Last Updated on August 14, 2025 at 9:28 am
About a year ago, I was asked in a panel discussion, “How much should a couple spend on their wedding?” This caught me by surprise as I had never thought about this before (even when I often looked down upon wedding extravagance).
I had a couple of seconds to decide between saying a bland, “It depends, it is hard to say, etc” or giving a specific answer. I chose the latter.
First, some context: The person who asked the question assumed that the married couple would fund the wedding without any support from parents or family. So this is a young girl and boy just starting their careers with no net worth to speak of wanting to fund their marriage alone.
Initially, members of that panel discussion were puzzled by my response, and at least one said it was reasonable. I do not claim that it is a one-size-fits-all thumb rule. I do not claim that it is practical. I feel it is doable. I expect a lot of readers to disagree with me on this.
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I blurted out my answer: “The wedding should not cost more than one to two years’ annual income for the couple.”
I meant that if only one partner was working, say with an annual income of Rs. 12 lakhs, the wedding cost should not exceed Rs 12-24 Lakhs. If both work and the total annual income is Rs. 24 Lakhs, the wedding cost should not exceed Rs. 24-48 Lakhs. There is a reasonably large bandwidth, but a simple, basic, traditional wedding without opulence is ideal.
I later realised that it is not a scalable thumb rule. A person earning Rs. 50 lakh a month should not strive to spend Rs 1 Crore for a wedding. A Rs. 40-50 Lakh budget is much better.
Many other factors include how much they have saved up for the marriage, how much they can save (if there is still some time to do so), how much the parents or grandparents will help, etc. It is only a rough thumbrule I coughed up in a hurry, but in hindsight, it seems reasonable (to me).
Many of you will probably dismiss this as impractical, and the marriage would cost much more. Yes, but at whose expense? The couple. Even with this silly thumb rule, many people may have to take out loans if their families cannot make up for the shortfall.
The ideal thing to do is not borrow and fund your marriage (which includes the honeymoon, which is not mandatory!). You can start saving for your marriage from the day you start working (if possible, retirement planning can wait), and hopefully, when you start planning for the big day, you and your partner will each have an amount close to a year’s pay. That should be enough for a reasonable wedding without pomp and EMIs! If your runway is longer, you can save more.
Remember, if someone is forcing you to spend more for your wedding than you wish to, they are neither your true friends nor true relatives. Your happiness after the wedding is the number one priority.
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Dr M. Pattabiraman (PhD) is the founder, managing editor and primary author of freefincal. He is an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He has over 14 years of experience publishing news analysis, research and financial product development.
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