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This padlet will explore the world of weddings and how in a world where marriages have a 50% divorce rate, people are willing to put themselves in financial turmoil for the day of their dreams. We will discuss the average costs of weddings and all the expenses that are incorporated in this big decision. Happy reading!

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I chose this image to showcase not only the financial struggle, but the emotional struggle as well. Financial issues are one of the leading causes of divorce and this picture depicts that perfectly.

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I chose this image because I believe that couples need to be as close to their calculator as possible when discussing the price of their wedding. It's imperative to stick to the budget to allow for a less stressful marriage.

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So this article is very interesting because it explains what happens to debt when people get married. This not only includes debt from the wedding, but debt from the person you will be marrying. It explains what happens when a spouse passes or what happens when you become a cardholder. Very interesting content.
I chose this article because it gives a broader picture into what to expect when marrying someone It is not a decision to take likely and should be seen as a financial decision as well.

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Many couples are getting married with a significant amount of debt. One or both partners might have student loans, credit card debt, a line of credit, an auto loan, or a mortgage. In 2014, Harris/Decima conducted a poll that showed two in five Canadian newlyweds enter their marriages with debt and owe, on average, $21,500.
Also read: The Cost of Love in Canada: $50,339.21>
So, what happens to this debt when you tie the knot or become common law partners? And what happens to debt that you accumulate during your marriage?

This article explores how debt can affect the finances of married or common law couples.

Pre-Existing Debt

The good news is that you won't be held liable for any pre-existing debt that your partner brings with them to the marriage or partnership. Unless you co-signed for the loan or credit card, pre-existing debt is seen as entirely your partner's responsibility.

Student Loan Debt

Student loan debt remains the responsibility of the borrower even after you're married, but marriage or common law status might affect the repayment of your student loans and your ability to take out new student loans. If one or both partners are applying for repayment assistance, their spouse or common-law partner's income must be reported. This income will be factored into the payment calculation and will likely increase the borrower's monthly payment.

A spouse or common-law spouse's income must also be reported if one spouse is returning to school and is applying for new student loans. This can often make a student ineligible for student loans.

Many people don't realize that when it comes to Canada Student Loans, it's the federal definition of common law that applies. Federal law considers couples who have lived together for one year to be spouses. This is different than the provinces and territories that generally only consider a couple common law if they've lived together for two years or live together for one year and have a child together.

What if Your Spouse Dies?

If your spouse dies with debt that is still unpaid, you aren't responsible for that debt unless you were a co-signer on it. However, that debt could impact your finances significantly since the lender will seek to get repaid through the borrower's estate. Lenders are paid by the estate first before the money and assets pass to the spouse. That means that if you co-own a home with your spouse, the lender could seek to be repaid via your spouse's share of the equity or half of any other assets you jointly own.

Be Careful About Being Added or Adding A Spouse as a Cardholder

If your partner doesn't have great credit, don't let them add you as a cardholder on any of their accounts. While it might seem easier to manage your bills with one credit card, their account will be added to your credit report when you're added as an authorized user. That means if they haven't used the account responsibly, it could affect your credit score. On the flip side, if they have been responsible with the account and have a good credit score this could potentially boost your credit score.
Also read: Should You Share Your Credit Card?>
If you have a good credit score and want to help your partner improve theirs, it might make sense to add them as an authorized user on one of your credit cards. However, you should not do this if you don't trust that they can use the card responsibly. You will be solely responsible for any debt that they accumulate while using this card and if you can't pay off their purchases right away, this could impact your credit rating.

Joint Credit Cards

The benefit of using a joint or co-signed credit card account instead of adding your spouse as an authorized user is that they are liable for half of the charges on a joint account whereas only the original borrower is liable on a card with an authorized user. However, if one spouse has bad credit, taking out a joint credit card can greatly increase the interest rate.

