Prepare for the wedding much ahead

Question: I am engaged and all the excitement and extravagance of last weekend's royal wedding has made me think about the costs involved in staging a wedding and setting up home together. My fiancé and I are currently saving for the big day but we haven't sat down yet and discussed our finances as a married couple. What is your advice?

Watching the pomp and ceremony of UK's royal wedding would make any engaged couple feel nervous about the costs of their upcoming nuptials.

However, even Wills and Kate would have stuck to a budget, and this is what you need to do to. The most important thing you can do is sit down with your husband-to-be and work out how much you can spend on your wedding.

Look at how much you have already saved and then assess how much you can reasonably add through savings and donations from your families. Whatever the total this is your budget and however hard it is you must try to stick to it because starting a marriage in financial difficulties will add strain to the relationship.

You then need to cost up your wedding, not forgetting small but important details such as the invitations, flowers and transport.

Hopefully the total will fall within your budget. If it doesn't then you will need to downscale your ideas to something that better suits your means.

As part of your arrangements for wedding preparations it is advisable to see an independent financial adviser who can help you plan for your financial future.

The most important product to invest in is life insurance — it may seem a little morbid to be thinking about your deaths when you are only just getting married, but life insurance is key to making sure that if anything happens to you or your spouse — death, terminal illness or critical illness — then there is an insurance payout that will secure your family home and offer financial stability to your children.

To be simplistic, you could say there are two types of life insurance. ‘Term Insurance', which refers to a selected period of insurance that results in a lump sum of money being paid out by the insurer — this is perhaps the simplest and cheapest kind of life insurance and is the best option for those who are young and just starting off in life.

‘Whole Life' or ‘Whole of Life' insurance lasts as long as you live and as long as you continue to pay your premium payments. This kind of insurance is seen as an ‘investment' because policyholders can use it as a cash fund to take care of short-term financial needs, as you can borrow against it i.e. the policy as long as the premiums continue to be paid.

When calculating how much life insurance you need there are numerous questions you must answer, and you need to be completely honest with yourself.

The insurance company will take your age, gender, health, weight, occupation and lifestyle into account but you will also need to answer questions such as: How much do I want to spend on funeral expenses? How much annual income would my husband be able to compensate for if I died? What debt do I need to repay? What assets could I sell to make up the loss of income? What is the total cost of our living expenses each month?

Answering these questions is sure to make you and your fiancé really think about the future ahead in financial terms and should assist in making this aspect of your life together less stressful and more secure.

The writer is Director - General Insurance, Nexus Insurance Brokers LLC. Opinion expressed are his own and do not reflect that of Gulf News. If you have any question, please email to advice@gulfnews.com