Brazilian Weddings Ran 22% Over Budget in 2026 — and the Honeymoon Got Cut First

The news

On October 16, the Brazilian financial outlet Valor Investe reported the third edition of a survey by the wedding platform Casar.com and the credit bureau Serasa. It heard from 628 people who got married in Brazil between January and August 2026. On average, couples planned to spend R$45,800 and ended up spending about R$56,200 — more than 22% over budget. 42.2% said they went past the budget they had set.

The most common way out was cutting the trip: 62.5% of couples reduced or gave up their honeymoon to avoid starting married life in default. Half (50.8%) used some kind of extra credit, like a higher card limit or installment payments, and 52.2% received financial help from family. Even so, 68.2% managed to pay for the celebration without going into debt.

One number stopped me: among those who went heavily into debt to pay for the wedding, 28.6% regret what they spent. Among those who didn’t borrow, only 7.2% do.

An honest caveat: this is a survey from a wedding website and a credit company, with a small sample that isn’t necessarily representative of the country. It’s not official census data. But anyone who has done premarital counseling, in Brazil or in the United States, will recognize the picture immediately.

The party lasts one night. The marriage doesn’t.

Let me say this up front: I’m not against wedding parties. The first of Jesus’ signs happened at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-11). He didn’t stand at the door complaining about the price of the wine. He came in, celebrated, and even saved the party when the wine ran out. Celebrating a covenant before God and the people you love is beautiful, biblical and healthy.

The problem isn’t the party. The problem is when the party becomes the project and the marriage becomes the detail.

Look at what the survey describes. The budget blows up, and what gets cut first? Not the decorations, not the catering, not the guest list. The honeymoon — the only line item that belongs to just the two of them. It’s time alone, with no audience, to start building the intimacy that will carry the next forty years.

I’m not judging couples who skipped the trip to stay out of debt. That was a responsible decision. But the question remains: why did the part made for the guests stay untouchable, while the part made for the couple was the first to go?

Counting the cost is biblical

Jesus used a very practical picture when He talked about the cost of following Him:

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?” (Luke 14:28, NIV)

The context there is discipleship, not wedding budgets. But the principle holds: whoever starts building without sitting down to do the math becomes a joke halfway through the project. And marriage is a long building project.

When 42% of couples go over budget, that tells me less about money and more about conversation. Many engaged couples never truly sat down to answer: “What matters to us — not to my mom, not to Instagram, not to the wedding party?” The couple’s first big financial decision ends up being made under pressure, with everyone holding the spreadsheet except the two of them.

And Scripture is blunt about what comes next:

“The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7, NIV)

Starting a marriage in debt means starting your marriage serving someone who isn’t your spouse. The 28.6% who regret it aren’t only regretting money. It’s the weight of opening the credit card bill in the first months of marriage and remembering a night that’s already over.

About help from family

More than half of the couples got financial help from their parents. That can be a huge blessing — a supportive family is a gift from God. But I always ask engaged couples one question: does this help come with strings attached?

“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24, NIV)

Leaving father and mother doesn’t mean cutting them off. It means shifting your primary loyalty. When parents pay for the wedding “their way,” sometimes a couple begins married life already feeling they owe someone an explanation. Accepting help is wonderful. Accepting control disguised as help is planting conflict for your first year of marriage. If family is going to help, agree beforehand — the two of you together — on what that means and what it doesn’t.

What I’d tell an engaged couple today

I’m not a financial advisor, and this isn’t financial advice. It’s counsel from someone who walks alongside couples in crisis and often sees money as the visible tip of a deeper problem of priorities and communication. So, pastor to engaged couples:

1. Decide together what’s non-negotiable. Before any budget, each of you writes down three things that matter on the wedding day. Compare. Whatever you share goes into the budget first.

2. Put the marriage ahead of the party in the budget. Set aside what belongs to the couple first: the start of your life together, a honeymoon (even a simple one), a cushion for the first months. The party adjusts to what’s left, not the other way around.

3. Plan with margin. If the survey shows average overruns above 20%, build that in from the start.

4. Talk about debt before taking any on. Installments feel light the day you sign and heavy the day they arrive. If you must borrow, let it be a conscious decision by both of you, not a last-minute push.

5. Invest in preparing for the marriage, not just the event. Premarital counseling, hard conversations about money, kids, family and faith. None of it shows up in the photos, but it shows up in every year that follows.

The question that matters

I was once the problem in my own marriage. And I learned the hard way that no party, however beautiful, can hold up a house built without a foundation. What holds it up is Christ at the center and two hearts that decide, every day, to choose each other. Trust is rebuilt brick by brick — and it’s built that way from the very beginning, too.

“By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established.” (Proverbs 24:3, NIV)

So if you’re engaged, or newly married and still paying off the party, don’t panic and don’t drown in guilt. Sit down together, put everything on the table and pray about it. The party has passed or soon will. The marriage is for life — and it deserves more attention than the decorations.

If you want more honest, Christ-centered conversations about marriage, follow Ricardo Martins and Vanessa Lima — O Casal Legendário — on YouTube and on Instagram at @ocasallegendario.