9 Tips for the DIY Bride

PINTEREST IS THE REAL MVP
Pinterest is a really great resource for finding inspiration for your big day. Create secret boards if you are worried about other brides stealing your ideas or don’t want to share all of your plans right away. While Pinterest is great for trendy ideas, don’t get so caught up that you forget to add a bit of your own style into the mix too! Because Pinterest is so popular, it is very likely that those exact ideas have been used over and over again. Remember to refer to your boards for inspiration, but add your own flair and personal touches to make your projects uniquely you!

CALL IN REINFORCEMENTS
You probably settled on a DIY wedding because you like to do everything yourself. I hate bothering people for help just as much as the next girl, but don’t be afraid to put your friends and family to work! I was fortunate enough to have tons of friends and family force me to let them help. Not the case for you? Some people may feel like they are stepping on toes or getting in the way by offering their help, so just ask them politely for a little assistance. Make sure to send thank you cards to whoever you recruit… I know my day wouldn’t have been possible without them!

GET A COORDINATOR
In my opinion a wedding planner is just not necessary, especially for DIY brides, but a day-of coordinator is worth every single shiny penny. The hours leading up to your ceremony are the most hectic as vendors arrive and everything is getting final touches. Hiring someone specifically for this purpose allows you and your helpers some much deserved time to relax, get ready, and enjoy the moments before you’re finally married! Day-of coordinators can be pretty inexpensive for the amount of work that they take on. My helpers and I got everything ready to go the day before the wedding so my rockstar of a wedding coordinator could work her magic. She did everything from coordinate my rehearsal the evening before the wedding, to setting up tables and directing all of the vendors, to helping with clean up at the end of the night. Money well spent.

BUY OR DIY?
While saving money is great, sometimes it is worth the extra dough to be able to relax on your big day (and allow your friends and family to enjoy it too!). You can still save a large chunk of money by DIY-ing your paper goods (invitations and programs), signage, table decor and place settings, favors, and decorative flower arrangements. Leave the big tasks like food, alcohol, photography, and important details to the pros.

I made all my paper goods on illustrator with the help of A Handcrafted Wedding, printed them myself on nice cardstock, and made them a little fancy with different embellishments.

Chalkboards make it super simple to create your own signage, and are great for reusing in your home or at other events down the road. Get perfect lettering by following this tutorial. You can also easily DIY your own wood signs like this one with a little paint!

Using bulk flowers from Costco, and glass vases, we set up a flower arrangement assembly line where we put together beautiful bouquets for centerpieces. Although it took a quite a while to put together about 30 arrangements, doing these flowers ourselves saved A TON of money.

Instead of purchasing expensive personalized favor bags, dress up plain paper ones with a cute border punch!

Aside from celebrating you, people come to a wedding for free food and drinks. Serving 150 people takes a long time and a ton of prep, so I am extra glad that I spent the extra money for someone to take care of it for me. While my friends and family were happy to help, they wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the party if they were constantly monitoring the buffet.

The self service bar ideas on pinterest are adorable, but they makes it super easy for people to get out of control and you have to be the bad guy for cutting them off. If you plan on serving alcohol, hire a bartender to ensure that no one gets too belligerent to destroy your day. I was surprised to find out how inexpensive they were if you let them put a tip jar out! You can still leave your guests easy access to non-alcoholic drinks by putting them on a table in large drink dispensers.

If you have to skimp anywhere it is not on your permanent memories. Hire a professional photographer instead of using a “budding photographer” friend that you want to work for free. Professionals have tons of experience capturing the memories they know brides want to see, and most will bring along a second shooter to get double the perspectives! Bonus: Your friend won’t be mad at you for expecting them to work for free, and you won’t strain any relationships if the photos aren’t what you dreamed of. Chances are your friend will still take photos anyway, and then you have even more memories. Score!

We had two huge flower baskets as our ‘alter’. My mom decided to put together the baskets herself and they turned out really great until the flowers started falling off a few weeks before the wedding. By sheer chance, the venue had purchased huge white flower baskets to decorate the property with and we were able to use those. The lesson to be learned here: hire people to take care of your big important details. It could cost a little more, but it will save you a lot of time and stress in the long run.

INVEST WISELY
Crafting tools and supplies can be expensive, so skip buying them unless you can see yourself using them for future projects. I only had to purchase two different tools for all of my projects, the rest I already owned myself or borrowed from friends and family. Be creative! You may already have something around your house that will work just as well as that tool the tutorial called for. If not, just modify that project to better suit your budget. In the end it will turn out great AND have a more personalized touch than if you copied the exact tutorial. That is the beauty of DIY!

CLIP COUPONS
I am a HUGE fan of coupons. If you have a smart phone, stores like Michaels and Joanns load coupons right onto their app and can be scanned in-store right from your phone. While you should be using coupons for all your crafting needs, they are particularly handy if you are absolutely set on a project that requires purchasing things you will never use again. Not only is it a smaller investment, but you could always sell the extras when you are done and recuperate a larger chunk of the cost! Moral of the story: Coupons are literally right in your pocket. Use them.

LET IT GO
Being the DIY-er that you are, you probably have a specific vision of how everything will go together. The reality is, with so many hands on deck to make a wedding happen, some things are going to turn out a little bit different than you imagined. Unless something is majorly wrong, save yourself the energy and let it go. I came out of hair and makeup and my centerpieces were almost nothing like what I had pictured in my head, and the cocktail tables were not placed where I had originally imagined. Luckily, the friends and family that were helping set up are actual superheros and everything still looked beautiful. Sometimes it is best to just go with the flow. Besides, nobody will know except you.

PICTURE IT
If something being askew is just not an option for you, set it up before hand and photograph it exactly how you want it. Then give the photos to your wedding coordinator or put them on a poster board for your helpers to reference. This way there are minimal excuses for things to be any less than perfect when you make your entrance. The only person that knew my vision on the centerpieces was my mom, and she was busy getting ready at the same time I was. Even though I still loved the way they turned out, I wouldn’t have endured that brief moment of panic if I had photographed my version of the setup before hand.

JUST STOP
Get. Off. Pinterest. Stop looking for new projects and inspiration a few weeks before the wedding. You will have bigger things to worry about in the weeks leading up to your wedding than whether or not your painted mason jars are distressed enough. I absolutely did NOT follow this lovely tip and ended up much more frazzled and crunched for time than I needed to be. In the grand scheme of things, people are focused on you and having a good time. It sounds harsh, but nobody is going to care if you didn’t have time to make those last few projects, and honestly you will be so wrapped up in the festivities that you probably won’t notice either.

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