Did you regret DIYing things for your wedding?

[bluejeeeansbaby]

Was it worth the time and expense and personal hassle?

e.g. invitations. We're getting married next May so it's still too early to do, but a lot of the lovely online ones need to be 'booked' (apparently). I have looked at Canva and Zazzle etc- but what if they're shit looking and I waste all of that money and time?

Not at all, but we had a small wedding with about 20 guests. The only thing we didn't DIY was flowers. I made the invitations myself using cards, fabric, an ink stamp and ribbon from a craft shop and I was really happy with them.

We DIY'd invites. Used publisher and a friend hand painted a motif thing that fitted our theme that we put on the front. We then used a local printers to just get 100 A5 flyers or whatever the best deal was and did it that way.

Most of ours was DIY apart from things like hair and makeup, photographer and bouquets. Centrepiece flowers we did ourselves though. And food for the breakfast, confetti, favours, decor etc

Yes, loads
brilliant my best friend had got married the year before (I was her MoH and my daughter was her bridesmaid), she has a ‘proper’ posh wedding.
she kept all the lanterns, cushions, flower jars etc for me. She had chosen the colour around my MoH dress so perfect for me!

on the day she wore my MoH dress 😂

I got flowers from a street stall, we made all the place settings etc, my daughter squeezed into the bridesmaid dress again and we had it shortened.

our friend went fishing for the trout for the buffet.
our mates all put up a (slightly wonky) yurt.

we bought white table cloths then invited guests to take them home!

umm… our best man was the wedding MC - not sure of the word- he basically did the whole ceremony (after a registry office marriage), it was so much fun.

i got my dress from monsoon.

i do wish I’d had a hairdresser though!

Use canva, and download it as a pdf or PNG and then either print yourself or upload it to a cheap online print company.

I made our invitations about twenty years ago - I got a sore neck from being hunched over a card table every evening to stick on little tiny embellishments. They looked lovely, but if I was marrying now I'd design on canvas and just print them.

I DIYed loads at my wedding including the bridesmaid dresses. The invites were a definite one that I'm glad I did as it saved so much and I actually liked the simplicity of what we got.

The only thing I regret was not getting my hair done professionally. I'd had a trial with a hair and makeup woman and absolutely hated my makeup so decided I'd rather do my own, but my hair really needed the extra boost of a professional!

My mum hand made the invites and we printed inserts for them.

I made my bouquet and the MOH's bouquet the night before the wedding - MOH and I drank a bottle of champagne while we did it and enjoyed it!

Cake - we had 5 cheese rounds laid on top of each other with a heart shaped cheese as the topper. So much cheaper than cake (and I hate wedding cake) and it was served up as cheese and crackers in the evening.

Table decorations were cheap lamps from B&M and spray on tattoo kits for everyone to play with from Poundland 😂. I had mini packs of Love Hearts bespoke printed as the favours.

I wish we'd not bothered with the photographer and stuck to the family and friends photos we wanted.

No regrets except I wish I had a corset back on my wedding dress 😂

We did our invitations on Illustrator ourselves and then sent them out as PDFs in emails. So much cheaper than print and postage.

I must be odd, because I DO recall the small things from some weddings- matching invitation colours to the table decorations etc.

I DIY'd multiple things. I found a company to print the basic invite, but I hole punched and added ribbon/embellishments. The envelopes came flat packed and needed sticking together. They came out better than any I'd seen from a regular stationers and cost about 1/3.

I did look at vistaprint, but found that the earlier you order, the cheaper it was, and I'd run out of time to get any savings.

We printed thank you cards at home, using photos from the wedding as the card. I also had some photos printed of the guests, so each thank you card included at least 1 printed photo of that guest.

I'd bought cake/favour bags from poundland. They were made of card and in the shape of a bride and groom- they were 10p each! I then made the favours myself. I melted chocolate then added coconut, cherries, mixed fruit or nuts and put them into heart shaped moulds. None were left on the tables.

The only things I regret was making pew ends. They ended up looking like floppy ribbons and were a waste of money/time.
Chair covers is another waste, unless the chairs are absolutely dire. People will leave their bags/coats etc on the chairs so you don't see them anyways. I hired mine, but wish I hadn't bothered.

My wedding dress 😔

Print at vista print

First wedding spent a fortune regretted it (the cost) pretty quickly

Second wedding budgeted and feel we got value for money

I didn’t DIY anything except my make up - I had a trial with a makeup artist and it was awful.

However I did just not have a lot of things. No favours, no cake, no bridesmaids. Ushers/best man wore suits they had already. Borrowed car. Playlist instead of band. Flowers were very minimal as venue was pretty.

