for him to just dismiss them and cause arguments. He's the one having the dilemma so suggestions should come from him and then they can be discussed by both of you. I'd probably have the wedding that you both want, then get settled then talk about ways to further your careers. We are only talking 2/3 years, is that correct?

Is there anyway of doing the MBA part time through his job? A friend of ours did that.

If his employer thinks an MBA is worth it, I imagine they’d sponsor him to do one.

They seem to have fallen out of fashion a bit, though, so I’d look into that very carefully.

So re his career progression - he just started a new job so it’s not like he’s stagnating. He’s a long term planner and is very ambitious - wants us to be comfortable ( we both grew up on council estates. I get “comfortable” is a personal definition etc

it’s not that he isn’t getting along at work, it’s more he looks at the pathway to being a director / partner / CFO and they all have MBAs. He’s trying to plan for that step

but then we want to have kids and the time he’s got to study etc it will take away from our personal time.

Get married outside of London. I got married in a gorgeous Manor house in the countryside with 60 guests for less than £8k.

Best friend recently got married in a lovely barn setting for £6k.

You are daft spending an average oersobs yearly wage on a party.

It's hard to say. For you, a legal marriage seems essential: you want to start a family and combine your life with your DP. MN will tell you repeatedly not to do this without a proper marriage cert. and that is excellent advice.
If a big wedding is important to your DP then the two of you need to discuss what that really means: venue, catering, etc. I haven't studied your thread so I don't know why your DP sets great store by a wedding - it's a good sign in general to my mind.
It might meet your own goals more to have a registry office wedding with a few friends and start your family. I found DC1's christening almost more moving than our wedding - a wonderful day, a real confirmation of us as a family, and there is scope for a big/huge family gathering then.

Agree- if it’s about a day with your family and friends it doesn’t need to be at somewhere iconic costing that much. Don’t get sucked into the kind of wedding you “should” have with your lifestyle.

Sorry but what are your outgoings that you can't save 16k over the space of a couple of years on 150k+ salary? No one should be getting married on credit.

I'd get married out of your savings (leaving 20k left plus whatever you can replace) then look into opportunities for him to study with financial support from work. Keep saving (presumably the plan isn't to keep paying the parents mortgage forever) and move up the housing market when you look at having a family. You may be looking to move outwards by then too

Is your fiancé in consulting — it sounds like he maybe is ? If so, he definitely does not need an MBA to progress unless (and this is big) you want to move to Europe / the US where MBAs are more important. I am very sceptical about the value of an MBA in general unless you’re being sponsored by your company and even then it is a 1 year opp cost. Have the big wedding.

MBA over wedding 💯

I’d have a fabulous party in a bar & get married in a registry office. Shouldn’t cost too much

Well I'm in the process of getting divorced, so I'm probably biased. But for the love of God don't piss away £26k on a wedding! Just don't! (Mine wasn't even half that and I resent spending as much as I did on it!)

Bugger off to Gretna Green for a few hundred quid. Then spend the money on something else!

This is worth looking at. A really good way to get an MBA but it's not a quick option and needs employer support to satisfy the off the job learning requirement.

I'd also look at scaling down the wedding. Surely there's a halfway house between £16k of debt for an iconic London wedding and a registry office with 2x witnesses and a bag of chips on the way home?

Please don't blow in excess of 26K on a wedding. It's just not worth it.

Now is the time to to the MBA. It'll be a million times harder when kids come along.

You can book the North West Footballer's wedding venue of choice for half your budget OP

Peckforton Castle

There is absolutely nothing intimate about a wedding for 60 people!

I'd be seriouly reviewing the relationship if he thinks blowing £26k on a wedding 'for memories' is an acceptaable idea, particularly when you have other priorities
Shallow

Can someone link the leadership courses.

Thank you

@mathsquestions - this is an example. There are others:

www.aston.ac.uk/study/courses/aston-executive-leadership-degree-apprenticeship-pgdip#:~:text=MBA%20progression%20pathway,-This%20programme%20enables&text=Apprentices%20can%20apply%20to%20progress,supervisor%20to%20support%20their%20learning.