Weddingbee Blog

Bees, let me fill you in on a little something that plays a big part in our wedding planning that I don’t think is bothering many other brides—exchange rates.

We all scrimp and save to pay for the wedding of our dreams. The wedding we can afford…or can’t afford. Everyone has their own reasons for how they spend their money, but I feel like my American counterparts planning their weddings in the States can be slightly more relaxed. They work, they plan, they budget, and they buy. All in U.S. dollars. It’s relatively simple.

Mr. Funnel Cake and I, on the other hand, are working and earning Swiss francs, while paying for many of our wedding costs in U.S. dollars. This presents a few problems, namely international bank transfer fees, import/export fees, unstable exchange rates, and the general unavailability of funds.

Article via The Wall Street Journal

Article via TradingPoint

Both of these articles specifically mention the exchange rate between the U.S. and Switzerland at the moment, which is at a record high. One U.S. dollar gets you a mere 0.86 Swiss rappen. My dollar is SINKING. Isn’t anyone else freaking out about this?? No? Figures. It’s really easy not to when everything you do is in dollars/one single currency. There’s no comparison to show you what you’re getting for your money. You buy a loaf of bread and that’s that. If I were in the U.S., I probably wouldn’t care at all about the exchange rate.

Since I am the American in our relationship, I hold the U.S. bank accounts. (Look who wears the pants now!) Mr. FC hasn’t had a reason to get U.S. accounts yet because he’s always lived in Switzerland. Any time we have large costs to pay for like my dress, booking our photographer, booking honeymoon reservations, etc., it’s a royal pain figuring out whether my lonely U.S. account still has enough money to cover the cost. Usually I keep next to nothing in the account, so we are constantly debating about when is a good time to transfer over a significant amount of funds to the U.S. to pay for our wedding costs.

The exchange rate is very much in our favour right now; however, we just aren’t sure if it’s going to drop even lower. So we ask ourselves, “Is now a good time?”, “How much should we transfer over to make the bank fees worth it?”, “What do you think—should we wait?”, and in the end we drag our feet and do nothing. Laaazy.

Image via Walldesk

I feel stressed thinking about when to put our money in the U.S. accounts. It genuinely worries me, displacing the money from our Swiss accounts, because then it’s not available here…where it’s secure. Even if other couples are planning a honeymoon in Mexico or Europe or a destination wedding in the Bahamas, I feel like they at least are sure of the format and means of their money supply. These cross-continental accounts just make me feel a bit like I’m dipping one foot in each pool and the temperatures don’t match.

Do exchange rates and currency stability cause you anxiety in your planning as well? Who’s with me on a “Down with international wire fees!” campaign? Anyone?