Mortgage loan officers dealing with couples who may be looking to tie the knot and are getting into the homebuying process might offer this practical suggestion: skip the wedding registry and ask for money to help boost your down payment.
It seems more newlyweds are doing exactly that. Among homeowners married in the past two years who made a down payment, nearly half, 48%, requested money to help pay for their down payment instead of wedding gifts, according to a new survey from LendingTree, an online marketplace that connects potential borrowers with lenders offering various financial products like mortgages and personal loans.
The online survey of 1,050 U.S. newlyweds ages 18 to 79 was conducted from March 12 to 19, 2025, in an effort to gauge how couples balance homebuying and (expensive) wedding planning. The high typical costs of throwing a marriage and reception can put a kink in couples’ plans to buy homes.
Indeed, the survey found that more than one out of three, 35%, of respondent newlywed homeowners say their wedding delayed homebuying plans. Just slightly more, 36%, say they put down less of a down payment due to their nuptials.
"People want helpful wedding presents that they'll actually use, rather than ones that will just be stashed away in a closet. Life's just too expensive in 2025 to waste money on things that don't matter, especially if you're a young newlywed,” noted LendingTree's Chief Consumer Finance Analyst Matt Schulz.
Steeper ask
The simple fact is that it is more difficult to purchase a home in the United States these days, cost-wise. According to Fannie Mae’s Home Price Index, U.S. home prices rose an average of 10.2% in 2020, 18.3% in 2021, 7.8% in 2022, 5.5% in 2023, and 5.8% in 2024. Working that out, it means a typical U.S. home that cost $300,000 in 2019 now carries a sticker of nearly $470,600.
So if potential homebuyers are looking to put down 20%, they would have needed $60,000 six years ago but now require a whopping $94,000 today — for the very same house.
In the LendingTree survey, a sizable majority approaching two out of three (59%) of newlywed homeowners who made a down payment say they spent more on that than they did on their wedding, which can easily run up a bill in the multiple tens of thousands of dollars. And, more than half of survey respondents, 52%, say they had a smaller wedding to help afford a bigger home — or perhaps make that home purchase at all.
“Many people are skipping asking for fancy dishes and silverware and instead requesting cold, hard cash for a mortgage down payment or other financial goals,” LendingTree’s Schulz said. “Practicality and frugality are in; excessive formality and overspending definitely are not."
While saying that big “I do” is widely known to be a potential stressor, given all the planning and pressure couples go through, apparently buying a home is even worse. According to the LendingTree survey, more than one out of three, 36%, of newlywed homeowners say they found buying a home more stressful than getting married, while 33% say wedding planning was more stressful.
However, with weddings, some things, perhaps, are still to be expected. When asked which process, wedding or homebuying, caused more arguments, more respondents — 36% — said wedding planning did.
