What type of things can you do yourself for a wedding?
Posted: January 13th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Weddings | 10 Comments »
My fiance and I are trying to think of ways to cut our wedding budget and we’re thinking of making our own invitations but what other ideas are there on doing things yourself for your wedding? What did yourself for you wedding like making your own wedding invites?
Thank you in advance.
kjt_bcot
I ordered all the reception decorations from a catalog called Oriental Trading Company and we decorated the hall ourselves. We also knew someone who baked wedding cakes so we got a good deal that way too.
You could do your own cake (or someone you know) but make sure that you/they have a keen sense on what you’re doing. Do your own hair and makeup (or someone close to you that could charge free and substitute it as your wedding gift). Skip renting a vehicle as the get-away car and use your own! Spice it up, decorations, etc. And you could also buy your flowers wholesale (most of the time they’re fake flowers) and make your own bouquet, boutinerres, etc.
I went to Walmart and got the print it yourself invites by Martha Stewart. They turned out really great. People thought I had them done. I got cheap favor boxes and added things to them. I made my own card box. I spent $75 a piece on the flower vases I am using in the centerpieces. I did fake flowers. A lot of people frown on fake flowers but I’m not rich and I am paying for this myself with MY hard earned money so I went for fake. Plus, I’ll be able to keep them. I shopped around for the best price on everything I have to rent. The first place I went to wanted $12 per table cloth and I found a place for $2.75 a piece. Just don’t impulse by. shop around. We are doing cupcakes instead of a cake. It’s different and WAY cheaper. I got cheap candles from the dollar tree and put some cute ribbon on them and they look great. There is a lot you can do if you get a little crafty. Don’t break the bank to have a huge wedding you can’t afford. The wedding may be nice for a couple hours but being broke isn’t the way to start a marriage. Good luck!
CONGRATS 1st of all
You can make your own:
Invites, favors, decorations for the church, the flowergirl baskets and ring bearers pillow, dessert table
and as per Vendors order your decorations as if you want to decorate a birthday or special event rather then mentioning a wedding as it will reduce costs.
This is how we’re saving money on our wedding
- We’re making our own invitations
- With the help of friends and family we’re doing our own decorating.
- A friend is doing our photography.
- One of my Bride’s maids works at a grocery store that has an awesome floral department. So she got us a deal.
- We shopped around for our wedding venue for the best bang for our buck. ( food and all for approx 150 people it will be about 3 thousand)
- We’re making our own favours
- we’re going to try to cut down our guest list a bit more.
- My Fiance’s mother is baking our cake and a friend is decorating it.
- We’re not hiring a limo or renting a fancy car.
- we’re not staying in a hotel
- I’m wearing a hand- me down dress
Decorations, invitations and favours are great DIY projects. I would leave the food, flowers, and cake to people who know what they’re doing. Anything that can’t be done a few weeks in advance I would pass off to another person. If you have friends who can help you out enlist them. A friend of mine is doing our pictures and she’s saving us over a thousand. People want to help you don’t be afraid to ask.
Center pieces are super easy to do and fun. Just make sure it’s something easy for the person assigned to assembling them. You can buy lots of wedding decorating books or use the internet for easy projects.
I want to be a wedding planner and i definitely know what you can do yourself on your big day:
Wedding Favors
Simple Floral and Candle Centerpieces
Cupcakes (instead of a wedding cake)
Ring Pillow
Flower Girl Basket
Using an Ipod instead of an MP3 player. (Enlist a tech-savvy friend to make sure your first dance song, entrance music, cake cutting music etc. is playing at the right time)
Bridal Hair and Makeup
Save the Date Cards, Programs, and Seating Cards
A decorated guest book, card box, photo album, or other keepsake
*Wedding tasks that should be left to the professionals are:
Large Flower Arrangements and Centerpieces
Bridal and Bridesmaid bouquets
Your Wedding Dress
A Wedding Cake
Catering
Photography
Good luck in your wedding day
Haven’t done the sums yet but I think we got ours done for about $4-5K AUD (US$3000ish), and everyone had a pretty good time.
We designed and made our invitations. I made all my jewellery from materials in the local bead shops, did my own makeup (practiced a lot first!) and picked up a lot of stuff in bulk on eBay – wedding bubble blowers, strings of faux roses for decorating things, presents for the friends we asked to help. My dress was a bit cheaper than the usual wedding dress because I didn’t buy it from a specialty bridal shop (link below).