We didn't feel the need to have printed stationery and bought some from a shop, which my DF filled in and sent out for us. Looking back it made absolutely no difference to the memories of my wedding and saved us some money. We didn't have a wedding car as I had a thing about wanting someone to drive me there I need - now that I do have a lovely member of as he came to house about 20 mins before we were due to leave and had a lovely chat. I did my own makeup and hair and have no regrets over that. Someone DH knew made our cake, didn't overcharge.

I've absolutely no regrets about the above. One thing we both wished we hadn't done was go onto have an evening do. We had a fairly small(ish) wedding and felt we should invite everyone else to an evening do. We had a lovely wedding and sit down buffet - by the evening we were really tired and in reality just wanted the evening to relax by ourselves and chat about the day.

You can order prints directly through Canva. That said I just did email invitations through our wedding website which had all the details on (I think it was through theknot.com).

I maybe regret doing my own hair because it looked a bit crap but I think I would have felt uncomfortable if my makeup was too different to what I was used to!

Definitely glad we had a pro photographer. That and pro catering were our main expenses.

I also had a venue where we had to set up and clean up quite a lot ourselves - I was very stressed during the set up as it suddenly seemed like there was a lot more to do than I had realised, but I didn’t really mind clearing it the next day!

I initially had plans to put on some kind of buffet or barbecue ourselves to keep the costs down but I think that would have pushed me over the edge 🫠

I had a d.i.y wedding.
The internet hadn't been invented when I got married.
I bought a pad of wedding invites, wrote them then posted them.
My grandfather who was a master baker by trade, made and iced my three tier cake, a proper fruit cake, which was stunning and a shame to cut into. We saved the top tier for the first born christening.
We didn't do place cards etc at the reception, sit where you like.
My mum made my beautiful bouquet and the buttonholes.
My brother in law who was a police photographer did the photos.
I did my own hair and make up.
Absolutely zero regrets.

My mum made the cake but had it professionally iced. She made my dress and a neighbour drove me to the church in his vintage Rolls Royce.

The only thing I regret is not having a professional photographer.

I made a wedding website and emailed invites. Saved a fortune.

I DIY’d what I could in advance but I’m so glad I paid for venue decorators to set up and clear away. One less thing to worry about right before the day.

I bought a template from Etsy & then got the stationary printed by the local printing shop which was really reasonable & great quality.

I would definitely echo PP about starting DIY early - I did wax seals for invites / name places & table plan and it took days ! To the point where I was a bit stressed it wouldn’t get done in time

Also just to add aside from my own stationary, I couldn’t tell you what any of my friends invites looked like - I think it’s one of those things that mean a lot to the bride but most people think ah lovely & then forget. So don’t stress too much

I agree. Once the event has happened the invitation goes into the recycling.

Aw no I loved it! Did the invitations, menus and order of service on Canva and printed them using the printed.com wedding paper. Did all the flowers the day before, my bridesmaid helped me, and then we all dressed the venue. It was a small wedding though so not tons of decorations and bouquets etc.

I love my husband so much and I'm very happy we are married.
Unfortunately though in some ways I wish we had waited because I can't help but sometimes feel sad about a few things ...
My husband never actually proposed we kind of just had a conversation one day and then went out to buy a ring together we were in Italy... No getting on one knee unfortunately.
Then the wedding was totally rushed ! It was over the pandemic , we were moving out of the country and wanted to do it before moving ... But it was too rushed really.
I ended up doing a Indian style wedding because my grandparents loved Indian culture so much it surrounded my childhood. They are also Hindu . So I had a sari dress... Witch I really regret. My one chance to have a beautiful white wedding dress... :(
Then we handed out 3 vintage film cameras ... We got them developed after the wedding and there was a few good ones but mainly not good at all. Then the rest of the photos were just a few mobile phone pics . No family together photo. No kiss photo , one photo of me and my dad on the isle... He has a mask on . Depressing to look at that photo I can't even see my dad's face . Then there was the drinks.... We had bottles and bottles of polish flavored liquore ... And a few bottles of champagne that's it. I don't even like liquor. We made all the food the day before .. it was a buffet style ... There was no room for anyone to sit.
So no seated meal.
We had a couple of toasts ... Someone gave a random speech about hating weddings. There was a fight.
People didn't throw the confetti , I didn't have a first dance . I didn't have a dance with my dad . My morning of was rushed. My bridesmaids left a huge mess in the room that was supposed to be where me and my husband slept.
I have 2 blurry photos of us getting ready.
My "friends " did drugs and then left the wedding early to go get more .
The isle to walk down was so short it took only seconds to walk and I stood on my dress and almost fell.
We had someone take a video on a cassette tape camera. We got the tape back 3 years later. Decorating and preparing food was exhausting . I wasn't pampered at all. We ended up Watching Forrest Gump on satellite TV and going to sleep in the messy room. I wish it was different because I love my husband so much and I don't want to be disappointed when remember the day we got married. Ranting to get it off my mind really. I am lucky to have a lovely husband .