Lily*, 32, is a construction standards manager who earns £48k a year. She lives in Wigan, Greater Manchester, with her dog and husband whom she married in December 2022, exactly three years after they went on their first date.
They got engaged on a beach in the Scottish Highlands in September 2021 and spent just over a year saving for their £18k barn wedding with 80 guests during the day and 120 at the reception. After the wedding, Lily and her husband went on a three-and-a-half week honeymoon to Vietnam, for which they saved just over £4k.
Having used Monzo for three and a half years, it wasn’t until she needed to save for her wedding that Lily started getting her wages paid into it and taking full advantage of Pots.
Lily had nine Pots – one for each aspect of the wedding, from the church and venue to dress alterations. Turning on roundups and locking her Pots helped the couple save as much as they could without having to sacrifice their daily lifestyle.
Here she explains how they did it.
“Wedding planning was overwhelming at the start”
Not only did having Monzo help us save, it also helped us see the size of our budget from the beginning because our money was in Pots. We knew exactly what we were spending from day one.
The wedding came to £18k and our honeymoon was just over £4k, some of which was paid for using the gift money we got on the wedding day. Using Monzo to save meant we had money left from the wedding, because Pots helped us manage our budget. We’ve spent it on doing up our house.
“We knew we wanted a relaxed wedding – we wanted it to be about everybody sharing the day with us”
Even though we had a traditional church wedding, there were elements that were informal and quite different. For example, I had green shoes rather than white, my partner wore a green suit and my bridesmaids wore leather jackets. We wanted something that represented both of us.
“Rather than having one wedding Pot, I had one for every aspect of the day”
We started wedding planning by making a spreadsheet with all the items on it and either how much we were potentially going to spend on them, or how much we knew we were going to spend.
Rather than having one Pot called ‘Wedding’, for me it made more sense to have a Pot for each supplier or aspect of the wedding. We set each Pot’s goal to the amount we needed to save and included when the money was due. I also locked each one until the day before we needed to pay people.
This meant I could open my hair and makeup Pot, for example, see I’d saved £390 and know how much more I needed to save – and in what timeframe – until I hit my goal. Looking at it in small manageable chunks made it seem a lot easier.
“I used nine Pots to organise save for every aspect of the wedding”
We used emojis for the Pot names and the venue and church Pot had an image of the venue as its custom image.
Venue and Church – the venue was a barn and working farm so we used the church and cow emojis ⛪🐄 Our roundups went into this Pot as it was the one with the biggest savings goal
Accommodation – I used the hotel emoji 🏨
Florist – I used the flower bouquet emoji 💐
Hair and makeup – I used the hairdresser and lipstick emojis 💇💄
Dress alterations – The ruler emoji 📏
Boys suits – The man in a tux emoji 🤵
Videographer – A movie reel emoji 📽️
Photographer – The camera emoji 📷
Vietnam honeymoon – This was the Vietnam flag emoji 🇻🇳
We also used a “Monzo me” link for people to pay money to us which went towards the honeymoon.
“A few months into saving I found out about Salary Sorter, which was life changing”
I already had Pots but I was manually putting money into each one, rather than letting Salary Sorter do it for me. Using Salary Sorter, a feature provided with every Monzo current account when you have your salary paid in, meant we didn’t need to think about how much money was going where.
The great thing with wedding planning is that you get quotes at the start, so you know exactly what you've got to pay. Other than the venue, each thing was about £1,500 or less and we knew we had about a year to save. We broke each one down into 12 equal monthly payments.
“The biggest saving was my dress – it should have been £1,500 but I got it for £360”
I fell in love with a discontinued dress and found a sample. I had to buy it sight unseen – I tried it on in a different shop but I had to pay for it and then they posted it to me. It could have been a disaster but it worked out well. My bridesmaid dresses were also a bargain at just £40 each and my girls looked amazing.
Because we saved money on my dress, we got a photographer and videographer which we didn't plan to do. We also ended up spending more on flowers than I planned. Originally, I was just going to get them from Etsy, but then I decided to get a florist and have the venue look exactly how I wanted it to look. I don’t regret it.
“We had the day we wanted without crippling ourselves financially”
It wasn't until we’d paid for everything three weeks before the wedding that we realised we had money left. It felt really good on the day, sitting there and thinking to myself, everything in this room is bought and paid for.
We managed to still go on holiday last September – two months before the wedding – because we’d built that into our budget.
“The one thing I didn't need to worry about was money – everything was bought and paid for, I just had to execute it”
My previous attempts at saving were never as well thought out. I would just go without and not buy anything for a month to save money. I wasn't very intentional with what I was saving.
Whereas now, since saving for the wedding, I’ve got a Pot for getting my nails done, a Pot to get my eyebrows done, I've got a Pot for petrol, a Pot for all my direct debits, and more.
“Now I spend less money than I've ever spent, even though I earn more money than I've ever earned”
When we first started saving for the wedding, I was on £35k and I got a pay rise to £43k three months in, and I've had another pay rise since to get me to where I am now. But now I spend less money than ever because I'm a lot more intentional with my spending.
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*We’ve changed her name.