Don’t let your wedding spending go to waste.

Guest Blog by Heather McKay

The engagement period is a flurry of excitement, hugs, Facebook announcements, and the never-ending questions: When’s the wedding? What are your plans? 

The excitement fades quickly when you all of a sudden feel behind in planning your dream wedding and you’re overwhelmed with where to even start.

Your friends and family are well meaning when they inevitably offer unsolicited advice on weddings stuff like who to hire and what style of wedding you should have. 

Quickly, you realize that it’s easiest to lie and say you are eloping or not having a wedding anytime soon. Or worse, you go straight to the dress shop to find the ‘one’ before you even know what style wedding you will be having.

Friends, family, and co-workers are well-meaning, but what they really should be sharing are tips for setting yourself up for financial success as a married couple, how to have a long and healthy relationship, and/or what they wish they skimped on with their own wedding. 

Today, I’m sharing a little tip on the financial front: how to hack your wedding so you can take a baller honeymoon.

You Can’t Have a Big Wedding AND a Fancy Honeymoon

Or can you?? When you begin budgeting for your wedding, it becomes a Tetris game of who is paying for what, wondering if they get a say in how it’s spent, and inevitably you start dreaming of the honeymoon to avoid starting to plan your wedding.

Honeymoons are a fun way to dream of beach-side bliss, sleeping in a wifey shirt, with champagne and chocolate to end each night. Then the reality of budgets hits you like a ton of bricks.

How can you possibly have a luxurious honeymoon when you’re already over-budget on your wedding and you haven’t even left Pinterest yet?

Everyday, in wedding planning groups online the discussion starts on to whether to put money towards a wedding or to use it to take a dream honeymoon.

I’m here to tell you that you can do BOTH with ease. 

You can actually harness your regular wedding spending and use it as a springboard to pay for your dream honeymoon in the process.

That’s exactly what one of my wedding couples did. 

You see, I’ve been a wedding photographer for nearly two decades and so at this point, most of my couples book me via email or a quick phone call.  James and Laura did exactly that to book me, especially since they don’t live in my town. 

A month or two later, I was actually photographing a wedding where they live and they met up with me for an after-work beer to meet in person and see some wedding albums. 

Over the course of our chat, I mentioned that I had just returned from Singapore the week prior and that during the lead up to their wedding, I would be taking 7-weeks off to go to Africa. 

James perked up and wanted to know how I was able to travel so much and made a quip about my maybe charging too much. This is when I told him that I actually travel on the cheap thanks to “travel hacking.”

Intrigued, he asked me what that was and I gave him the basic tips I’m sharing with you today. 

Skip forward to our meeting just before their wedding and James told me that they had taken my tips and got all the points and miles they needed for their honeymoon. 

Not only that, but they completely upgraded their honeymoon plans! Instead of an all-inclusive beach resort in the Caribbean, they decided to go on an Around the World vacation, hitting Australia and New Zealand… and flying First-Class! Those flights retail at $72,000 and he got them for $69!

How to Travel Hack Your Honeymoon

Alright, what the heck is Travel Hacking and how does it help you with your honeymoon? Basically, what you’ll do is to plan out your wedding spending and instead of paying with checks, cash, or debit cards, you’ll open and use strategic travel credit cards instead.

Gasp – credit cards? Really??

Here’s the deal… yes, you should pay for things as you spend the money and yes, you should not start your new life together in debt. I agree. However, you can still do that and use credit cards in the process and I’ll show you how.

You see, there are regular stages of wedding spending that are fairly easy to predict. You’ll start by picking your venue, then with picking your photographer, then maybe your DJ or florist.

What you’ll want to do while you are researching & setting up meetings for each of these big ticket vendors, is to open a new travel credit card that offers you a big sign-up bonus. 

A sign-up bonus is a way for the credit card company to lure you into their offer and they reward you for starting to use their card right away. Typically, they will give you 30,000-100,000 points or miles as a bonus when you spend $3,000 on the card within the first 3-months of opening the card.

This is where the magic happens.

So, how this works is that you’ll open a new travel related credit card before paying the deposits on vendors who will take credit cards, like your photographer. I’m a photographer and I take $1,000 to hold the date as a non-refundable retainer. Some cards have only a $1000 in the 3-months as their minimum spend requirement! Most decent travel cards have $3000 as the minimum spend though, so with just the photographer you’re a third of the way there.

You can repeat this process as many times as you feel comfortable. 

Your almost-spouse (or parents) can do this also and many times you can refer the same card to them, earning yourself an extra referral bonus as a result.

The cool thing is that you can merge points with your fiancee, parents, or generous friends. 

Next, you can do this for a lot of other card types to speed up the earning potential. My recommendation is a 3-prong approach: general travel card, preferred airline card, and a hotel card.

This process ramps up your rewards earning potential, thus quickly giving you plenty of points, miles, and cash back to redeem for the honeymoon of your dreams. 

Staying Financially Responsible

Starting your married life on the right foot is essential and clearly you won’t want to go on a spending spree just to earn a lucrative sign-up bonus. 

However, let’s be real, you’re going on a spending spree by throwing a wedding.

• The $600 veil that you will ditch as soon as the ceremony is over.

• The donut board that you’ll rent even though you will have cupcakes.

• The dress alterations. 

• The bridesmaid gifts. 

• The last minute videographer hire.

It’s pretty easy to stay in a constant flow of a cash basis if you have the money on hand to pay the balance on the credit card at the same time. The key is commitment. Commit to paying the card as you charge it for your vendors.

With this system, you will quickly have a plethora of points and miles available to pay for your entire honeymoon. 

Do you remember James and Laura from before? Well, they ended up flying first-class to Dubai and Australia/New Zealand with their points and miles. Their hotels were covered too! 

James told me that what was most surprising was that his credit score actually improved through the process. 

Talk about starting married life in a financially responsible fashion, with amazing new experiences, and the ability to travel on a whim! 

Now, imagine having all the points and miles you could ever need and earning them with regular wedding spending. If money was no object, where would you go on your honeymoon? 

If all of this sounds like fantasy or you just don’t know where to even begin, have no fear! I have an online course that walks you through the exact steps to take to plan your dream honeymoon and how to earn the miles needed. 

Sign up for my Free Flight Guide to get started or head right to my course Free Flight Fundamentals here and get started planning your perfect honeymoon, using points and miles.