Mortgages and Credit Scores

It's important before you get married that you talk to your partner about your credit scores. If you're hoping to purchase a house and one of you has bad credit, this will greatly impact your ability to get a mortgage and your mortgage rate.
Also read: Your Credit Score - The Secret to Lasting Love?>
If you or your partner have a low credit score, then you might not be able to get a mortgage by applying together. This would mean that one of you would have to apply for the mortgage alone using only the sole applicant's income to determine how much large of a mortgage you qualify for.

Even if the partner with a bad credit score is approved by the bank as a joint borrower, their low credit score might greatly increase the interest rate the bank charges on the mortgage and therefore increase the monthly payment. This might mean that you won't be able to afford to buy a home until you or your partner improves your credit score or one of you will have to apply for the mortgage on your own.

Protect Yourself

Before you get married, it's important that you talk to your partner about debt. Find out how much they currently owe and tell them how much you owe. It's also essential to talk about your attitudes towards taking on different kinds of debt and paying off different kinds of debt. If one of you believe that you should avoid credit card debt entirely and the other partner believes that credit card that is just a part of life then you might have to carefully navigate how you assume debt during your married life.
Also read: Are You in a Spender Saver Relationship?>

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What Happens To Debt When You Get Married? - MoneyWise

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Many couples are getting married with a significant amount of debt. One or both partners might have student loans, credit card debt, a line of credit, an auto loan, or a mortgage. In 2014, Harris/Decima conducted a poll that showed two in five Canadian newlyweds enter their marriages with debt and owe, on average, $21,500.

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Nation Valley News speaks on what to expect when planning a wedding in Canada. They discuss the fact that 75% of weddings go over budget and that is an epidemic when we look at the debt crisis in Canada.  Since couples do not have any prior experience in this field, they tend to accept whatever price for to create their dream day.
I chose this piece because it deeply goes into the cost of a wedding by providing real numbers to every aspect of a wedding. Very different from the speculated numbers

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What to expect: Average wedding costs $30K in Canada

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Newly engaged couples may experience an array of emotions when they sit down to plan their weddings. Some couples cannot wait to jump into planning and want to catalog every aspect of the process, while others may proceed with caution because they don't know what to expect - particularly in regard to cost.

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This second article looks into the differences that budgets make in the type of wedding one can have. Also dives deep into the ludicrous expenditures that people are willing to partake in for their big day.
I chose this piece due to the jarring message that I believe this article showcases, which is the fact that the more expensive the wedding, the more flashy but absolutely not necessary for an amazing day.

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There's the dress, flowers, cake and venue. Your wedding day is a major life milestone, but how much should you spend on it?

Once you're engaged, you may be in full-swing wedding planning mode. Your best bet is to start with an honest conversation with your partner about how you both envision your big day. You also have to consider how much money you're working with.

"When my clients come in, the first thing I tell them is before we do anything we have to understand what your budget is and what your priorities are. That dictates what venues to look at, what your flowers could look like, what designers you want for your dress," Toronto-based wedding planner, Lynzie Kent, told Global News.

"Finances can be a sensitive subject, especially if there are other contributing parties other than the bride and groom themselves," according to Wendy Lee, who is a Toronto-based wedding planner.
READ MORE: Gift registry? Wedding bands? Here are the 'traditions' the wedding industry helped prevent
Kent said your budgeting works in tandem with finding a venue and setting a wedding date. It's hard to lock in a photographer, florist and other services without a location and date.

Global News talked to three couples with different budgets for their big days.
James and Amanda Partridge
James is an economist and Amanda is a midwife.

Wedding date: September 17, 2016

Budget: $15,000

Venue: Guelph Youth Music Centre

No. of guests: 100
(Photos courtesy Amanda Partridge/Jennifer See Studios) How did you come up with the amount for your budget?
After discussing with our wedding planner, we felt this number would achieve all of our wedding goals. After much consideration, we decided to get married in Guelph, Amanda's hometown, at the Guelph Youth Music Centre. Toronto was our first choice, but too expensive. The GYMC allowed us to select all our own vendors, and bring in our own alcohol, which saved us a lot of money.

