“When my first child was born, my husband wanted to set up a “college fund” that we would contribute to, on a small basis, every month.”
There are couples who did not have money and paid the cheapest hall caterer, for the cheapest wedding, on the morning after the wedding, with the cash gifts given by the guests the night before. They went home after the wedding to an apartment that had a set of mattresses and a table and some chairs.
You can make a wedding in the gym of a local shul and have some start-up musicians and a start-up photographer. Who cares?
My feeling is that money does not have to stand in the way of marriage.