If you are planning a wedding, you know one thing for certain, weddings are expensive. Today, the average wedding comes in at well over $25,000, and that is for just an average wedding.
The huge expense of formal weddings has caused a lot of people to turn to their own backyards as an alternative. Choosing your backyard or a family members yard as a wedding venue can shave thousands of dollars off the bottom line of a wedding. They can still be expensive though, and even a backyard wedding is going to cost you thousands of dollars by the time it is all done.
So, how do you pay for this wedding? If you do not have the savings to cover the cost, you have several other options. Look at some popular ways that people are financing their dream backyard weddings.
Using An Online Personal Loan
The simplest way to pay for your backyard wedding is with a personal loan.
Personal loans are unsecured installment loans made by online lenders. With a personal loan, you can borrow all the money that you need for your wedding and then pay it back slowly over time.
The biggest benefit to a personal loan is that it is quick and easy. Get all the money that you need in one step and get on with making your wedding plans. Planning a successful wedding is no simple matter, so the time savings from simply getting a personal loan are very important.
If you have good credit, getting a loan is a straightforward process and you have many outlets to turn to. Your best option is a local credit union. Local credit unions will generally offer the best terms and have the lowest interest rates, but you will need good to excellent credit in order to qualify.
Should you have less than perfect credit, qualifying for a personal loan is going to be a bit harder, but loans are still attainable. With bad credit, your best option is online lenders using a loan website like this one here. These loan websites will match you with an online lender that may be able to qualify you for a loan, even with poor credit.
Do keep in mind that loan terms with poor credit may be harsh. It would be a high-risk loan for a lender, and they would charge accordingly. Because of this fact, you should borrow as little as possible to avoid paying any more interest and fees than necessary.
Paying With Plastic
The average credit card interest rate is around 20 percent, and that makes credit cards one of the more expensive ways to pay for a wedding. Backyard weddings are relatively low budget affairs however, so we should not take credit cards out of the discussion.
If you intend to pay for your wedding with a credit card, the first thing that you should do is try to qualify for a zero-interest card. If you have good to excellent credit, you should be able to find a card with a low or even zero interest introductory rate. This can save you hundreds of dollars in interest payments, if you pay of the card before your introductory rate expires.
Barring the use of a zero-interest card, plastic can still be used to effectively pay for your wedding. Without the low rate though, you need to be careful about how much you spend. Try to minimize every expense in order to pay less interest. Then, just as soon as the wedding is over, work on a plan to eliminate your credit card debt. The last thing that you want to do is simply pay the minimum payments.
Let Your Family Contribute
Wouldn’t it be great if you could get a free wedding? Instead of gifts, why not ask your family and friends to help you pay for your wedding. Do you really need a bread maker anyway? Wouldn’t it be nicer to have a wedding that was paid for, so you can walk away from the ceremony debt free? Of course it would.
These days, asking for cash is no longer taboo with weddings. Using services on Zola and The Knot, engaged couples can accumulate the money that they need to pay for their weddings with cash.
When you think about it, this makes perfect sense because most couples these days are not just “starting out”. Today, most married couples are already living on their own or together. There is no need to stock the house with furnishings and cooking gear, so money is far more useful.
Downsize Your Wedding Plans
When all else fails, you can consider downsizing your wedding plans. After all, the important thing is that you get married and the memories you will create will still be priceless.
This is a backyard wedding after all, so why not run with the theme. Get a buddy to run the barbecue, use your iTunes as the DJ and get your family and friends to help with the decorations.
With a little planning and some elbow grease, you can turn that backyard into a dream venue for a fraction of the cost of a typical wedding.
Summing It All Up
There are plenty of ways to finance a small backyard wedding, but you need to keep the big picture in mind. Remember that the importance of the day is the marriage itself and that one day is not worth getting into a lifetime worth of debt over.
If you want to finance your wedding with a loan or credit cards, that is your choice but be careful when accumulating debt. This is a big day, but you want to be able to look back and remember the experience itself, not the mountain of debt that it produced.
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