Abby Connolly
In some families, it’s tradition for parents to give their children a sum of money as a wedding gift that they can one day put towards buying a home with their spouse. However, some parents do things differently.
One woman and her fiancé were recently given a lot of money from their family, which was intended for their wedding day. But now they’re receiving backlash for wanting to save it and use it to buy a house.
She’s 31 and preparing to marry her 32-year-old fiancé, Greg. She and Greg have been very conscious about waiting for the perfect time to get married. They waited until she advanced in her career, and Greg got a great job promotion.
“We’ve almost cleared up our student loans and general debt, and [we’re] finally ready to work towards buying a house,” she said.
“The only issue is that, at best, we’d be five years away from being able to afford a down payment and all the other related fees. On the other hand, now that we’ve cleared up our debt, we’re finally ready to get married and start our lives together. But given that we just got out of debt, we can’t justify throwing a huge party that’ll put us right back into some form of debt.”
While she’s dreamed of having a big, fancy, traditional wedding one day and hopes to have one down the line, she and Greg are prioritizing getting a home over hosting a fancy wedding. So, they came up with a plan.
Within the next few months, they’ll have a low-key, small wedding ceremony and a backyard or restaurant reception with close friends and family. Then, a few years later, she and Greg would have a nice vow renewal ceremony that would feel more like a traditional wedding when they could afford it.
“I knew my parents and grandparents had saved up a decent amount of money to put towards paying for our wedding,” she explained.
“His parents also put some money away towards their individual kids’ weddings. The amount would be somewhere around $30,000. Greg has a friend in the real estate business who’d be willing to sell us a great home in a great neighborhood at a very reasonable price if we can get a letter of intent to him.”
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