When to start working out for wedding
How wedding loans work
marriage it's one of the oldest
traditions shared by millions of couples
around the world
weddings take on many shapes and sizes
and are always evolving American
weddings paint a familiar picture a
white dress an exchange of vows a
bouquet toss all at a ceremony
traditionally paid for by the family of
the bride
but that tradition is changing the
average American wedding costs nearly
thirty nine thousand dollars and a
growing number of newlyweds to be are
relying less and their families to pay
for their dream ceremonies and are
instead choosing to go into death
these young couples dreaming of
Instagram about wedding venues cigar
bars candy buffets photo booths and the
like are now spawning a new breed of
personal debt championed by Silicon
Valley tech startups according to
experts wedding loans are more of a PR
play rather than a new type of loan they
are simply unsecured personal loans
rebranded to attract new borrowers
especially those who are in their 20s
and 30s but FinTech lenders say they are
issuing double the amount of wedding
branded loans in 2019 than the same
period the year prior promising fast and
easy payments directly to your bank
account online lender earnest which also
issues loans for vacations and home
improvement projects uses the tagline
inspired by Pinterest make it happen
with low interest to market it's wedding
loans while prosper offers couples
engagement ring financing and extra cash
for their honeymoon
upstart promotes its use of artificial
intelligence machine learning to measure
nearly 1500 signals that determine an
applicant's ability to pay back alone
the company says education area of study
and job history are all taken into
consideration when evaluating applicants
upstart co-founder Paul Gow says that
these innovations enable them to loan to
first-time borrowers without
well-established credit histories when
we look at our wedding loan borrowers
they are a most common length of credit
history is only five years for most
lenders that's a really short amount of
time lenders typically looking for eight
nine 10 plus years of credit history to
make make a determination of whether
someone's a good credit risk and if
you've got a 670 credit score only five
years of credit history it's going to be
pretty hard
to get a low interest rate loan or
credit card from anybody and and I think
that certainly is part of the appeal for
upstart I think that's that's the
problem we're trying to solve in the
world the average wedding loan upstart
grants is eleven thousand dollars for
either a three five or seven year term
the annual percentage rate which is the
rate charge for borrowing and represents
the yearly cost of the loan can
fluctuate between as low as 5% all the
way up to nearly 36 percent depending on
the applicant upstarts average wedding
borrower is 28 years old and GU notes
that in upstarts case they're 20% less
likely to default than those who take
out other types of loans he also adds
that online loan providers can offer
lower interest rates than credit cards
making FinTech funds a superior choice
Raquel Pitino and usage Ramirez are a
couple who live in San Diego and turn to
upstart for a twenty thousand dollar
loan to help fund their wedding this
fall which they expect to cost near
thirty thousand dollars they have an APR
of just over 20 percent for a five-year
term with a minimum monthly payment near
five hundred and thirty dollars they met
in 2013 while serving in the Navy it
began dating two years ago last October
Patino proposed to Ramirez and now the
couple are planning a wedding to match
their elaborate engagement that night I
had a mariachi group come and I had a
bouquet of roses and in the middle was a
gold rose but it was the actual box for
the ring like out of nowhere and see
like this money actually grew out there
and she's like just singing serenading
pretty much and that happened
the experts worried that the efficiency
and ease these companies promised could
become more of a burden than a benefit
as Americans become swamped with the
debt in the first quarter of 2019 total
household debt breached thirteen point
six trillion dollars but the growing
reliance on unsecured personal loans is
not exclusive to weddings
according to TransUnion the market for
personal loans had an all-time high in
2018 after growing to 138 billion with
21 billion added that year alone
indicating that an increase in wedding
loans may just be a symptom of a much
larger problem fin tech companies like
upstart prosper and earnest led the
charge by offering loans that don't
require assets or personal property as
payment if a borrower defaults fin tech
companies issued 38% of all us personal
loans in 2018
Mitch Hockenberry a certified financial
planner says the lenders reasons for
targeting younger borrowers may be less
than altruistic and so why they're
targeting the younger guys and gals is
because what they're looking at is to
simply say that generation is much more
okay with just working on payment plans
instead of having to take out this big
dollar amount of say $30,000 from your
savings account and hand it over to
somebody that's a hard pill to swallow
but they're used to paying for their
food coming through GrubHub they're used
to getting into an uber and paying you
