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intro and figuring out budget

gottadance64gottadance64 member
100 Comments
in Illinois-Chicago
Hi there - I'm a fiance to be in the west burbs, just trying to get a general handle on overall wedding costs for various things.

My bf and I are in a very unique situation - I'm in my mid 40s, had decided to adopt a baby, having not met Mr. Right-- and then he came along. I'm still on the adoption waiting list and the likelihood is that this will happen in the next six months. In addition, we're planning on moving in together Nov. 1 when his lease is up - so we'll be adjusting to moving in together and possibly having a new baby...and we're planning to get married as soon as we can afford to/have time to plan it out/lock in the date, etc.

So, we've discussed this already- that we'll be super busy with a new baby and it might behoove us to start looking into general costs of various wedding things - to get an idea of what our budget should be, how much we want to spend/need to save, what date we might want to set - before the baby arrives.

My question is did you just set a budget - pick a number and say you want to stay within that? Or, did you get a general idea of what things cost, what you really liked, then determine how much to spend? Thanks!
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Re: intro and figuring out budget

  • lindseyann410lindseyann410 member
    500 Comments
    edited December 2011
    We looked at our savings and financial situation to get a basic idea of what we could afford, and then we looked at average costs of food/venue to make a final decison.  

    TK's budget calculator is useful once you have a set budget.  We reworked some of the numbers based on our needs (EX: less on stationary, more on food), but it was a good starting point.

    Hope this helps!
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  • MrsPapsMrsPaps member
    1000 Comments
    edited December 2011
    We also looked at what we could do financially and went from there. We researched and found things that fit into our budget.
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  • hz80408hz80408 member
    5000 Comments 5 Love Its Combo Breaker
    edited December 2011
    Welcome!

    Like MrsPaps; we decided what we could save in our time-frame (we already had a date picked out that meant something special to us)and what we felt comfortable spending on a wedding. Based on that amount, we made up a budget by combining the knot's budgeter and also a budget determined from costofweddings.com 

    We tweaked it to fit our wants and needs.  Since you know you have a baby on the way, it'd be smart to make sure you have a small savings for unforeseen costs for the child and then after that decide what you can save/spend on a wedding. Good luck!

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  • Believeinlove817Believeinlove817
    100 Comments
    edited December 2011
    We also set a budget based on what we could afford. DH already had quite a bit of money saved up when we got engaged. We used the budget tool on The Knot and an estimated budget to get an idea of costs and we went with that. We did our wedding for $15K and it was everything we wanted it to be. I did a bunch of stuff myself, but saved money where I could. We also picked a Friday in March to help save costs. We went went with a place that could accomodate our needs and could also give us a deal.

    I think you need to decide on what kind of wedding you want and go from there. Good luck!
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  • rombacjarombacja member
    100 Comments
    edited December 2011
    We had no idea how much anything cost until we started looking at reception halls. Once we started getting numbers there, then we tried to base our budget off that - finding where we needed to save and where we could splurge a bit more. Keep in mind that what is important to me might not be important to you, so it's hard to use someone else's budget. And some of the online or magazine budgets where way off for my budget. Also, don't forget to include tips and tax when you're calculating costs - Chicago has the crazy 11% tax on food so that makes a huge difference. Good luck! (oh and remember that you can usually get things cheaper out of downtown - our invites are from Michigan, my dress is from St. Louis and our baker is from north suburbs even though our reception is in river north).
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