I postponed my wedding cuz of COVID-19, and that’s okay.

I postponed my wedding cuz of COVID-19, and that's okay. WHAT HAPPENED: My wedding was supposed to happen on the 6/6/2020. As the COVID pandemic worsened, we started thinking about postponing. Last week, we pulled the trigger. We abandoned the idea of getting married on our chosen date. We’re pushing it back until the pandemic subsides, possibly until next year. Most would expect this to be a traumatic event, but even we were surprised how okay we were. I think the following reasons are why we felt somewhat insulated. 1: WE DELIBERATELY KEPT THE WEDDING BUDGET MODEST We paid $6,500 to book the location and date, this is a 50% downpayment. After food options, the total cost of the venue would’ve been around $15,000 for a weekend evening with 120+ pax. We also intended to keep other costs low too: We would shoot our pre-wedding photos ourselves. We would do our invites ourselves. We don’t believe in expensive rings. (I proposed to her with a $200 wooden ring from etsy) All in, we estimate the TOTAL DAMAGE at: ~$20,000. Not insignificant, but definitely less than the average wedding in Singapore (30-50k). Because our wedding cost was low, even if we had to forfeit the deposit, it would be a loss we can handle. Our deposit was 50% of $13,000: $6,500. We would notice it, but it wouldn’t devastate us. At the most, I would lose 3 hours of sleep. Relating this to personal finance, spending within (or under) your means gives you quite a bit of cushion when shit hits the fan. Everyone has what we call a ‘burn rate’ – the money you absolutely have to spend each month. Some people have high burn rates by owning houses that are too big, cars they barely drive, as well as expensive habits like smoking. By intentionally keeping our burn rate low, it stretches out how long our savings can last us. Which brings us to... 2: WE HAD ENOUGH SAVINGS TO COVER POTENTIAL LOSSES Since last year, my personal goal was to have 6 months of income saved up in my bank account for emergencies (around 36k) I reached that achievement in December 2019. Together, my fiancee and I have combined savings of about $62,000 cash. For the sake of this example, let’s assume the very worst – we somehow went ahead with the wedding and got $0 back in angbaos. This works out to a $20,000 loss. This would be terrible if we had taken on debt to fund our wedding. Right now, a $20,000 loss is still quite painful, but with our 6 month cushion of savings, we can take the hit without resorting to taking on debt. If our wedding was expensive and we didn’t have savings, COVID-19 would have affected our relationship. We’d have arguments almost every night, trying to deal with the deposit we already spent (sunk cost) and the fact that we might not have any guests. It might have torn us apart. Weddings can be really stressful. Relating this to personal finance, having emergency savings means that you can buy stability, and some time to think things over. Without savings, you’d have to scramble for survival in fight-or-flight mode. This is highly stressful, and it clouds your ability to think and plan for long-term success. You might even make some bad decisions. It might seem easy for us to say this NOW because we’ve some money saved up. But we worked hard and sacrificed a lot in preparation of hard times for 6 YEARS, even though we didn’t know precisely when hard times would come. 3: HAVING A WEDDING RIGHT NOW JUST ISN’T RESPONSIBLE While the whole world struggles with COVID-19, it doesn’t make sense to endanger the lives of our friends and loved ones because we insist on having a ‘special’ day. If you’re in a similar situation as me, here’s my advice: Minimise your costs & cut your losses. Put aside your ego. Consider your loved ones safety instead. Try your best to think and plan long-term whenever you can. Remember, your wedding is just one day. Marriages are supposed to be forever. Stay woke, stay safe, stay home, salaryman.

Liked it? Take a second to support thewokesalaryman on Patreon!

4 replies to “I postponed my wedding cuz of COVID-19, and that’s okay.”

Didi Winjaya (@DidiWinjaya) says:

April 7, 2020 at 6:22 pm

Good advice

Reply
Mau Nipal says:

May 3, 2020 at 11:55 pm

Love this. We’re also getting married in the ber months and it does truly help that we’ve only spent low cost amount of money for our deposits that even if it doesn’t push through – yes, we’ll definitely feel the cost- but it won’t affect our mental health and relationship. 😉

Reply
1. thewokesalaryman says:
  
  May 3, 2020 at 11:57 pm
  
  Yeah I can only imagine how rough some other couples might be having it atm if they’ve put down sizeable deposits
  
  Reply
firewtk says:

July 19, 2020 at 11:58 am

Wedding is just a event. The most important thing is the bond between the couple. Others things are secondary as per my perspective.

WTK

Reply

4 replies to “I postponed my wedding cuz of COVID-19, and that’s okay.”

Leave a ReplyCancel reply