Preparing for marriage: Here's how to prepare financially before and after tying the knot

If you start saving from the moment you start working, you don’t actually have to depend on your parents to fund your wedding and, more importantly, can look forward to a financially secure future.

Marriages are made in heaven, as the saying goes. The expenses, however, have to be borne here on earth. A decent wedding at today’s cost is upwards of Rs 10 lakh, with sky being the limit! Nothing appears to have changed, especially when it comes to who will spend for the wedding. Parents continue to do so with the help of their savings made over the years. The trend doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon as the children still seem reluctant to even partially meet the cost of their own wedding.

So if you have been working for a while and planning to get married shortly, how about using a part of your savings, if not all, to partially fund your own marriage, rather than depending entirely on your parents to foot the entire bill?

When marriage is a few years away

If you have recently started earning and want to save for your marriage, which is more than five years away, you can still prepare a plan and save towards your goal. You may not be that familiar with investments such as mutual funds (MFs) at your age but can definitely look at less volatile funds.

One may start a Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) in 1-3 such MF schemes. Give the mandate to your banker to automatically deduct a certain amount from your salary/bank account each month.