Candid Talk

Wedding costs blues: Are we being realistic?

Wedding season is still rolling. The more we are exposed to modern weddings on television and the internet, the more we try to have similar ones.

A beautiful wedding dress, classic venue, uniform and expensive cars to carry the bridal party, great food, among others become the order of the day.

To be honest, if money is available, beautiful weddings are great and a marvel. But wait a minute!

Have you noted how some new couples are pressurised to put up a grand wedding even though they are not financially stable?

They end up with huge stressful debts that force them to sell some property after the wedding to settle them.

Or they end up living a miserable life running away from debtors.

Recently, unconfirmed reports indicated that a certain man committed suicide because of a huge debt he accumulated to fund his wedding a year prior.

You see, having a white wedding is a beautiful thing. Having it big and grand is even better.

But if the bride and groom do not have the resources, is it really prudent to go into huge debts just to impress wedding guests?

I think it is time to normalise small intimate weddings. It is time to accept that not everyone can have a grand wedding because we have different means of earning money and, of course, different capacities.

I have seen in this lifetime people taking loans and going about with a begging bowl to relations just to afford a big wedding.

Now, while it is ok for relations to help out, I think it is important to also bear in mind that they are not responsible for our weddings. If two people decide to get married, they should have the resources to finance the wedding.

If relations and friends come in to help, they should do it out of the goodness of their hearts, not because they have been pressured to.

The success of a marriage is not measured by how granda wedding event is. It is measured by how happy the couple is after the event.
We should stop pressurising director of ceremonies to harass wedding guests during pelekani pelekani to recoup what has been spent. A wedding is a celebration. It should be left as such.

Turning it into a fund raising event kuti tibwenze zomwe taononga (to recover the money spent) is just not on.
My direct message to our groom is: If you want to marry, be honest with the bride. Tell her how much you earn per month and how much you can afford for the wedding budget. The same goes for the bride.

Many take the wedding as a big deal. They go to great lengths to make sure the event is top notch.

But while it is normal to have ambitions, it is also ok to scale down and accept one’s financial standing.

Do not pressurise your husband-to-be for a grand wedding. Do not go to desperate lengths to engage a service provider you cannot afford. At the end of the day, the guests will go to their homes and you and your partner will be left with a hefty bill that may suck the life out of you.

Besides, no matter how much one tries to pretend to have all the riches in the world on their wedding day, if the wedding is financed by loans, one still has to pay the loans back. Be wise.

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