Securing Your Wedding Fund This Valentine

Mickey and Bhawna, a lovely couple, sitting in a peaceful rooftop cafe in Udaipur, a popular wedding destination in India, dwell on the thought of tying a knot of marriage one day. While scrolling her instagram, the beautiful girl comes across a popular destination wedding page and loses imagining herself in a vibrant dress on her special day.

Shall we get married this year, she asks with an excited tone. Mickey contemplated for a while before answering, "Do we have a budget ready?" he replies. Throwing an important question turned the conversation to a serious yet an important topic. Finally, after a lot of discussion the couple decided to make a promise on Valentine's day, a promise to build their wedding day fund so they could get married and share the same roof one day.

Valentine's day, where lovers come together to bind themselves with the promise of long-term relationship nurturing a secure future and fulfilling dreams with each other, has a mysterious history.

The emergence of this celebration can be traced in multiple legends from the stories of the Roman festival of Lupercalia to the execution of a Roman priest named Valentine.

However, today Valentine week is celebrated with promises, commitment and imagination of their romantic future.

weddings are one of the most significant milestones in a couple’s life where they come together to celebrate the sacred and memorable rituals with each and create the memories for a lifetime to cherish.

The Indian Weddings
Indians adore weddings, according to the latest survey India hosts about 80 lakh to 1 crore weddings every year. The Indian wedding industry is nearly twice the size of the US industry valued at $130 billion. Interestingly, the Indian wedding industry is the second largest sector after food and grocery which is valued at $681 billion.

Wait, there’s more to it, we are going to understand why weddings are the most important and expensive events for Indian families. According to a Jefferies report, Indian families spend more on weddings than education with the average Indian wedding costs around Rs 13 lakh. This amount is almost three times higher than the average household income of Rs 4 lakh.

The great fat wedding of Indian billionaire, Mukesh Ambani’s son Anant Ambani with Radhika Merchant is not an unheard affair. The wedding continued for days, hosting celebrities from worldwide to invite global political leaders.

The wedding is an important event in each couple’s life which indeed gives the loving memories for life, hence to celebrate such an auspicious event, reflecting on the finances of the multiple days event and starting to save accordingly become crucial.

Wedding Fund
Now imagine yourself as a groom or bride entering a beautifully decorated lawn. Your loving family members along with your friends showering flowers on both of you disguised as their sacred blessing. While, photographers are busy capturing your emotional moments. A day when you and your fine partner are having dinner with all the guests with a relief that everything went successfully.

Such successful events take place when money takes care of the expected and unexpected expenses while you enjoy the wedding. The money which you saved and invested for a long period of time for your special day.

However, building such a goal-oriented fund requires proper planning and strategic approach. It is important to keep in mind numerous things for your special wedding fund:

Savings: It is important to consider whether you are starting to save funds for the wedding or you already have some chunk of money which you want to invest and protect till your wedding preparation begins.

Inflation: Suppose you have a budget of Rs 10 lakh and you have already saved it for your wedding which is scheduled after 2 years, it is critical to protect it from the illness of inflation to maintain its value.

Tenure: wedding preparations are a herculean task and to set a clear timeline for your special day becomes essential as it allows you a proper time to accumulate funds and also determine investable options.

Risk Profile: Suppose you spend years to save money and invest in an asset class in expectation that your fund will grow beating the general inflation, however due to the economic downturn your savings declined and shredded more than 10-20% and delayed your wedding eventually. Such horrible scenarios do come true when you do not properly evaluate your ability to take risks.

Hence, all the factors are necessary to acknowledge to protect your wedding fund from inflation, volatility of markets and any loss so you do not have to compromise on your wedding day. Although some people cribbing and complaining on your wedding day is inevitable, that can not be mitigated with any master planning so be ready for that!

For your rescue, Mintit, India’s only dedicated Mutual Fund Platform which caters to your personalised goals and accompanies you to achieve your financial milestones is eager to help you build your wedding fund. Depending on your profile it precisely suggests a suitable investing plan to achieve your goals. All the best! May you successfully build your wedding Fund.