Weddingbee Blog

“Mo’ money, mo’ problems.” - Notorious B.I.G

Moolah. Skrilla. Coin. Bread. Cash.

Today, bees, we’re talking money, budgets…and how the Ostriches are saving and spending ours.

Alright, let’s break it down.

Mr. Ostrich and I are paying for our wedding, 100%. This has always been the plan, as asking our parents to fork out that much cash was something we didn’t have the heart to ask them to do. Money and stress and family, in my past experiences, can lead to mad drama—and we’re a drama-free kind of couple, ya know?

So how are we paying for this bad boy?

THE OSTRICH BUDGET & BUDGET BUFFER:

First, when we got engaged, we wrote down a number of how much we ideally felt we could afford, based on our current savings and how much we could put away for 18 months. We also had a strict NO LOAN rule: no debt would be accumulated for this beach celebration!

Our magic number?? Dum-da-dum-dum…$30k.

Then, I added $20k to it.

Wait, whaaat?!?!

Why did I add $20k?? Because I’m insane? Nope, it’s our “Budget Buffer.” From talking to my past bride pals, all of them passed along this same advice, only they said, “Add $10k to your budget, just in case.” What’s this buffer for? Last minute things coming in more that you expected, last minute guests attending, overtime for your photographer or videographer, extra tips for your vendors, extra wedding party and family gifts, and allll that small stuff that snowballs into a big scary number. And being the worst case scenario freak that I am, I added a buffer to our buffer, just in case. And this became the magic number we were aiming to save for.

ON SAVING:

Next, we set up our paychecks so that 20% went to a special money market account, just for the wedding. That amount was a nice chunk of change every month and the interest rates were better than our standard savings account. Plus, this money market account didn’t have an ATM card (we asked not to have one) so we couldn’t cave and pull cash if we wanted to get fancy. In addition, I calculated the annual bonus amounts I’d receive and claimed them for the wedding (sorry fancy shoes and dreamy beach getaway—maybe next year!). Oh, and those sparkly tax returns! Yep, those went to the wedding piggy bank too. And finally, we had some money already sitting in a few stocks that we new we wanted to liquidate for the wedding.

Now, we had to spend 20% less in our everyday life. No sweat, right?

THE SIMPLE LIFE:

Like many of you budget bees, Mr. Ostrich and I quickly eliminated the easy but money sucking stuff: clothes shopping (tear), expensive restaurants, taxis, fancy coffee drinks and our dog walker. Those alone saved us a ton each month!

We could’ve decided to go into full hibernation mode, not going out at all, but social interaction with our friends and family is healthy. We still had date nights. We still watched movies. We still go to the gym. We also decided not to cut our travel, but opted to fund them with miles instead. These were things that were still important to us, wedding or not. They were our food for the soul.

There are also a ton of programs that can help you track your spending and alert you when you’ve gone overboard: Mint.com is one that we have but don’t use religiously. They just email us weekly summaries which we quickly scan to make sure we’re in check. But for the most part, by allocating our wedding $$ to a separate account, we knew that the rest of our cash in our checking accounts were for bills and living. There was nothing left after that.

And we were doing really really well…until the SF Giants made it to the playoffs.

Mr. O and I are the BIGGEST baseball fans you’ll ever meet…and the fact that our Giants had a shot at the World Series was something we’ve been dreaming of our entire lifetime. The tickets for the NLCS were outrageous…until I found some kind soul on Craigslist selling a pair of amazing seats for under face value. The same thing happened when the World Series came around. And what did we do??

We went. Didn’t blink an eye and it was one of the best experiences of our lives. Yes, it was beyond what we had budgeted for our everyday expenses, but in the end, we made it work. We didn’t go to movies for a while, we ate really cheap meals, saved a little more here and it all evened out.

SPEND THAT CASH!:

For our wedding budget, we have a simple Excel spreadsheet with our vendors, attire, decor and everything in between, a column for “amount paid” and a column for “amount owed.” then, it totals at the bottom so we can keep an eye on that magic number. Google has also launched a fabulous wedding site that has spreadsheets galore for your to do list, budget, RSVP-ing needs.

(source)

Out of everything we’ve been spending, decor has been the hardest to keep under control, mainly because there are soooo many small things (tissue paper! craft punches! glitter! drink stirrers! ribbon! stamps!) that may be cheap individually but snowball into a frightening number in the end. I know this is where I’ve blown out budget (like, crazy over budget)… it’s the only place. *hangs head* But at least I know I can sell anything left over and reclaim some of the funds back.

WORDS OF WISDOM FOR THE SELF FUNDING BRIDES:

Take a look at your finances together and use the wedding budget buffer! And saving is important, but so is enjoying your life together—so try and keep a few of the activities the two of you love doing.

What’s your wedding magic number? Are you a self-funding couple, and if so, how are you saving for your day?