Did you see the photograph of boxer Anthony Joshua and supermodel Naomi Campbell adorning the front page of most daily newspapers last week? The well-dressed pair were attending the wedding of Umar Kamani to his bride, Nada, a four-day affair at the Hotel du Cap Eden Park in the south of France.
The no-expense-spared celebrations comprised a white tie welcome party, two wedding ceremonies and guests being serenaded by artists including Ronan Keating, Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli.
Mr Kamani founded fast-fashion chain Pretty Little Things in 2012 after working for his father, co-founder of fashion house Boohoo, for six years. At the age of 36, Mr Kamani junior is said to be worth almost £800 million, so we must assume that the reported wedding cost of £20 million will not have caused him too many financial problems.
We appear to be living through a period of opulent wedding ceremonies. In November 2023, Madeleine Brockway and Jacob LaGrone tied the knot in Paris, an extravagant affair which cost a reported £47 million. In February, Radhika Merchant, son of Asia's richest man, married Arnant Ambani in a lavish ceremony costing an eye-watering £80 million; guests included Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, the king and queen of Bhutan and Ivanka Trump. At the same event, Rihanna gave a private concert which was understood to have cost £4.7 million.
The modern-day trend for opulence could be said to have begun in 2004 when steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal dropped £42.5 million on a 6-day wedding celebration for his son and bride, Amit Bhatia. More than 1,000 guests were flown in from all corners of the globe to enjoy the hospitality on offer at Versailles, an appropriate venue as the original palace was constructed to accommodate the luxurious lifestyle of Louis XIV. Mr Mittal even arranged for Kylie to perform for half an hour, a gig for which Australia's princess of pop was paid £260,000.
Few people can afford to contemplate such extravagance, preferring simpler affairs and using the cash earmarked for a big wedding as part of a deposit on a first property. None the less, according to a survey of 1,800 soon-to-be-married couples conducted earlier this year by hitched.com, the average cost of a wedding is now £20,700, an increase of almost 20% on what it was in 2021. Interestingly, more than 65% of couples spend over £15,000 on their big day.
Irrespective of how the funds are spent, be it on a long, flowing 'dream' wedding dress or, perhaps more prosaically, used to boost a deposit on a property, accessing a large lump sum can be considered an enormous challenge. Yet this does not have to be the case.
“Parents and grandparents often worry when faced with the prospect of having to fund, at least in part, 'big ticket' items for their children or other loved ones,” says Mark Gregory, Founder and CEO of Equity Release Supermarket, the UK's largest independent equity release advisory firm “All are invariably five-figure sums and a large proportion of folks tend not to have such sums knocking around and readily available,” adds Mr Gregory.
Fortunately, it's at moments like this that homeowners aged 55 and above can find themselves in a very fortunate position. An increasing number of older property owners have the option of releasing a percentage of the equity built up in their home. With the increasing flexibility of equity release mortgages, these funds can be taken in a variety of ways to suit to the future plans of the homeowner – whether a one-off lump sum, or a smaller initial amount with future drawdowns taken whenever the financial needs arise.
Not surprisingly, given the increasing frequency with which equity is now being accepted more as a mainstream mortgage, equity release is becoming a champion for providing solutions to later life financial planning.
How much you can withdraw from your bricks and mortar wealth depends upon several factors, including your age and the value of your property. As a rule of thumb, someone age 65, with a main residence valued at £380,000 could release up to approximately £139,000.
It's also worth noting that every penny released is tax-free, nor are there any reasonable restrictions on how you may spend the money. Furthermore, there is no contractual requirements to make monthly repayments, but there’s always the option to make flexibility voluntary payments, to help manage your future lifetime mortgage balance.
Equity release is a mortgage secured against your property with a 1st legal charge – the same as any residential mortgage in that respect. It enables you to access some of the money – ‘equity’ - that has built up within the value of your home over time.
The loan is repaid upon the surviving homeowners death, or when they are moved into long term residential care, whereupon the property is then sold. From the proceeds of sale, the lifetime mortgage is repaid with any surplus funds then passing into the individuals estate.
The mortgage can be repaid at any time, subject to potential early repayment charges and even transferred to another property, should you decide to move home in the future. Planning ahead is one this industry has innovated in greatly over the years.
We're frequently reminded that inflation is coming under control, but there's not much sign that the cost of some goods and are slowing. Among this clutch of rising expenses is the average cost of weddings – and that's before Anthony Joshua and Naomi Campbell are added to the guest list.
Indeed, if the cost of hiring Beyonce to sing at the wedding reception is a tad prohibitive, giving consideration to the equity release option could at least ensure you're able to book a good band, a lively disco or, should you experience an extravagant moment, both.
Why not use our live calculator to see how much you could release today?
