The average cost of weddings in the United States has climbed into the tens of thousands. Moms and dads are still doing what they can to foot the bill, but in many cases couples are walking down the aisle with a fresh pile of debt.
It’s the happiest day of your life, right? But at what cost? How much of that happiness comes from the flowers, and the catering, and the DJ? If more of your happiness comes from those things than from marrying the guy of your dreams, maybe you should save the money and skip getting married altogether.
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If you realized right away that your happiness doesn’t come from all that one-night-only decoration and catering and the rest, ask yourself what you might do with so much money instead of paying for a wedding. It’s not uncommon for wedding costs to reach $50,000 these days, so we will work with that very number to think this through!
Sure, you probably don’t actually have that money in liquid savings. If you did pay for a wedding like that, you might be joining the crew of young couples with the fresh wound of marital debt: your first shared liability before you even have that first kid. But if you did have $50,000, here are five good ways you could invest it instead of on a wedding:
