Marriage or Mortgage Makes Couples Choose Between a Dream Wedding or Home

We all know the age-old question: spend money on a wedding or buy a house? Both expensive, but both priceless—so what do you choose? Netflix's newest show, Marriage or Mortgage, poses this exact question to real-life couples rolling on a budget.

Available for your viewing pleasure on March 10, the series (comparable to HGTV’s Love It or List It) shows wedding planner Sarah Miller plan a couple's dream wedding while real estate agent Nichole Holmes finds their dream home— then the couple has to choose between the two. Miller and Holmes fight for each couple's business in each episode, but for Miller, choosing the wedding is always the right decision.

“I believe in weddings, I really do,” she tells Brides. "I think it's just a smart decision. I really just believe in the traditional part of your life—I feel like a lot of people are forgetting about that nowadays, and having a wedding that starts your marriage and your future together, I just feel is super important. It makes you stronger just to kind of have that.”

Each episode will focus on one engaged couple’s journey as they decide whether to throw their dream wedding or put a deposit down on their dream home. Miller will lead them through the world of wedding planning by visiting different venues, taste-testing food and cake, shopping for the perfect dress, and more to prepare for what would be one of the biggest days of their lives. At the same time, Holmes takes the couples on house tours and paints a picture of how their life would look in their new home.

Sure, buying a home is a great investment, but Miller thinks that a wedding is truly priceless. And knowing from her own experience, she would always choose the wedding.

“I would never change my mind,” she shares. “I would never get back what I got out of my wedding, what my husband and I got out of it, what our families got out of it. We really did just create this stepping stone to just a happy relationship, and we love looking back on it and our friends love looking back at it and our family does too, because there's so many fun moments and laughs, cries, all the emotions that you get that you never forget.”

And while this makes for an entertaining television show, Miller recognizes that this is a very real dilemma that many couples have to face. She tells Brides that she hopes more than anything viewers find a way to relate to these couples. “If they're having anxiety or questioning things, maybe they can get some of those questions answered from the show and make a better decision."

She also hopes the diverse cast of couples allows all couples watching the show to see themselves represented. “I feel like across the board, we have so many different households and families that they can relate to,” she explains. “You're gonna have same-sex marriages, biracial marriages, different age groups. Everybody has their own dilemma, their own lifestyle, their own beliefs.”

As for tips on planning your own dream wedding on a budget? Miller highly suggests hiring a wedding planner. “In the long run, it's going to save you so much time and money,” she admits. “Wedding planners are armed with strong vendors that can send you in the right directions. They can budget accordingly of what's important to you, but going into it without a wedding planner to guide you can honestly be more detrimental to your budget than anything.”

She adds, “We are not in this industry to make people broke, that's not what we're trying to do. We’re trying to make people happy and fulfill dreams. It’s all about dream fulfillment, and making sure that we're creating a once-in-a-lifetime experience for them.”

To see whether couples choose a lavish wedding or a gorgeous home, stream Marriage or Mortgage on Netflix on March 10.