We had a very casual reception – we’re in our mid to late thirties so we didn’t really need more stuff, so instead of presents we asked local guests to bring a plate of afternoon tea food or drinks. A couple of friends were there early to help with this. We hired a couple of marquees and some tables for the afternoon tea rather than renting a room elsewhere. Close friends and family went to an informal restaurant meal with us afterwards and payed their own way (for most people it worked out around what they would have spent on presents.)
We imposed a lot on friends: two friends are amateur photographers so we asked them to take the photos (and asked guests to give us their shots afterwards), another did some filming for us. A friend made the cake (not a formal white one). Someone lent us a vintage car, my singing group did the music, his dark age reinactment group did a display fight for entertainment (it fitted with the time travel theme – guests came in fancy dress).
We did quite a bit of wedding stuff ourselves.
-Flowers: We used silk flowers and made all the corsages, boutonnieres, and bouquets. We bought fresh roses and made my bouquet the day of the wedding.
-Dress: I designed my dress, my mother made it. My mom made my veil.
-Favors: I made gel candles with the help of some of my bridesmaids.
-Invitations: I designed and printed them on my computer at home.
-Ceremony decorations: My mom made my aisle runner. We kept the rest of it simple. We used white tulle, white Christmas lights, white columns wrapped in greenery, hurricane globes with white pillar candles inside, and white bows (made by my mom) to decorate.
-Flower girl baskets: My aunt decorated a basket I purchased from Dollar Tree.
-Bible bearer pillow: My aunt made a pillow using leftover fabric from my wedding gown.
-Reception: We used the gym at my church so it needed quite a bit of work. We created a ceiling using white lights, paper lanterns, and flower garlands. My mom made the table cloths for the tables. We made “mirrors” using cardboard squares and silver/shiny wrapping paper and placed these “mirrors” under each centerpiece. We used fabric to disguise/decorate the wall behind the head table.
-Programs: I designed the ceremony program and printed it on the computer at home. The reception program was in the form of a newsletter and was designed by me and a bridesmaid (who was editor of our college paper) and printed at home.
-Food: We planned to cook all the food however, at the last minute we realized we didn’t have the time so we ended up hiring a caterer. But with proper planning you could do it yourself. We did make the appetizers though.
-Cake: My mom made it and decorated it.
-Hair: My cousin, a professional stylist, did it for me for free.
-Makeup: I don’t normally wear makeup but decided to wear a little for the wedding. I did the basics myself and one of my bridesmaids added a few finishing touches.
-Guest book: We created a scrapbook using messages from the guests and our engagement photos.
So yeah, there’s quite a bit you can do yourself to save money. Have fun!
You can do it all yourself. You’ll need to enlist help from friends and family, but that’s what the wedding party is for, right?
Invitations – Scour websites for styles you like then recreate a similar style using your home computer and desktop publishing software like Microsoft Publisher. If you don’t have any software to use, check out for free software. Print it on card stock and glue it to a pretty scrapbook paper as a border.
Cake – A little more tricky, but if you’d like to tackle this project it will save you a couple hundred dollars. Bake off a simple tiered cake using a cake mix. Add fruit filling between the layers for a little punch of flavor. Keep your decorations simple, like just adding a piece of ribbon to the bottom to accent your tiers.
Flowers – Find an inspiration photo of an arrangement that’s not too complicated and recreate it using artificial flowers. They give you a lot more freedom since you can make your arrangements in advance. I highly recommend real touch flowers. They look and feel fresh and make beautiful bouquets. If there’s a Hobby Lobby in your area, they carry a pretty good selection of real/true touch flowers. is a has really great prices, but a limited selection.
I had a ton of great ideas for my own wedding, but for the sake of not rambling any longer, I’ll try to wrap it up. I am actually working on a website full of DIY wedding ideas (http://www.DIY-Wedding-Guide.com). It only has 5 pages as of today, but feel free to check it out as I will be working feverishly on it…and please feel free to get back to me with feedback, good or bad. I’d love to hear some thoughts and suggestions.
Until I get some more up, a couple other great websites to check out for ideas are:
Good luck with your wedding planning!
Don’t be afraid to attempt your own cake. Cake decorating is a skill you can learn with little practice. Some nice alternatives would be wedding cupcakes or different desserts. Check out our blog for more money saving ideas on your wedding cake.