Budgeting across a currency
Published
A wedding paid for in a currency you do not earn is a set of payments spread over a year against a rate that will not sit still. That is a planning problem, not a banking one.
Couples paying from abroad, and South African couples with family contributing from overseas, both run into the same structure. The total is agreed early, in rand, and paid in instalments over twelve to eighteen months. In between, the exchange rate does whatever it does.
Nothing here is financial advice, and this guide has no view on what any rate will do. What follows is how the exposure works and what you can control.
The exposure is the gap between quote and payment
You agree a figure in rand. You pay it in tranches. Every tranche converts at the rate on the day it is sent, not the rate on the day you agreed the total.
Over a long engagement that can move the foreign-currency cost of the same wedding materially in either direction. The rand has historically been a volatile currency, and the direction is not predictable.
Two consequences follow, and they are the whole of the practical advice:
Hold the budget in rand, not in your own currency. The suppliers are quoting rand, the contracts are in rand, and the venue's overage rate is in rand. Convert once, at the start, to know roughly what you are committing to, and then track the actual budget in rand. Couples who track in their home currency spend the year watching a number move for reasons that have nothing to do with their wedding, and make bad decisions because of it.
Build a genuine contingency. Whatever contingency you would normally hold, hold more, because currency movement sits on top of the ordinary reasons a wedding budget grows. A contingency you did not need is the best outcome available.
If the rate matters enough to you to hedge it, that is a conversation with a bank or a currency broker, not with a wedding guide.
Transfers cost more than the fee
The headline transfer fee is rarely the main cost. The margin applied to the exchange rate usually is, and it is often not itemised.
Two habits are worth forming:
- Compare the amount that arrives, not the fee that is charged. Ask what the recipient will actually receive in rand. That single number contains everything.
- Send fewer, larger transfers. Every transfer carries fixed costs and a margin. Consolidating instalments where the payment schedule permits it saves real money.
Also establish who pays the intermediary and receiving charges. If your supplier is invoicing a specific amount and the transfer arrives short because of deductions along the way, the shortfall is yours to make up and it will be noticed at the worst moment.
VAT, and the question to ask about every figure
Ask of every quotation, in these words: is this figure inclusive or exclusive of VAT?
It is asked too rarely and it is the largest single source of budget surprise. Suppliers quoting to trade may present figures excluding VAT as a matter of habit; suppliers quoting to the public usually include it. The two conventions sitting in the same spreadsheet produce a total that is confidently wrong.
Get it stated on the face of every quote. It is already one of the twenty questions for this reason.
Deposits are where the money actually is
By the time a wedding is six months away, a substantial proportion of the total is already paid and unrecoverable. That is the sum genuinely at risk, and it is worth knowing what it is at any given moment.
Keep a single sheet listing each supplier, the total, what has been paid, what is still due and when, and the cancellation position. It takes an hour to set up. It tells you your real exposure, which is exactly the figure you need before reading insurance and liability.
Pay by bank transfer against an invoice, to an account named in the contract. And treat any emailed change of banking details as suspect until you have confirmed it by telephone on a number you already held — invoice interception targets weddings precisely because the amounts are large and the payers are busy.
The lines that move after you sign
Currency is not the main reason a budget grows. These are, and every one of them is knowable in advance:
- Guest numbers above the contracted figure, charged per head. Ask what the overage rate is.
- Overtime, charged by the hour once the contracted end time passes. Ask when the clock starts and what it costs.
- Generator fuel, frequently billed after the event rather than included. See load shedding, generators and water.
- Supplier travel and accommodation at a remote venue, which can be a significant addition. Catering at remote and unserviced sites and distances, roads and driving explain why.
- Corkage, outside-catering fees and service charges.
- Hire of everything a bare site does not have, which at a field is most things — see marquees, anchoring and the wind question.
Cards, cash and tipping
Cards work in towns and in established venues. They work less reliably at a small rural establishment, a roadside stall or a bar whose card machine depends on a mobile network that is not always there — one of the reasons to read mobile coverage and the backup plan.
Carry some cash, and tell your guests to as well. On tipping, a service percentage in restaurants is customary in South Africa and gratuities for the venue and supplier teams are appreciated. Ask the venue what is usual for them and whether a service charge is already in the bill, and budget the answer rather than improvising it at midnight with an empty wallet.