What was your biggest expense?
Food was our largest expense. We were able to save money by opting for cocktails over a plated dinner, though. We had food vendors that had hors d'oeuvres service. There was a variety of food options served after the ceremony until the music started, like salmon lollipops, samosas, mini chicken pot pies, Philly cheese-steak sliders - there were at least 10 different options.
What did you try to save on?
We saved on the décor - almost all of the decorations were DIY or thrift shop finds. We purchased flowers that were in season, inexpensive and easy to acquire. We made our own wine and guests RSVP'd online through our wedding website, which we saved on postage.

We hired vendors that are new or up-and-coming so they weren't overly expensive but were working hard to earn their stripes.

James' aunt is from England with a summer house in France. She supplied a popular sparkling wine for us as the first toast before cocktail hour. That saved us a lot of money.

The venue only allowed beer and wine so we didn't have hard alcohol. We had our family buy Groupons for The Wine Butler and we made bottles of our own wine for really cheap.
What was your biggest splurge?
We hired a second band! This wasn't planned, or budgeted for, but we had to have them.
What was your must-have for your big day?
We wanted our guests to have the best wedding experience ever. So hiring a second band was a no-brainer.

We hired our first band and a few months later we saw another band, they do covers of old school hip hop and R&B - that's the type of music we really like. When we saw them we knew this was the band we needed. The venue we selected had an auditorium with a stage so we were able to set up both bands on the stage, with a background of all their gear. It was basically music from 9:30 to 1 a.m.
What is your advice to other couples when it comes to planning and budgeting for the big day?
The day moves by so, so quickly, sometimes it's really hard to enjoy every moment. Carve out a short period of time for just you and your partner so you can reflect on what's happening and have time together without being in a large group of people.

Be prepared for rain. The day before it looked like it was going to rain so we got umbrellas, looked at indoor options for our photos and made sure we had a backup plan.
Mark and Dian Vernest
Mark is a senior investment analyst at a boutique firm and Dian is an investment and wealth advisor at RBC Dominion Securities.

Wedding date: October 11, 2014.

Budget: $35,000 (excluding a $10,000 honeymoon)

Venue: Berkeley Fieldhouse

(Photos courtesy the Vernests/ Sara Wilde photography)

No. of guests: 150. The venue gave us the discipline we needed. It can't accommodate more than 150 people. We looked at six venues in one day and we made our decision that afternoon. We didn't want a church or hall or something stuffy.
How did you come up with the amount for your budget?
We had an interview process with our wedding planner and we asked her what the typical downtown Toronto wedding costs. We had no benchmark, we had no idea how much flowers or a band was going to cost.
How did you save up?
We're both in finance and we've always been good with our money. Neither of us had help from our parents - we only wanted to have our friends and didn't want to be obligated to [invite parents' friends] so we didn't want that financial help. We were saving for a while. It wasn't like we had $50,000 sitting there waiting, but we got to pay installments here, a deposit there. We didn't have to make any cutbacks.
What was your biggest expense?
Food and booze. We had a good caterer and didn't skimp on the food. We wanted people to have a good meal - it was beef short ribs and nothing too complicated. We didn't even give people an option unless they had allergies or were vegetarian.
What did you try to save on?
We didn't go all out on flowers, we did the bare minimum. We had a nice bouquet for Dian and the bridesmaids, boutonnieres, a few centrepieces here and there but that was it. We saved on using preferred partners from our wedding planner - we used all her vendors and didn't have to waste time checking out people to know if they're good and if they'll show up, etc. By doing that, we saved 25 per cent because she's a repeat client. [Our wedding planner] paid for herself ten-fold.

