Marriages

Hey Everyone,

I was out over the weekend attending a marriage ceremony in Jaipur. And as you all know i am Punjabi, and some how punjabis tend to overspend on everything. Somehow i feel this is not the problem of Punjabis alone but all over India, people go overboard as soon as the topic of Marriage comes up. You can even begun to imagine the expenditure some people can do on a marriage. Talk about Crores of money and i am not even going to start talking about the lavishness. Most of the people i have spoken to about their expenditures on the marriage and they have told me that it was over budget because of some unforeseen expenditure that came up at the last moment. And please done think i am any different, i had a great wedding with all kinds of show off stuffs(Don't forget i am a punjabi) but a the end of it all i tend to think was it really worth it. I could have done a lot with the money, i ended up spending. Anyways i am not going to tell you to have simple marriages and the stuff cause frankly my punjabi heart wont let me but what i am going to tell you here is how you can make it better

1. PLAN PLAN PLAN : Plan for your wedding try to keep the marriage date at least six months away from the date you decide on the date. It helps, Don't make it a rush rush project. Planning it well in advance can help you save a lot of money, like for airline tickets for your honeymoon and maybe even hotel bookings. Go into detailed planning of each task and if you have your family members helping you out delegate some tasks to them, and keep a record of your planning. It always helps.

2. Make your bookings in Advance : Like i said earlier the APEX fares help if you plan in advance. Same is the case for hotel bookings and also if you are planning to have your marriage in a Banquet hall they might give you a good discount for booking them well in advance.

3. Shop early : If you have enough time to your marriage date, you can start shopping early, look for good deals, maybe sometimes even a discount sale would be coming up in a month or so, make use of it. Maybe if you plan to pay up your credit card in time, you can use it and earn a lot of point which can be later redeemed to get you a holiday package for your honeymoon.

4. Gifts : The good thing about the Indian culture is that most of the relatives who come to the marriage would gift you cash, bank on that opportunity, don't go about reinvesting it until and unless you already have a very strong bank balance, Use it to pay of your credit card bill or maybe even the loan you might have taken. But do something with that money, don't leave it lying around.

5. Contingency Plan : Plan for all contingencies, i know you can plan for major problems but for small issues like your wedding dress getting spoilt on the day of the marriage, A second car to carry you to the venue in case of the first one breaking up. and all such things , sometimes they really help out and you dont end up spending money at the last moment.

So be carefull and plan your marriage. And ofcourse best of luck.