Marriage Assignment

This assignment requires you to work with a partner because, after all, marriage is a partnership (don’t worry if you have a same sex partner—this marriage will end in divorce anyway!). You have been engaged for 9 months and have decided to get married to your partner. All of the essential requirements are met and you are now legally able to apply for a marriage licence, have a marriage ceremony, and complete a prenuptial agreement.

Marriage Licence(5)

What is required to obtain a marriage licence in Manitoba?

Prenuptial Agreement

Assume that you have submitted your application and have been approved. You and your future spouse have decided to complete a prenuptial agreement to ensure your assets and property will be taken care of in case of a dissolution of the marriage.

From the above website,

  • list eight reasons you should get a prenuptial agreement (4)
  • reasons for your mate to agree to a prenuptial agreement (3)
  • what can and can’t be in a prenuptial agreement (4)
  • six costly myths about prenuptial agreements (3)
  1. Look at the prenup agreement found at Using the list of assets you have been given, create a table in Word and dividethe assets based on value and/or sentiment (these are the items that you do not wish to divide evenly). Print the list out showing what each of you would keep in the event of a break-up. (10)
  1. Over the years you plan to have ____ (fill this number in—it can’t be 0) children. (1)
  1. Each spouse (you and your partner) must choose a career or job that you will “pretend” youcurrently have. This should be a job that you are interested in pursuing inthe future. You can use this site or find one on your own but you need to indicate the source of your information.

List your occupations and salaries. (5)

Due Date:

Total Marks = 35

The wedding is just a day, but the marriage is a life…

Certified financial planner Ann Kolstad says couples have more than just the big day to consider when it comes to personal finances. Here are a few tips and considerations about sharing life and money: 1) Good communication: This is more than just talking about feelings. It’s discussing money honestly in advance of a union that will meld a couple’s finances, for better or for worse. “The last thing you want when you’re getting married are surprises down the road,” the Investors Group adviser says.
“You don’t want to spend $30,000 on a wedding only to find out later that your partner is already $60,000 in debt.”
2) Prioritize costs and financial goals: Setting out what’s important financially should go beyond choosing frugal floral arrangements. The wedding cost is important but just how important is it when measured against other financial goals?
“Usually, when people are getting married, they’re not just looking at the cost of the wedding,” she says. “They’re looking at the cost of buying a home.” They might also be looking at long-term plans like retirement and children’s education.
3) Consider protecting family assets: Pre-nuptial agreements are about as unromantic as it gets, but because many couples are getting married later in life, they often come into the union with substantial assets, some of which are shared with other family members. “If you’ve got a cottage coming into the marriage, you hate to think that it (the marriage) won’t last, but...”
she says.
4) Get professional help:
Bringing together two sets of finances can require some expertise, especially when considering wills, powers of attorney and living wills.
“Wills become null and void upon marriage, so make sure you know you need to change things,” Kolstad says. You also want to make sure the beneficiary is as it should be for pension plans and other assets.

Wedding BILLS
Wedding planners help keep happy couples on budget

WITH the proposal practically written in stone, Sarah Kyrylchuk had an offer she certainly wasn’t going to refuse.
“The Goldeyes have engraved bricks outside the ballpark and the money goes to charity, and my fiancé had a brick engraved that said ‘Will you marry me?’ on it,” says the 27-year-old promotions manager for the local ball club about how her groom-to-be, 33-yearold Jeff Wallace, popped the question last August.
All the pre-proposal jitters and clandestine scheming aside, that was likely the easiest question facing the Winnipeg couple about their impending wedding date this fall. The tough ones came almost immediately after she accepted: When do we get married?
Where do we get married? Who do we invite?
And likely most important, how much should we spend?
Like many couples planning marriages these days, love may be the raison d’être of their union, but that deep mutual affection for one another often comes with a hefty price tag — usually more than most couples anticipate.
“When you’re freshly engaged, you have no idea what these services actually cost,” Kyrylchuk says.
“Originally, we had a $20,000 budget and, within the first month, it went up to $25,000, and now, we’ve sort of levelled out at $30,000.”