know that route they're used to all
these little quick payments
how can Barry also points out that
regardless of why you take out the loan
in the first place one of the most
common sources of arguments in marriage
originates with money and bills so
starting off your marriage in debt just
invites future arguments while the money
may be easier to borrow many couples
have a hard time calculating just how
much money they need in 2009 the average
cost per guest in the United States was
a hundred ninety four dollars but in
2018 is searched to two hundred fifty
eight dollars an ear 33% increase
research from online wedding marketplace
wedding wire indicates couples aren't
well prepared for just how expensive a
wedding can be the average budget
surveyed couples allotted toward their
wedding with sixteen thousand dollars
but in reality the price tie ended up
being closer to thirty thousand dollars
according to wedding wire roughly half
of couples spend more than planned so
what causes such large budget
discrepancies jeffra Trump our wedding
wire senior creative director says one
of the main reasons is that couples
don't realize the cost of providing
personalized experiences
really want to provide a really good
experience for their guests and what
that means is that they're amplifying
the details throughout their wedding so
then you're getting your her guests
headcount increases right so it could be
interactive food stations personalized
favors like cigar bars or other type of
like interactive experiences actually at
the wedding there's additional things
too where couples are really seeing so
much more inspiration around them and
more things that they actually want to
utilize for their personal approach to
the wedding and that's increasing the
cost as well Lauren came executive
editor than not notes that where you get
married can also make or break your
budget it's the most expensive place to
get married in the u.s. is Manhattan
it'll cost you almost ninety seven
thousand dollars on average and the
least expensive place is Idaho and that
comes in closer to sixteen thousand New
York Boston Washington DC in San
Francisco all ranked amongst the highest
price cities in the country to host your
special day in 2018 couples shelled out
most of their money on the reception
venue with an average cost about $15,000
engagement rings live music and
videographers and photographers which
can cost couples over five thousand
dollars together once all said and done
couples spend an additional forty five
hundred dollars on average on their
honeymoon I think a lot of couples are
looking to have a unique wedding really
personalizes their relationship and
their love story and they don't want to
do the same thing that their friends
have done so they're looking to totally
unique venues like boat houses or barns
or even art museums and sometimes that
does add to the cost and sometimes you
can snag a deal it all depends on where
you're getting married in the country
the time of year plays a big role if you
want a Saturday versus a Friday night
even the season can help dictate the
cost but then use are generally one of
the most expensive decisions you'll make
because they often include your catering
in 2019 millenials dished out a
considerable amount more than their
predecessors spending ten thousand
dollars more on their weddings than
gen-x couples
the increase in cost along with the
continuing trend of couples marrying
later in life has also changed who's
responsible for paying the bill the US
Census Bureau found that the median age
of marrying couples increased in nearly
29 years old in 2018 this is largely due
to couples prioritizing education
careers and travel before tying the knot
and the increase in age may explain why
weddings are paid for differently and
getting more expensive and fifty percent
of couples say they are but we do think
that that's because the age is is older
right so you have more financial ability
to pay for more of that whereas if you
take it back to even 10 15 20 years ago
people were in their early 20s getting
married they didn't have a lot of
funding to do that they had to turn to
their parents but for couples like
Pitino and Ramirez sometimes the entire
cost of the wedding has to come out of
their pockets we didn't want to ask for
our families really honestly because
we're two women and not a lot of family
members tend to take it as serious as
any other regular wedding the couple
acknowledges some would advise against
taking out a $20,000 loan for just one
day but they have a plan to tighten up
their budget to pay it off completely in
two years this is a sacrifice that they
are willing to make but before you take
out a $30,000 loan there may be steps
you can take to prevent overspending is
that a band is it the location is it the
number of people were inviting so
literally those top three and agree on
that and literally write it down like
put it on your refrigerator on the wall
and stick to it financial advisors agree
personal loans can be used wisely
especially when used toward purchases
that are important to you but they also
agree that the decision to use one and
your plan to pay it back is a
conversation both you and your partner
need to have before the special day
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