What did you do with your wedding money?

[jeepgirl]

So, obviously DH and I have plenty of bills we could use our wedding money for, but we want to continue paying our bills with the money we earn at work. We feel like wedding money should go for something special as well as practical. We do want to get some of the things on our registry that we need and didn't get. But we want to be really careful too.

So far we've decided to:

Get the coffemaker DH has been wanting for a long time
The bread machine I wanted
buy gym memberships, complete with personal training
(DH worked out before the wedding and looks great, although I lost weight, I still want to tone up and get in better shape, we both want to stay in shape together)


There are a few things we need, but we've decided we're still going to hold off on. One is a tv (we only have a 20" tv and a large living room). The other is a bigger bed (we only have a full size). But we're limited in the money we got, and we figure we can live with the tv we have for now, and buy a bigger bed down the road (it would probably more than wipe out the fund we have, and we want to spread it out a bit).

But I'm looking for other ideas. Just curious as to how every one else chose to spend/keep theirs. We're all different, so no judgements here, just looking for examples/ideas!

[laura]

We bought furniture and saved the rest. We never did complete our registries - thank god, b/c we already have waaaaay too much kitchen stuff.

[Shapsgrl]

We put it all in a high-yield savings. Now that we own a house that we're renovating & furnishing, we're using it toward all of our house stuff. If there is anything left, we'll either save it or possibly use it toward our belated HM next spring.

[Fenway]

We opened our cards in the hotel after the wedding. We took the cash with us on our honeymoon for extra spending money.

We bought a few things from our registry, then saved the rest. We've been adding to that savings, and I think it will end up being used for furniture for our new house.

[lil_geek]

We used part to put towards paying for our honeymoon. and paid bills, and put the other half in savings and used it towards our 1 year anniversary trip to Italy! (no, it didn't cover the trip! But having a decent chunk in savings was encouragement enough to continue to add to it to pay for the trip)

[jen]

We rifled through the envelopes after our wedding and grabbed the cash to take on our honeymoon. The rest was deposited into our new joint checking account. Our honeymoon was mostly paid for, so this helped replenish what was spent for it.

[SweetRed]

We bought a few items off the registry and stuck the rest in a high-yield savings account. Later we used it as part of our downpayment on our house (not that it was all that much, but it helped!)

[karlatta]

We used it for a downpayment on a new car. My car was in such bad shape when we got married that I couldn't drive it in Houston traffic - it would overheat.

[AmandaLeigh]

We used some of it for our honeymoon. The rest is sitting in a savings account.

[villanelle75]

We bought a few things off the registry and the rest went in to savings. We bought a house about 3 months after our wedding and it came in very handy to have the cash for all the expenses that pop up when you move to a new place.

[Hello Kitty]

We saved it and then went on our belated honeymoon. It was awesome. I really like that we did something 'big' with it.

[maxandmolly]

You could always take your friends on a cruise.....

[PinkMartini]

We only got about $1500 in $$$ as wedding gifts - it went mainly to paying for our wedding.

[kimbyj]

We went on our HM two days after our wedding. So, we took $ on honeymoon and had my parents deposit the rest. Since we had 576 guests we had a lot of $. We used some to pay off bills and then saved the rest.

I suggest using it for a down payment on a house. If that is not in your plan now, spend a limited amount 5-10% and then keep the rest for an emergency (they say 6 months expenses should be in your account).

Congrats to you!

[NicoleWisconsin]

We put a new furnace and central air in our house.

[tlew12778]

We didn't get that much and since we had to leave for HM 2 days after the wedding, I basically used the cash to either pay off the various vendors or we took it on HM.

[miaclear]

We didn't get a whole lot. Mostly actual gifts. We took the cash on our honeymoon and saved the rest. Eventually that went to furniture and other random house stuff.

[Sashi]

We completely broke even on our wedding which was great since we paid for everything. While the money did get deposited, technically it was a wash. Good luck!

I would say, get the new bed (such a good investment!) and maybe save the rest!

[jeepgirl]

Thanks everyone for your responses! They've been really great. DH has even wanted me to read some of them to him out loud. Keep them coming!

Just wanted to comment on two of the posts for now:

You could always take your friends on a cruise.....

