Past DIY: Our Wedding

When my husband and I got married in November 2010, we decided we wanted to create as many of the day's items as possible to save money and put our own spin on our wedding. In the end, the items we created included save the dates, invitations, coaster favors, boutonnieres for all groomsmen, dads and grandpas, wrist corsages for the moms and grandmas, bridesmaid gifts, programs, various signage for the day, centerpieces and ceremony decor. I might be forgetting a few things, too.

Our colors were navy and gray with touches of apple green. We used peacock feathers as accents, as well, which were included in the boutonnieres, bouquets and centerpieces.

I don't know how much money we spent on all of the DIY projects, but we regularly shopped sales and used the Dollar Tree as a major source for our projects, so I'm confident we came in way under what we would have if we'd used professionals for every item. Crafting isn't always cheaper than just buying the item pre-made, but in this case, it worked well for us.

Also, we really weren't concerned with putting too much effort into some of the items, such as the invites. We kept them very simple and printed them at home to save money. We really didn't see the point of spending a lot of money on something that would get thrown away. 

Invites (names blurred):

 Back of envelope

Front of envelope (we used a DIY wrap around label)

 Invite with belly band

RSVP card (we had guests RSVP via email)

Corsages and boutonnieres:

For the guys

For moms and grandmas

Centerpieces: It took us a while to figure out what we wanted to do, but we knew we didn't want to use flowers so we could save money. I saw these green balls on saveoncrafts.com and thought they would be a good vase filler. From there, we decided to use some branches to add height to the centerpiece. We had long, rectangular tables, so these were in the center with two smaller vases on the ends with a floating candle. Our table settings cost us under $10 each because the vases were from the dollar store and we bought things in bulk. 

Centerpieces used in ceremony space (vase filled with split peas)

Homemade curtains to cover some paintings in our ceremony space. 

Signage:

Favors: Our biggest labor of love! We made each guest a set of two coasters that doubled as escort cards to find their table. They also showed the servers which meal the person chose.

The coasters were made from 4" x 4" white tiles that we bought at Menards for about $.16 each. We put felt on the bottom of each tile. We then cut two patterns of scrapbook paper and Mod Podged them to the tiles. We also created a little monogrammed sticker to put in the corner with our names and wedding date. The final step was sealing them so they would hold up when people put wet glasses on them. We probably spent 24 hours on these over the course of a few months, but they turned out great and we got so many compliments on them. People always tell us they still use them every day!

So those are most of the items we made to make our wedding "us." We absolutely loved our wedding and wouldn't change anything, even though it was a lot of work to get all of this together!