Get Hitched and Get Out of Debt?
After Zac, the other great love of my life is the New York Times. Like Zac, the New York Times just gets me, and tells me everything I want to know.
A sassy little article popped up earlier this week that took a playful stab at personal finance planners, gurus and the oblivious. “The Bride Became Debt Free” presents an imaginative list of financial services that you’ll never see in this lifetime, and a part-venting (maybe ranting) of the whole financial services industry.
One idea I found crazy enough to work. And since we queers have a history of being social trailblazers, I propose that we get underway to being able to implement this crazy idea for our commitment ceremonies and weddings.
Instead of sticking with the traditional bridal registry, M.K. Dunleavey proposes the idea of creating a debt registry. This way, you’re helping the young couple pay off student loans and credit card bills instead of giving them stuff they already have or don’t really need.
Already one friend argued with me saying, “That’s why cash is given at weddings!” Sure, a young couple may use that cash to pay off debt, but who knows what debt? Maybe it’s going to help pay off the caterers, the florists and all the other unsettled wedding expenses. But that’s no fun. That just reminds you of how the expensive the wedding was already. The danger with cash is that maybe the young bride and bride or groom and groom will get too tipsy and start tipping everybody in their line of vision. I could see myself and Zac getting into that predicament the way we drink on big occasions.
And sure, you could always write the couple a check. But waiting in line at the bank to deposit a check is not romantic. Way to kill a honeymoon!
Maybe Dunleavey is taking a shot at the redundancy in some financial services, but that’s what makes capitalism great. If there’s an unsatisfied need, then there’s a market for it. For any ambitious entrepreneur out there looking for a sure-bet business idea, I encourage you to create a debt registry for commitment ceremonies and weddings for the queer community. Find some way to consolidate and streamline the whole process of getting a couple’s debts paid, add some pretty wedding-like packaging, and I can guarantee you will have at least two customers ready to send you business when it’s time to tie the knot.
The whole point of my rebuttal to / support of Dunleavey is, having your beloved friends and family help pay down your debt as you embark on a lifetime journey with your partner sounds like a beautiful and wonderful idea, even through something as zany as a debt registry. I’d much rather see my Department of Education balance say $0 than serve cheese puffs and Swedish meat balls on a sterling silver tray with my last name (most likely) misspelled in the engraving.
Of course, I would never propose the idea of getting married to settle one’s debts. Our community already has enough trouble having the validity of our unions recognized. But, I am completely serious about this idea of helping a young married couple pay down their debt. Weddings are terribly expensive for the couple and their families who (may possibly) help with the expenses. It is a special day to share with anyone who means anything to you, and thus the cost of a wedding is a necessary expense from the heart. The expense however could be softened by having friends and family help with debts that would be neglected by the couple or pushed to the back burner to pay for the wedding.
Until the day comes when there’s a debt registry, consider your wedding gift for your friend or relative to be a payment towards their Mastercard of Visa account(s). There’s no doubt you’ll be the next best friend of the newlyweds.
From our experience, don’t expect the financial “reward” of marriage to be anywhere near the level our hetero friends get…
Years ago (almost 12!) when my partner & I had our wedding ceremony, we invited tons of people and basically got thru it breaking even. We “catered” our own food, had mom sew all the dresses involved, etc- to make it the most frugal we could. When all was said & done, we spent maybe $2500- including our week long honeymoon at P-Town.
Though it may have been considered tacky at the time (or now by the silver tea tray crowd), we knew going into it that we did not need any stuff from combining our households. But we did need a washer/dryer- so if anyone asked- we told them Sears cards or cash. We had enough to buy the set (which was about as much as the $2500 wedding) we wanted. Given that we invited 200 people and about 150 were there- that is about $20/person. You cannot tell me that’s what heteros spend on their own!
Fast forward a couple years later- my father in law realized how much he gave/spent on his hetero daughter at her wedding versus us and we got a “bonus” gift.
I would find this totally tacky and offensive. Actually, I did feel that way when my friend was getting married last May and asked us all for cash as gifts. It’s presumptuous – particularly so in her case as she was marrying an honest to goodness millionaire – but its always presumptuous to assume that someone “owes” you a gift at all. Of course 95% of the time you will get a gift, but an invitation is not an invoice. The truth is that I will almost always give a nice check to my good friends, but to be asked for it outright is tacky… particularly when your guest might have financial considerations of their own, including traveling to your wedding, attending showers / engagement parties / bachelor/ette parties, buying a dress or suit to wear, finding childcare, etc. In fact, some of my very worst financial decisions involved overextending myself as a bridesmaid and/or wedding guest because of the pressures to participate in numerous parties, give numerous gifts, buy a bridesmaid dress I’ll never wear again and then give a nice cash gift too.
DivaJean, as a championship wedding guest this past spring/summer at both straight and gay weddings (over a dozen in about four months), I would say don’t take it too personally that you didn’t get a large cash gift. (Other than the father, that’s weird.) If your wedding was lower-key as you said it was, guests respond to that with lower gift amounts. I think the reason for this is that most people can’t really afford to give $100 but feel they must do so to “cover their plate”, but if your wedding was self-catered they might they could give a gift they were more comfortable with financially. Also, if you got married at the end of a wedding season (like the end of the summer), many of us twentysomethings might have just been tapped out of cash – I know I was! Other factors that could influence gift giving amounts are if the couple already lives together and are not percieved to be “needing” much, if the guest had to travel, if they gave gifts for a shower already, and the custom in their culture or region. If I got married, I would completely expect some of my older family members to give me around $20 and not anything more extravagant, and I don’t think I’m that unusual.
Part of this week’s Carnival of Debt Management:
http://www.debtconsolidationlowdown.com/2007/02/carnival_of_deb.html