One topic brides, single ladies, and the long-time married can talk about is money. No matter how hard we work, we always seem to never have enough. Budgeting for a wedding tends to put a pinch on the purse-strings. Mac and I decided that we would pay for our own wedding. We’re adults and employed full time. We didn’t want to put the burden of our wedding costs onto our parents. Both sets of parents have generously offered financial assistance.
Another [extremely selfish] reason for paying for our own wedding was decision independence. Generally, the parents have a say in the decisions they are funding. Example: the bride’s parents are paying for the venue and food, so they get a vote in picking places and caterers. The groom’s parents are paying for the rehearsal, so they pick the restaurant. I’m a bit of a control freak, and paying our own way allows us the final say. Granted, we have taken our parents’ opinions into account on various occasions.
I recently signed up for www.mint.com. This website is a FREE resource to help track and manage your finances. It’s owned by Turbo Tax. Basically, it provides a dashboard to view all of your money accounts (banks, credit cards, loans, and all that jazz) at one time. It works really well for me because I have student loans spread across several lendors. You can organize your expenses to see where you can budget better or just to see how you spend money. If you’re a Starbucks fan, how much money do you spend on your venti, non-fat, skim, light foam mocha-frappucino? It does give some budget suggestions based on your income (or whatever money is added to your accounts). I plan to use it more once we stop wedding spending; I really don’t need to have a constant reminder about the cost of a wedding.
How have y’all been budgeting for wedding costs?
