Wedding Bank Account

AshJohnson30

Has anyone opened a separate bank account for their wedding?

We are thinking about opening one so our wedding money stays separate but we don't want a bank that will charge us fees. Any suggestions?

bsn1752

Why don't you talk to your current bank and see what they offer?

DFWIndian

We just used one of current banks and opened a temporary account with both our names. We used Ally and they worked well for us.

AshJohnson30

I talked with my current bank and they weren't very helpful :-(

So I figured I ask around :-)

caiti2u

We did. FI has a credit union out in Dallas (we live in Ft Worth) and for whatever reason, he doesn't like my bank, so we opened a joint account at a "neutral location" that we plan to merge all of our $$ into after the wedding. It was llike a little baby of ours, we loved watching it grow from $0 to what it is now (FI has groaned any time we have to make a deposite for one of our venues though). We've now past our wedding budget (it's awesome how much money you can save when you're really dedicated to it... where did all our money go before?!) and keep putting in more $$ for our post-wedding next egg (can we say down payment on a house!)

Oh, as for the fees, for our bank, so long as we had checking & savings, and kept a minimum amount of money in there, no fees for us.

MsLaura31

We had a savings account. We paid for almost everything with a miles credit card and then paid the bill off each month using money from the savings account. When we couldn't pay with a card, we transferred money to our joint checking account and wrote a check. But all of our accounts are with the same bank, so it was easy to do that.

bigbabyface

we have USAA. I'm not sure if you're eligible for most of their products...but i think checking and savings is avaible for anyone? I

'm not sure. but if you are they dont charge fees when you use your debit card, even at another banks ATM, and they refund you any charges that bank hits you with. they give you free checks, so we use those to pay vendors with.

FebDallasBride

We have a separate account (my old single account) that drafts 20% of my paychecks for wedding stuff. FI and I share a joint account and instead of ditching mine, we made that our wedding/rainy day account.

angelsong21

We have a separate savings account online through Sallie Mae (had the highest interest rate at the time of 1.10%).  I automatically have a set amount of money transferred there each pay period so I don't have to think about it or risk spending it on something else.  You can easily transfer the money electronically between Sallie Mae and your usual bank.  We pay all of our wedding expenses on a cash-back credit card, then I transfer money from the online savings account to my checking account and pay the balance off that way.  Works out well for us!

MarieSD

We opened a new checking account at a credit union just for the wedding. DH wanted to find a credit union (we'd always just used banks before), so this was a good excuse. I was adamant about having a separate account for wedding transactions because otherwise, I could see me accidentally spending our rent money.

Our direct deposits are still going in there. We're trying to decide if it's now our "next European vacation fund" account or our "down payment on a house" account.

AshJohnson30

You guys have given me some really great tips!

I'm going to look into the places everyone has suggested and I'll also talk to FI about creating a new account and direct depositing a certain percentage each check to bypass the fees. I was unsure about doing this at first since idk how much i would want to allocate out of each check but 10 - 20% wouldn't be bad and I could always add more!

professorscience

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_wedding-bank-account?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:102Discussion:b90a7c7e-b870-4371-8533-efe99cb38cf3Post:a06da9b7-86aa-4e44-8b56-8fed9e65a0b1">Re: Wedding Bank Account</a>:
[QUOTE]We had a savings account. We paid for almost everything with a miles credit card and then paid the bill off each month using money from the savings account. When we couldn't pay with a card, we transferred money to our joint checking account and wrote a check. But all of our accounts are with the same bank, so it was easy to do that.
Posted by MsLaura31[/QUOTE]

We're doing this.  Everything goes on the miles card, and then we split the payments each month.

btweety04

I opened a high yield savings account with Ally and used that for all my wedding savings and have not experienced any fees. I just transfer it to my credit union and pay out of my regular checking.

daricelr

I opened cds and multiple savings accounts at ING (ingdirect.com)  With my regular bank attached to it, I can get the money from it a few days before I know I'll need it and they usually have one of the highest interest rates on their CDs and savings becuase they're an internet bank.

I then tracked the amounts in each with Mint.com and my online wedding budget.

winechic25

We also opened a joint acct at my credit union. We decided how much we needed to save over the course of our engagement and have direct deposit into that account. I have the only debit card for that acct, and everything wedding related gets paidnfrom there. Best. Decision. Ever!!

crash2729

I just opened a Free checking account at my bank, Frost.  

It's working out well so far!

TexanTreasure08

Seriously guys, a card that gives you miles is the way to go. We pay for everything with our American Express Gold card and then pay it off with our wedding money. With that we got our tickets to Costa Rica for our honeymoon for free!