Here’s a fairly standard scenario: Girl meets boy, boy likes girl and an engagement quickly ensues. Mazel tov, mazel tov! They rush home to greet the two groups of family members and friends awaiting their arrival. L’chaims are raised and toasted, and best wishes for a happy marriage are offered.
In reality, what should really be offered are best wishes for a happy engagement. Engagements are tough. There are all these decisions to make vis-à-vis the wedding hall and arrangements, custom gowns or rentals, real flowers or fake. While dealing with all this there is also real life – including jobs and/or school and the pressing need to have a place to come home to after the wedding.
How to set up an apartment for newlyweds is not a small matter. It is loaded with just as much unrealistic expectations and hopeful fantasy as any other part of the long dreamed-about perfect wedding. Who hasn’t dreamed about the beautiful, elegant home she can call her own but winds up in a damp basement apartment sleeping on second-hand mattresses and storing her clothes in cardboard boxes?
Although that scenario is extreme, it does still happen. What’s more common, however, is for couples to either go through any savings they have or rely on their parents to find them apartments and fill it with expensive furniture and useless dishes they don’t really need or want.
To avoid all this waste and unnecessary anxiety, let’s break the task down step by step and tackle each one at a time.
The first and most pressing question is deciding where the happy couple will live. If the answer is Israel, one, I’m deeply jealous, and two, the next question will be: Who is finding the apartment? If the answer is both of you, excellent! Look for an apartment that is clean, with at least one good closet, two windows, adequate light and a rental agreement that is not more than 30 percent of your total take home pay. If the answer is the future husband, I would advise that he bring along a female for a second opinion. All too often, the happy couple arrives in Israel only to find themselves in need of a new apartment right away because the new wife cannot live in a storage unit with mold.
If the happy couple decides to move to any of the major cities in the United States, the apartment search must begin right away. Quality apartments can be hard to find in typical Jewish neighborhoods, and if you push off the search until the month before the wedding, you might find yourself without any decent options. Create a list of must-haves and one of what you are not so particular about. Some people can’t live without a balcony or patio, but can live with a four-floor walkup, while others cannot live with wall-to-wall carpeting but don’t mind having a fridge in the dining area. Be careful not to give up a well-lit, airy apartment that is available too soon. Sometimes, that quality of apartment won’t be available exactly when you want it. Instead of worrying about spending the extra money on rent, see if one of the two of you can move in earlier, giving yourself the extra time to set it up, sub-lease it, or perhaps negotiate a lower rental rate for the time that you will be waiting to move in. As a welcoming place to come home to is so important, I would strongly encourage renting the right apartment once you find it, instead of waiting until it gets closer to the wedding.
Now that you have the apartment, you are going to have to furnish it with at least a couple of mattresses and somewhere to sit. While once I would have encouraged clients to buy items second-hand on Craig’s List or eBay, with the advent of bedbugs, I would very strongly avoid those sites. Instead, spend some time searching for-sale or slightly damaged items at reputable furniture stores that are willing to exchange your furniture if there is something terribly wrong with it. In addition, salespeople will very often sell you a floor sample at a greatly reduced price. Of course, the best way to minimize waste is to consider doing with as little furniture as possible to begin and then, once you are married for a few months, reconsider what is truly necessary. Sometimes furniture can be at a very reduced price due to its oversized bulkiness or awkward shape. However, avoid buying any furniture that will be difficult to move to another location. Remember, unless you are buying this apartment, you will have to move eventually, and the more things you have, the more expensive and stressful the next move will be. I have one friend who had to give away all of her things before a move to South Africa. Another friend had to put her beautiful green marble and wood bedroom set into storage, as it didn’t fit into the bedroom of the condo she bought. Anyone moving to Israel or another foreign locale in the near future should avoid purchasing electric appliances, such as KitchenAids and blenders, which will not work there.
In Part II we will focus on the next big project: buying the home goods that will turn an apartment into a home.