Child Marriage Savings Calculator & Corpus Building Guide
Reviewed by Tushar Sharma & Vaishali Sharma, Co-Founder, SafeRaho
Published 20 April 2026 · Updated 12 July 2026
Calculating Your Child's Marriage Corpus
Wedding costs in India have been rising at roughly 8-10% annually — well above general CPI inflation of around 6%, driven by venue/catering costs tracking hospitality-sector inflation and gold jewelry (a large share of most wedding budgets) averaging even higher (Hero FinCorp). Here's a step-by-step framework to calculate your investment target.
Most parents get stuck at exactly the step you'd expect: estimating "today's cost" in Step 1. It's tempting to lowball it to make the monthly SIP number look more comfortable, but that just moves the shortfall to the day it actually matters — when the real bills arrive at 2026 prices with no time left to catch up. The framework below is deliberately literal and table-driven for that reason: run your own numbers honestly at each step rather than working backward from a monthly SIP amount you'd prefer to pay.
Step 1: Estimate Today's Wedding Cost
Consider the key expenses:
| Expense Category | Typical Range (Urban India) |
|---|---|
| Venue & Decoration | ₹5-15 Lakh |
| Catering | ₹3-10 Lakh |
| Jewelry | ₹5-25 Lakh |
| Outfits & Styling | ₹2-5 Lakh |
| Photography & Entertainment | ₹1-3 Lakh |
| Other (Transport, Gifts, etc.) | ₹2-5 Lakh |
| Total | ₹18-63 Lakh |
Step 2: Project Future Cost
| Child's Age Today | Years to Marriage (at age 25) | Cost Multiplier (8% Inflation) | Today's ₹25 Lakh Wedding → Future Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 (Newborn) | 25 years | 6.85× | ₹1.71 Cr |
| 5 | 20 years | 4.66× | ₹1.17 Cr |
| 10 | 15 years | 3.17× | ₹79 Lakh |
Step 3: Calculate Monthly Investment Required
| Goal Corpus | Child's Age | Monthly SIP (12% Returns) | Monthly SIP (10% Returns) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ₹50 Lakh | 0 | ₹2,200 | ₹4,200 |
| ₹1 Cr | 0 | ₹4,400 | ₹8,400 |
| ₹1 Cr | 5 | ₹9,500 | ₹15,000 |
| ₹1.5 Cr | 0 | ₹6,600 | ₹12,600 |
| ₹2 Cr | 0 | ₹8,800 | ₹16,800 |
Step 4: Choose Your Investment Mix
| Child's Age | Equity % | Debt % | Gold % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-10 years | 70% | 15% | 15% |
| 10-15 years | 50% | 35% | 15% |
| 15-20 years | 30% | 55% | 15% |
| 20-25 years | 15% | 70% | 15% |
Step 5: Review and Adjust
- Annual review: Check if you're on track
- Goal adjustment: Update corpus target as wedding inflation changes
- Top-up when possible: Increase SIP when you get a raise
This is the step most plans quietly fail at — not because the math was wrong at the start, but because nobody checked it again for eight years. An annual review takes 20 minutes: compare your actual corpus to where the projection said you should be, and if you're behind, decide now whether that means increasing the SIP, extending the timeline slightly, or trimming the target cost — while you still have years to course-correct, instead of discovering the gap the year before the wedding.
Sample Plan: Newborn, ₹1 Cr Goal
| Year | Child's Age | Monthly SIP | Corpus at Year End |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | ₹5,000 | ₹63,000 |
| 5 | 5 | ₹5,000 | ₹4.1 Lakh |
| 10 | 10 | ₹6,000 (step-up) | ₹11.8 Lakh |
| 15 | 15 | ₹7,500 (step-up) | ₹28.5 Lakh |
| 20 | 20 | ₹9,000 (step-up) | ₹56.2 Lakh |
| 25 | 25 | — | ₹1.02 Cr |
Use Saferaho's Tools
For a personalized calculation, use our free Child Marriage Corpus Calculator or speak with a Saferaho advisor. We can help you model different scenarios and create a customized marriage corpus plan.
Important Reminders
- Start as early as possible — even small amounts compound significantly
- Don't use your emergency fund or retirement savings for marriage goals
- Consider a term plan on your life to protect the goal
- Review the plan annually and adjust for changing costs
The reminder about not raiding retirement savings deserves a second look, because it's the mistake advisors see most often when a wedding date arrives faster than expected. Retirement corpora and marriage corpora look interchangeable on a spreadsheet — they're both "just money" — but they're not interchangeable in practice: you can push back retirement plans or continue working a few extra years if the corpus falls short, but you generally can't push back a wedding once dates are set with the other family. Keeping the two funds structurally separate, even if it means a smaller retirement contribution some years, protects both goals from quietly cannibalizing each other under pressure.
Summary
| Step | Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Estimate current wedding cost |
| 2 | Apply inflation to get future cost |
| 3 | Determine required monthly SIP |
| 4 | Choose asset allocation |
| 5 | Start investing and review yearly |
Related Reading
- Best Investment Plans for Child Marriage in India 2026
- Gold Investment for Child Marriage: SGB vs ETF vs Physical Gold
- Long-Term SIP Strategy for Child Marriage Corpus Building
- Browse the full Child Marriage Investments guide
- Plan your numbers with our free Child Marriage Corpus Calculator
- Model your SIP growth separately with our free SIP Calculator