My wedding is ruined, finding going through the motions so painful.

[reallyverysad]

I am supposed to get married in a couple of weeks, a big wedding, all my family and friends coming, it was a dream. It's all paid for and only partially refundable. To cancel we'd be paying over £9k to not get married which seems insane.

I'm just so, so upset. My fiancée has lost his job, he's been performance managed out very quickly after a restructure and after being threatened with dismissal for poor performance he resigned. He did earn £80k a year in comparison to my £12k. I just don't know how we're going to cope. We don't have enough of a nest egg to tie us over for long. He's applied for jobs left right and centre, he has a couple of interviews lined up, perhaps all will be ok but at the moment we are in complete panic.

I have my final dressing fitting next week. We still need to sort out the final flowers with the florist. We need to return some suits and decide which one to keep. It all feels ruined, completely ruined.. what was excitement is now just terror at spending so much money on one day when we aren't sure how much longer we can pay our mortgage. It's not even as simple as cancelling as we are tied into contracts where we'd owe money anyway. If we postpone what do we do about our many, many family and friends who have booked accomodation. It's all tainted.

This.

Are you worrying too soon? This sounds like a blip!
Have you any reason to think he will never be employed again?
If not, he has the same potential to earn well in the future.
Perhaps this is useful reminder of the need for a rainy day fund - but don't panic too much too soon.

The wedding might be your last extravagance for a little while- a bright spot in a dark year - so make a point of putting everything else aside for the day and insist on enjoying it.

You have had a horrible shock. You may also be catastrophising. (Which I can’t spell)
Take a deep breath. Look at where you can save money. If necessary ask for help with items instead of a wedding present.
Enjoy your wedding. Support your finance/husband to find a new job.
Going forward be more cautious with money and look online for some advice. Money saving expert is really good.
But enjoy your wedding. You both worked hard to save for it and it’s a celebration and you get to be married. That’s worth a lot.

This can seem horrible - DH's work is a bit insecure though be earns a lot and the first few times contacts came to a sudden end or a job didn't work out I panicked massively, but I've got used to the ups and downs, something will come along. Especially at the moment, every I know who has gone for a new job (including me) has found stuff quicker than expected.

Cut back on anything you can for the wedding, see if family can help and try to put the worries behind you and enjoy the day.

There is a lot of work around. My partner, who has no chef or kitchen experience, was offered three jobs in local cafes/ restaurants in a week, with hours to suit. Also she could and did start immediately. Yes it’s hard work and minimum wage but every little helps.

I hope things work out for you OP.

@reallyverysad

Had he told you things weren't going well at work or did this entire thing come as a shock to you?

Do you actually want to get married to him still?

if he'd been lying to me, I might be rethinking it, money aside.

Honestly, as someone who has been in a similar situation, don't let it ruin your day.

Absolutely try and cut down on costs where you can but, you are getting married, you can't cancel it - there would be no point, it would achieve nothing, you'd be paying for something you're not even getting, and you would be unmarried to the man you want to marry.

I had a similar financial drama when I got married and my biggest regret is letting it bother me so much.

Your wedding is something to look back on for the rest of your lives. A blip on the CV is not.

Cut back where you can, your fiancé will find a new job, enjoy the wedding.

I'm terrified about paying our mortgage, day to day life and surviving. Absolutely terrified. It's very hard to feel remotely excited about the wedding when we have such bigger issues. As I said in my OP we have stuff to do with suits, dresses, flowers and it feels so wrong to even try and go through the motions. That's what I mean by it being ruined. I don't want to spend ££££ on a day where we are both just terrified and upset.

I'm sorry this has happened but surely it was always a possibility? I don't understand why you are saying it's ruined? If he had lost his job just after the wedding would it be any better? How much are you spending? Go through everything and see if you can still cut costs anywhere without cancelling.

This is the stuff of life though. Richer and poorer .If he was on £80k he’ll find something else.
Enjoy your wedding with family and friends, you both worked for it. Money comes and goes.

If you're genuinely too traumatized and terrified, then you're going to have to cancel and take the £9k hit, but it does seem a shame.
This didn't come out of the blue - your husband must have known? Has he got redundancy money?

You need to compartmentalise op.

A wedding is about your commitment to each other for better or worse. So this is it. This is the worse.

Write a list and work through it. The money is gone. Nothing can change that. If there's stuff you can reduce great.

Make an active decision to enjoy your day. Don't discuss money the day before, or the day after. Three say veto on sorting it.

Meanwhile speak to work about increasing your hours if possible. Both job hunt whether it's a temporary job to bring in money or a forever job. Get a claim in to UC to see what he's entitled to.

Long term, was the "poor performance" legit? Is this an unfair dismissal case or is this DFiance being lazy and it catching up with him?

I don't know what industry he's in, but the job market is really strong at the moment. If he throws himself into the job search, and taps up every contact he has, he should find work quickly.

I would also recommend that you watch for a better paid p/t role, as earning so little does make you very vulnerable to things like this.

And, as PP says, brutally scour your wedding expenses for anywhere you can save. Ask for cash rather than gifts. Be upfront with your family and friends about the reason for it and people will understand.

I get it, it makes me panicky and upset too when I get worried about money.

There's some good ideas here - make a list of the costs, which ones you can get back, which ones you can scale back and which ones are spent now and non-refundable. Keep the bits you can’t get back and scale back the costs on anything you can get back.

Give yourself a time limit to be upset and then move on. Ignore anyone being unkind on here. You are entitled to feel really upset, but honestly, all is not lost.

There's not much anyone can say on here that will magic away your troubles op. It sounds like you really stretched yourselves to the absolute limit financially and as soon as your Dh lost his job you immediately didn't have any savings at all to fall back on. Which was a rookie mistake.

postpone the wedding and honeymoon if you can, or sell the car in the short term until your Dh gets another job.

Why do you only earn 12k a year?

Just stop paying out any more money! Pay for what’s left to be paid for and nothing else!

dont bother with flowers!!

it’s not ruined.

Soon the op works part time, they have dc. Op's Dh was the main earner.

You say that if you cancel, you lose £9k. How much do you spend if you don't cancel?

Your partner is probably pretty devastated. It might be that they wanted to reduce staff numbers and he was costing them £80,000. It's pretty easy to get picky with somebody's performance and that makes the person nervous enough to make even more mistakes because they're under pressure. It saves the employer paying out redundancy if the person resigns and they resign because it looks better to say he resigned than he was sacked. But he should reflect about what went wrong and whether he could have done anything to prevent it.

Try not to catastrophise. The job market is pretty good right now and he should be able to find something pretty quick if he puts his mind to it.

He won't have got redundancy for a dismissal in performance grounds. The role wasn't made redundant.

Oh that's a good point, I hadn't clocked that.
I wonder how long he knew that there was a problem?

Have you got wedding insurance?

For everyone who is saying ‘cancel what isn’t paid for’, two weeks out, the contract probably requires payment in full.