We hired Ryerson University film studies students to be our videographers. They put together an incredible video for us for one quarter of the price and it's incredible.
What was your biggest splurge?
Of importance to us was that everyone had a good time, we just wanted to have a party so we splurged on premium booze, good wine, an awesome band and a DJ that had everyone dancing until the lights were on. We wanted a surprise dance, so our wedding planner got us in touch with a choreographer.
What was your must-have for your big day?
The entertainment. We really wanted to have a band, our surprise dance and we wanted our ceremony to be easy and breezy. We hired an officiant who was more casual and we worked with her on the script, which included how we met. We wanted the flow to be really smooth, we didn't want people waiting around. We did pictures during the day so people didn't have to show up to the wedding until 5 p.m. We joined them during the cocktail hour and it went right into the dinner reception and then to the party.
What is your advice to other couples when it comes to planning and budgeting for the big day?
Do pictures ahead of the ceremony if possible. It makes everything less stressful so you can focus on guests right away. We had a cute first look earlier in the day, that was our reveal to each other. We weren't as emotional during the ceremony getting that part out of the way in a private moment.

We thought engagement photos were lame and our photographer said we didn't have to use them but let's do them anyway because it's practice. We got used to knowing how to look into the camera and built a relationship with the photographer. It's frustrating how many photos you have to take so this makes it less of a surprise.

Right after your ceremony, eat. We ran back to the bridal suite and we had little appetizers already up there waiting for us. When you're talking and mingling, you don't want to eat and at dinner you don't really eat.
Mark and Kirsten Hannay
Mark works in corporate strategy in the mining industry and Kirsten is a nurse.

Wedding date: May 27, 2017.

Budget: $85,000

Venue: King Edward Hotel. Kirsten loves history and a lot of the different vacations we've been on have been cultural so the building had a look like some that we'd seen in Europe. We thought it was very elegant and had a lot of little details.

No. of guests: 150
(Photos courtesy Hannays/Rhythm Photography) How did you come up with the amount for your budget?
Our original budget was around $65,000, but we talked to our wedding planner and with our parents - it was a collection of understanding what our vision was for the wedding combined with talking to our parents who were gracious enough to help us with the funds.
How did you save up?
Our parents obviously helped but we've saved over the past few years and we had funds available that weren't wedding-specific, just general savings. We were probably more frugal than we'd been before. Our wedding planner helped us stretch our budget and delivered us some savings - we cut $10,000 off the wedding price when we moved our date to May from October 2015, which was a major thing.
What was your biggest expense?
Food and drinks for the dinner reception. We had a six-course meal, an open bar and a sweets table after dessert with a collection of cookies, tarts, cheesecakes, panna cotta, and popcorn.

Traditionally in a Chinese wedding, there's an eight to 10-course meal and each course has different symbolism. The hotel provided us four courses and we brought in an outside Chinese caterer for two more courses so we had Chinese and Western courses. For the Chinese lobster course, we served a lobster bisque, and for fish, we had salmon. For fowl, we had a Cornish hen.
What did you try to save on?
There were certain areas we were more willing to take more of a cut on: we got a lower priced DJ, we didn't want to go overkill on flowers because we knew they'd look great no matter what and we skipped on a limo. We wanted some sort of Rolls Royce or an old school car and they would have been nice for photos between the church and hotel, but we went with a more budget-friendly SUV.
What was your biggest splurge?
We splurged on photography. We wanted to make sure our day was captured very well and Kirsten and I had a specific look in mind and we found that in our photographer. The price was higher but we were comfortable with that.
What was your must-have for your big day?
We wanted to make sure we had the mixed cultures. [Mark's] is Western and Kirsten is from Hong Kong so we wanted to merge them together. We had a Chinese tea ceremony in the morning with elder relatives from both sides of the family (Kirsten wore a traditional Chinese cheong sam), and we weaved the traditions into our meals.
What is your advice to other couples when it comes to planning and budgeting for the big day?
When you're creating your schedule for the wedding day, give some buffer time for things. You're not doing yourself any favours with aggressive scheduling because things will go off course. Be generous with time or you might run late.

