Communication is key to any marriage; you have to start early with it.

Talk and plan with your gf. And all these conceptions about "time"/"age"/"length of relationship" is just in your head/peer pressure. At the end of the day; only you guys will live your lives, not anyone else.

I only married my gf after being together for 8 years; but we agreed with our timelines due to our differing circumstances. When we started planning for the wedding; I decided that based on our plans, we would need at least RM30k for the wedding's cost. However, as I had about 2 years to budget, it was easier for me to save for it. So every month I saved a reasonable amount (sometimes more, sometimes less) and put it into a FD account that could not be touched (this was under her name and care as proof of my commitment).

Along the way, we looked into alternatives for all the items we would need for the wedding. We got a great deal for my wife's wedding gown (RM1k for a quality gown); decided the themes of the wedding early so we could buy all the props early (spent about 3-4k on this). The benefit of doing all this early - as I had gotten used to saving for that 30k budget, I bought these items WITHOUT touching the 30k wedding budget. The same repeated itself when the dates got nearer; I somehow managed to buy the rings (about 3k++ for all 3 rings, was lucky - the diamond stones were a family gift), photographer (3k++), angpows (can't remember), and etc. costs WITHOUT again touching the 30k wedding budget.

Also because we planned carefully; we chose a wedding dinner that was (at my calculation) very affordable (about RM700 per table) but at the same time; not appearing to be "cheap". We were lucky that the angpow collection from the wedding dinner covered the entire cost of the dinner; plus minus abit here and there.

So; now we were left with a 30k surplus that became our honeymoon budget instead (we had no plans for honeymoon as we were relocating and $$$ was very tight still). Also; our $$$ gifts from our families were put into some investment funds as well (to be used as the kids' future study funds). As I had been used to saving $$$ by now; I just allocated $$$ from each month (that was to go to the previously-wedding budget) into a new fund for the honeymoon. In the end, we went for the honeymoon trip (that was more like a backpacking trip) without touching the honeymoon budget. So; the 30k now ended up as our 2nd honeymoon budget/kids budget.

Sorry for the long-winded post. My point is this; start early and with a focused goal and a clear target. Then devote yourself to it with the right mindset and discipline. Make the hard decisions/costs EARLY and do not POSTPONE your $$$-decisions (especially by taking loans). It'll be scary and daunting (all change is at the beginning); but if you're FOCUSED, you'll get used to it.

Good luck.

This post has been edited by glozz: Nov 4 2014, 04:59 PM