Tips: Choosing (or Not Choosing) a DIY Wedding

There are many ways a couple can have a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) wedding. The choice can be intentional (this is best) or accidental. For example:

1. You actively choose a DIY wedding because you're crafty or because you have connections.
2. You actively choose a DIY wedding because you have friends who are crafty (or have connections) and are masters of delegation.
3. You subconsciously choose a DIY wedding because you want your wedding to be blogworthy and you know you can do better than what's been done before.
4. You accidentally choose a DIY wedding because you have more time (or skills) than money and your wants exceed your pocketbook's ability to deliver.
5. You accidentally choose a DIY wedding because the vendor(s) you need isn't in your area or doesn't yet exist. 
6. You actively choose a DIY wedding because you want to save money.

Early in our planning, I came across DIY Reality Check (PDF) from Rachel of Heart of Light via her guest post on 100 Layer Cake. Print it out and use it! It really helped me stay sane. I printed out two copies. One I posted at my office. The other I tucked into the front of our wedding binder. I worked through the steps religiously. A few projects that were changed or abandoned completely after traversing the DIY Reality Check: our guest book, belly bands for our programs, and train cases filled with vintage cookbooks coordinated to each table's theme.

If you're in either early- or mid- planning stages of your wedding, before going farther, really dig into what you can expect with a DIY wedding. First ask friends who have gotten married (and who will honestly tell you about the trials and tribulations). We decided to hire a wedding coordinator after seeing firsthand what can happen (at a wedding in a public park, a stranger stole the bride's bouquet) and having a friend who knows me recommend it as a must have item.

Don't have any friends who went the DIY route? Visit a couple of tell it like it is "real" brides now wives: Becca of A Los Angeles Love (read her post from Monday, The Hell of a DIY Wedding is in the Logistics, Not the Crafts) and Britt of The Bowie Bride. Also, check out Sarah of My San Francisco Wedding (currently planning her October wedding). I've linked to the beginning of their stories - start there, don't skip to the end. Seriously, devote an evening or a weekend and read through their stories, the highs and the lows. If you're strapped for time, to get a rough idea of what the DIY bride goes through, check out Miss Biscuit's post yesterday on Weddingbee, "The Five Stages of DIY Grief." (Yes, I know, I have a bad case of the wedding bug.)

Another fun resource is "Should I Work for Free" (with expletives or without) designed by Jessica Hische spotted on Swiss Miss. Basically if you're choosing a DIY Wedding and you plan/execute events, design, or write for a living and you're using those skills for your (or a friend's) wedding you're working for free.

I'd started and stopped a post about all of our DIY stops and starts a couple of times since October. I've also started and stopped a post about the DIY costs that were wedding-related but were shelved or abandoned. It's hard to come clean about what you'd envisioned, what projects weren't perfect, what projects you'd started only to abandon, and what projects never got started. To write such a post is hard, especially when you're a perfectionist, especially when you plan and execute events for a living and when everyone - including your rabbi - jokes that you never met a detail you didn't like (no detail left behind... um well we no I left a few more than a few behind). I will finish writing these posts soon; I owe it to other DIY brides.

In the meantime, enjoy what a DIY wedding looks like post wedding (sorry mom!). Here it is over six months since our wedding and our apartment while no longer screaming wedding (The Lingering No One Warns You About), still squeaks wedding. (These photos are what our apartment looks like at the moment.) We've got two printers side-by-side on our living room floor (trust me on this if you're printing your own save the dates, invitations, programs, whatever, one printer is never enough), a box full of inserts for foam pillows, a tumbled pile of tablecloths, neatly folded (and laundered) tablecloths, a box of silk flower heads from our table centerpieces, a box full of supplies for our wedding favors, a box full of halfway done out-of-town bags, and more. (Let's forget that our garage is a mishmash of gear from Burning Man topped with a wedding explosion - bottled water leftover from the wedding, boxes filled with table runners and signage, and more.)

Anyone have any tips for how to get rid of the DIY Wedding debris?

Ciao Bella!

Eden

P.S. If you're new to our blog and want to read our story (that is before I finish moving it here) you can visit our original blog and start from the beginning or skip around.

Credits: All images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for A Timeless Affair.