(Graphics created by Janet Cordahi/Global News)

carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
Follow @Carmen_Chai

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These couples had $15,000, $35,000 and $85,000 weddings. What their big days looked like

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There's the dress, flowers, cake and venue. Your wedding day is a major life milestone, but how much should you spend on it? Once you're engaged, you may be in full-swing wedding planning mode. Your best bet is to start with an honest conversation with your partner about how you both envision your big day.

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I chose this video because it again uses Jeff Shwartz who is amazing in the credit counselling field and he speaks on the importance of setting a budget for a wedding to avoid issues.
I chose this video because it is delivered by a Canadian credit counsellor who is able to speak on the importance of staying out of debt while ensuring the wedding day of your dreams. A very amazing speaker with alot of knowledge.

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Consolidated Credit Counseling Services of Canada

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Wedding Debt with Jeff Schwartz - City BTV Toronto

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This video speaks on how to avoid wedding debt by planning appropriately. Jeffrey Shwartz speaks on what to skip in order to bring down the cost of a wedding such as a smaller guest list and skipping traditions.
This is an amazing Canadian source on how to consolidate for a wedding. What I found different was that it focused on real examples on how to save some money on a wedding.

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Consolidated Credit Counseling Services of Canada

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This video is by Dave Ramsey and is absolutely amazing as he dives into what it means to afford a wedding. He urges people to not spend more than the cash they have at hand and also, dives into what a good wedding looks like.
I chose this piece because Ramsey discusses the fact that you can have an amazing wedding for $5000-10000. A more expensive wedding does not mean the marriage will last.

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This video showcases a visual representation of the real costs of weddings in today's era.
I chose this video because I believe that it puts the price of weddings into perspective for visual learners on the real costs of weddings.

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This article I found to be extremely interesting from Global news, it showcases the breakdown of the average cost of weddings and the results are astonishing.
What is particularly amazing here, is the price of what a wedding should cost in Canada and how many people are over spending in what they deem to be necessary.

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There's the wedding, gifts, showers, bachelorette parties and the honeymoon. Turns out, getting married is a costly milestone for Canadian couples - and their family and friends.

Canadians say a realistic price tag for a wedding is $8,937, according to an Ipsos poll on wedding expenses conducted exclusively for Global News. That's a far cry from the $30,717 Canadians said they were spending in a 2015 poll.

They're gifting about $147, and the bridal party is spending about $366 on average, according to the polling firm's new data.
READ MORE: These couples had $15,000, $35,000 and $85,000 weddings. What their big days looked like
"The data came back surprising me. [Spending] was far lower than I thought just in my own personal experience," Sean Simpson, vice-president of public affairs at Ipsos, told Global News. He got married seven years ago.

"There's this belief among some people that you need to spend reams of money to impress and make it something guests will enjoy. It's expensive, and people understand it's expensive," he said.

Keep in mind, there are generational differences contributing to these numbers. Baby boomers didn't spend as much on weddings as millennials do, for example. And then there's factoring in how widespread Canada is.
READ MORE: Gift registry? Wedding bands? Here are the 'traditions' the wedding industry helped prevent
"Attitudes differ by income and location. If you're in Toronto and you want a nice venue on a Saturday evening in June, you're not spending $10,000. But in rural parts of the country, there's less demand and the prices will reflect that," Simpson said.

And then there's the engagement photos, wedding showers, bachelor parties and rehearsal dinners. Those only drive up cost, too.

Here's a look at how much wedding season is costing Canadian couples, their families and their guest list.
(Infographic by Ben Simpson/Leo Kavanagh)
The Ipsos poll was conducted in May 2017. A random sample of Canadian adults were interviewed online for the survey, which was weighted to bring it in line with Canadian demographics and which has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
Follow @Carmen_Chai

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How much do Canadians spend on weddings? The cost breakdown will surprise you

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There's the wedding, gifts, showers, bachelorette parties and the honeymoon. Turns out, getting married is a costly milestone for Canadian couples - and their family and friends. Canadians say a realistic price tag for a wedding is $8,937, according to an Ipsos poll on wedding expenses conducted exclusively for Global News.

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The most important moments to take away from this assignment.