LOL! I wish! No, wait, I meant "you wish!" :p

We completely broke even on our wedding which was great since we paid for everything. While the money did get deposited, technically it was a wash. Good luck!

I would say, get the new bed (such a good investment!) and maybe save the rest!

I wish we could say ours was a wash!!! That's so great for you! Even though we did a budget wedding there's no way the gifts or money was going to be more. I knew this going into it. The wedding is really about the memories, and having family and friends come to show their emotional support.

The money we got was a bit over a thousand, so it really would not cover a bed. $300 of it had to go to a bill today, so that made us sad. :( But, sometimes, there's no way around it. We put what we could into savings today (which wasn't much, but we are thankful for every bit of it!!!) and are only going to take it out as we both decide, mutually, on what to spend it on for things we need. We only have a set of six dishes from my first apartment back in 1997, so I asked PG if we could get some dishes. He said yes. I was so hoping we would get our dishes, but not one person bought any off our registry. We can't afford the whole set I registered for, so I'm going to look into some cheaper alternatives.

[jimmysgirl424]

We spent every penny of it during our ten day honeymoon in Vegas. :p ( And it was pretty decent chunk of money; something over $4000 if I recall. Fun times!

[jeninef]

Into a money market and eventually it helped towards the down payment of our home.

[Natasha]

Most of it is going to pay bills, but we are using a little to buy a nice TV. We are both pretty excited about the decision. A 42" HDTV will be a HUGE improvement over the 10 year old 27 incher we have now! :D

[Weddings by]

We used ours to buy a vacuum cleaner and a video camera. We were really excited to have enough to do that because we got something necessary and something that we really wanted.

I think that people don't give money very often in this part of the country. At least not in my experience.

[MrsBeckyLP]

We paid off my car. Boring, I know, but I'm glad we did.

However, I really wish we had put it away for a while. We're building a house (and we knew at the time we got married that we would be), and I need new furniture (living room and dining room). I really wish we had just saved the money for those items. Now it looks like I may be putting our black leather furniture and Shopko table in the new house, at least for about six months. I didn't want to do that.

[coquelicot]

We could have done a lot more had we gotten the chunks of change that some of you all received, but I think our tally was around $800. We used it mostly to buy window coverings for our new home--namely, faux wood blinds. Whatever our gift cards didn't cover, some of the cash did. I think the rest of it went towards a queen-sized pillowtop mattress. I had inherited a bedroom suite, but no mattress.

I think around here, people are also more likely to give actual gifts instead of cash.

[am_81]

We used a small chunk of it (the cash) on the HM and the rest went straight into DH's bank account. We didnt separate it out from the rest of our money, but I'd say that we used the equivalent on setting ourselves up in our new apartment (we moved to a new country about a month before the wedding, but didnt move into our apartment until right before Xmas). Some of it was for furniture, but most of it was general house stuff (dishes, rugs, shower curtains, etc).

ETA -- Because of our moving situation, very few people got us actual gifts (we *did* register though). I'd say 90% of the people that gave a "gift," did it in $$$ form. We had our close friends put out the word and it worked very weell . . . especially considering the few gifts we received (unfortunately, all glassware) is collecting dust in my parents' spare bedroom.

[diam124]

We put it into savings and eventually used it for part of the down payment on our house.

[rachrich]

we purchased some of the items off our registry we didn't get as gifts, but really wanted. Then put the rest into savings.

[Kristy]

Bought a new big screen TV and new entertainment center, and the rest went into savings.

[kendriln]

Right now it's in a high-interest savings account and we're going to use half of it for the downpayment on the house we're buying and the other half is going to pay for our anniversary trip to Greece.

[Jewelz]

We bought a king size bed, redecorated our main bathroom, and bought frames for our wedding photos.

[maplekitty]

We bought our dinningroom set.

[looch]

We used a bit of it to buy a new flat screen tv, another bit to complete a small registry and the rest of it is in our savings account. We will use it for our anniversary trip to Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong next year. Whatever is left over will be added to our house down payment fund.

[Reenie]

We used it toward the down-payment for our house.

[emmasart]

We meant to put everything towards a down payment on our first home, but we ended up just taking the cash & using it on our honeymoon and depositing all the checks into our joint checking account & using it for regular expenses.