Prologue 

Living in the grey; not because it’s dull or sad by the way, but because it’s in the middle, never defined and terribly confusing. 

 

This will be a series of posts relating to two things; firstly, being a newly married human and secondly about life in a new house with a new family because yes, I moved from my family-home into my in-laws house. 

NOTE: my in-laws are lovely human beings, they are kind and generous people and I love them dearly. These posts are not to vent about them in any way, but purely to relay and unpick my own insecurities and stupid moments which I have learnt from #growing.

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So, should we split the salaami?

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Yeah you may have lost me at this point; a salaami is basically what we (of generally Pakistani/Muslim origin) refer to as the money that is given to the bride and groom by wedding guests. Seems pretty normal, but no one ever talks about how the money is managed; and yes there does need to be a conversation, because it’s vast amounts of cash that’s just lying there after you have had your cutsie card opening moment. 

 

So who is going to put it into their account? Do we split it? Does it go into savings? Is now the time we open a joint account? Do we want a joint account? (Mum said don’t get a joint account-why?)  These questions are still pretty kosher… so let’s crank it up; we did two events (separately hosted by our own families - also a cultural norm) so the amounts differ, do we pool it all together and just go halves? Does one person actually need the money right now? Do we still need to pay for wedding related things? Do we owe anybody? What about our parents? In our case, they contributed heavily to our wedding, do we give it all to them?

 

In the end, we ended up using some to spend on our honeymoon, we kept it separate, so I kept whatever was given at the event my family hosted and he kept his. A major chunk of mine went back to my parents, and the rest into savings. He used all of his to keep himself afloat for the next couple of months because he wasn’t working at the time (it’s a whole other story).

 

I could have really used some steers on this or just knowing that others too had this conversation about a very large sum of money days after the wedding. Because money conversations always bring with them a slightly uncomfortable air. We always associate the post wedding period to be all romantic and cute but it consists of a lot of practicalities that need to be dealt with quickly which no one really talks about (or maybe I am just unaware- feel free to point me to stuff).