Wedding
Continued from B11
Much of the cost will be borne by the couple themselves, who both are established in their careers. Another large chunk of coin for the cost has been covered by that Manitoba tradition — the social, which was attended by about 900 people. And their parents will chip in, too, she says.
Although working full-time has undoubtedly been a boon in helping them manage the cost of the wedding, it has left them short in another area: time. And when it comes to planning for a wedding, that old cliché certainly applies. Time is money.
“There’s so much work that goes into it and because like most people, we have never done this before, you don’t really know where to start,” Kyrylchuk says. “So basically, we hired a wedding planner to ease the stress of planning.”
Just a few years ago, wedding planners’ services were a luxury available only to well-to-do couples with $100,000-plus weddings.
But today, these event-planning specialists are an ever more popular choice even for Winnipeg couples willing to pay an expert a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to help their wedding plans come together with near flawlessness, says Tammy Ouellet, with Divine Weddings.
“When I first started, it wasn’t quite as popular,” says the planner with seven years’ experience. “Now there are quite a few wedding planners in the city, and we’re all busy.”
Most planners charge about 10 per cent of the total cost of a wedding, which generally run on average about $27,000 for full services. That includes booking venues, choosing and purchasing food, flowers and decor, and organizing all of the moving pieces on the big day.
But many also offer smaller packages such as “day of” and “month of” planning packages that can cost as little as $800 or at the high end, more than $2,000.
“As far as the wedding-planning trends go, a lot of people are getting ‘the day of’ package,” says Ouellet, whose most low-cost offering is the “month of” package.
“At least having someone there on the day of your wedding is good so you can sit back and enjoy the day and know that there’s a professional taking care of everything.”
While organization of the big day is the main reason many choose a planner, another plus is helping with the budget, she says.
“Usually, it’s kind of matching the vision to the budget, and I always tell them what they can get with their budget and that if they overspend in one area, they have to take money away from another to keep on budget.”
Among the most costly components to any wedding are food, flowers, venue and decor, but these costs can all be tweaked to suit a couple’s financial resources.
“There are the fixed costs, like the DJ, lighting and photographer,” she says. “No matter how many people you have at the wedding, whether you have 10 or 250, the cost of those is going be about the same.”
Many times, Ouellet says, she suggests clients adjust the vision to meet the budget by cutting guests or choosing less costly flowers or smaller centrepieces.
“If you want orchids and calla lilies, they’re more expensive so you have to do your research and make sure you’re not just pulling a random number out.”
Choosing a venue that isn’t downtown can also help keep a wedding within budget.
“Couples want to spend $25,000, but they’re having 350 people at a hotel in downtown Winnipeg,” she says, adding that’s likely going to run closer to $40,000.
Yet the demand for opulence and grandeur is more in vogue than ever, thanks the recent royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
And for those going for the gusto — no expense spared — it’s a good idea to plan ahead. That’s also a piece of advice many parents may want to take to heart long before their children are adults, says Ann Kolstad, director of financial planning with Investors Group on Waverley Street.
“As with any major milestone in life, you do need to plan for the financial aspects of these events or you will start out behind the eight ball,” says the certified financial planner.
While many couples foot the bill by themselves, Kolstad says a lot parents still have a big financial role to play, and the proactive savers prepare rather than take it unsuspectingly on the chin, often around the same time as they’re thinking about retirement.
Be it the betrothed or the parent of the betrothed, any old savings account will do to save for the big day, but if you’ve really planning ahead, the TFSA is best because money within the account grows tax-free.
“But if that TFSA is for retirement down the road when you can have a large sum of tax-free money available, don’t touch it,” she says.
“Set up another savings account.”
The bottom line, however, is to plan within your means, she says.
Kyrylchuk says she and her fiancé will be happy if they break even after their wedding.
Hindsight being crystal clear, she says having a little money saved — proposal writing on the wall or not — is prudent.
“Start saving now before you’re even engaged because to book the venues and the photographer, you will need immediate deposits.”
But more than anything, she says, it’s important not to lose sight of the fact the wedding day represents a life-long commitment.
“People have to step back away from all the frills and flowers and wedding shows,” she says. “They have to get away from the craziness and realize what is important.”

Winnipeg Free Press Saturday, May 21, 2011 B11-B12