DIY Wedding Ideas – Worth It Or A Waste Of Money?

We made our wedding invitations using PaperStyle which my wife recommended. It was really good because lots of beautiful templates are available. We also had our wedding held in a private property owned by my boss so we were thankful that we received discounts. It was really stressful but very fulfilling once it went as planned.

Honestly I think that DIY could help you save money but is true it depends how time you have and how it could affact your finances, depends also fo the kind of event you’re going to organize, DIY is ok for small and intimate ceremony. If you’re going to invite at least 100 people is better to limit DIY!!!

We DIYed our invitations, our centerpieces and most of the decorating at church and the reception venue. This saved as a fairly large amount. We did not DIY the flowers since we used a local lady that my grandmother knew very very well and she gave us quite the hook up.

I DIYd so much at my wedding and it was great. I did my flowers too, which was fun but I didn’t use a wholesaler….wish I would have! We also had an outdoor wedding at one of our friends’s lake houses, so we had a practically free venue which was perfect. I would definitely do it again!

I don’t know that I would personally want to DIY, but I think I’d use my wedding party to help out. Rather than spending money on wedding shower and bachelorette party stuff, I think it would fun to use those events to prep wedding stuff like invites or centerpieces. Just some glue sticks and a lots of wine 🙂

We made our own wedding invitations since my husband used to design different invitations. We had a garden wedding before,my relatives helped us to design the place and they did our flower arrangement. My two professional singer friends volunteered to sing our wedding songs.

We did not DIY near as much as we should for our wedding, but that was 11 years ago, back when I was still making stupid financial choices. The one thing we did do was fill our mini bubble bottles. We ordered 200 online and when we got them, the bubble material was the consistency of body wash and didn’t blow anything, so we went to Toys R Us, bought a huge bottle of bubbles and filled 200 bottles with a turkey baster. Hubby did that while I tied ribbons on the bottles. The whole process took us HOURS, but we had fun and drank lots of wine along the way. We still laugh about the bubble project.

Flowers are what really worries me about the day I have to plan a wedding. They are so expensive! Thanks for the info- I will check out that website you used 🙂

I DIYed a lot of wedding details and saved a bunch of money by doing so. We bought the stationery and printed our own save the dates, invitations and programs (with our University print credits that were about to expire!); I did all of the flowers myself and I made my own veil (with saved $350 on the veil that they tried to sell me with my dress). But I had the design training and sewing skills to do it.

I think a lot of brides end up with an inflated DIY confidence because Pinterest and don’t take into account their own creative aptitude, or they falsely believe that their one or two crafty bridesmaids can do it all. Thankfully Pinterest wasn’t a thing when I was planning our wedding! DIY can definitely save money when done well and in moderation. I know a bride DIYd a lot of aspects of her wedding and through a bunch of trial and error wasted a ton of money.

I’ve seen horrible results with DIY wedding photography. Although digital cameras are omnipresent, a talented professional photographer is hard to replace.

I feel like pinterest has brought out the DIY in EVERYONE.

For weddings, I get it, but sometimes you’re saving money just to spend hours and hours of your own time making 200 whatevers, and I’m not sure if that’s a good tradeoff.

But I think people spend too much on crap for weddings regardless so I’m probably not a good judge of this haha

I have never been married but is always a good idea to make as much as you can so that you can spend your money or more important things. I can never see people spending thousands of dollars on decorations and flowers.

Love this post! We just got engaged, and are thinking of where to DIY and where not to. I have to say, I love a good crafting session and think we might DIY a good portion of the wedding decorations. We are having a small wedding of 50-60 guests, so I think that makes a big difference!
Glad you made the points you did – good things to keep in mind as we plan 🙂

I am so not a DIYer!! The only thing I did was our centerpieces. I’m capable of floating a carnation in water but that’s where my creativity ends!!! I really wish I were into crafts and and restoring things though. Just like I wish I were into cooking!

Great ideas for my upcoming wedding

I think the trick with DIY’ing a wedding is to only pick SOME projects, otherwise the stress and time commitment is just totally not worth it and can ruin the wedding experience. I DIY’d a few things, but we didn’t live by our wedding location, so there was very little that I could do myself.

DIY, I think, should be considered as meaningful participation more than a money saving aspect as much as possible. Of course if funds are very tight you may have to do some things out of necessity. But a lot of DIY things can add a lot of meaning and value.

When my daughter was married, her church (where she was very active), contributed a lot to the marriage ceremony including much of the meal, especially serving. Her grandmother (my wife’s mom), was a professional cook and donated the cake which meant a lot. They will never forget her cake or her thoughtful gift.

My niece had one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever seen. It was all music, including the minister’s role. The groom’s father was the director of an internationally known musical group and provided the orchestra and singers (about twenty participants I think). Again, the church provided a lot of volunteer help since her dad was a principal/teacher for years in their high school.

Not everyone will have such an opportunity as these might be, but there are many people who will consider it an honor to help in various ways. But even if they are talented I agree that it is best not to use a DIY photographer unless they are not a central part of the family.

Wedding photography is very difficult even for professionals as I observe them pointing out to newer photographers at the Nikonian forum quite often, and if a close family member they will really miss out on the wedding as well.

We DIYed everything from the invitations to the food for our wedding. The only thing we paid for was the wedding cake. We spent $5,000.00 on our wedding and 6 years latter people are still talking about it (in a good way of course).

I think if you have the time, the patients, and the skill DIYing your own wedding is a great way to go. Just make sure you have help along the way, some projects may require more help then others.

We are hoping/planning to do mostly DIY our upcoming wedding. We’re not all that traditional and aim to keep it under $5,000 so there will be a lot of “us” in everything. We might even make our own wine 🙂

I worked at a copier company so we did the invitations and programs. We just had to buy the invitation paper which we found at a special Hallmark store and we ended up getting back money to spend in the store because of how much we spent that month. We made CDs and labels for favors and place cards and I knitted all of the bridesmaids different blankets. We did simple centerpieces that came with the venue and added something like a candle or floating flower (which obviously wasn’t that important because I don’t remember). I know that we did most of the stuff ourselves to save money because we live in a really expensive area. We got a wonderful wedding cake that we paid for and that was the highlight of the wedding for me…besides my groom 🙂 I wish we spent less on a wedding or had a smaller wedding but we did everything we could to save money and have family and friends have a great time.

Great Tips! I’m not near getting married yet, but I have always envisioned an outdoor wedding and would love for it to be on personal property! I plan doing a lot of DIY for budget reasons, but I also understand you have to weigh the time/money saved because for certain things it won’t be worth it. I’m hoping I have some friends who might help out (baker, culinary, artist, etc). I’m intrigued by your fifty flowers tip because when I browsed on there it seemed like you had to buy a lot in bulk, am I misreading it? I want very few of a lot of flowers if that makes sense, and for example the cattails were $119 for a box. At that rate I’d be spending tons on different flowers…Just curious for when the time comes, I plan on referencing all your articles soon!