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I love to DIY! I do it because it's cheaper and I also like the control. haha. I have always loved doing crafts too so I don't feel any pressure. I actually love the feeling of completing something I made, exactly the way I wanted it to be.
Ditto justeen. I just like doing it. It takes my mind off of work and school, and I can relax and just craft. I don't feel any pressure by it.
two main reasons;
-to save money
-to get the exact look i want, which is more specific to my taste than the regular wedding stuff on sale
I totally agree with you guys! I love to DIY! Ever since I began planning, I've been saying "I can do that!" Not only is it cheaper, but just like justeen said, I like the control. I want to be part of everything and it's all personalized with my own personal touch. I've already made and sent out my STD magnets and they turned out great :)
Honestly, I did/do it to pass time in my long engagement! I have found a love for it, and enjoy knowing that things are the way I want them to be :)
This may sound backwards, but for me DIYing is relaxing. I love to just put on a movie or TV series marathon and zone out on crafting instead of stressing about work.
I just enjoyed doing it. Why should I pay hundreds of dollars for chocolates for the favors, when I made them myself for $80? Same with the invites. I had fun doing it, I could make it exactly how I wanted, AND I saved money.
#1 - to save money.
#2 - i really enjoy it. "wedding crafts" as i refer to it as has been my hobby the last 9 months.
#3 - it's turned into bonding time for me and my mom. I'm really going to miss that.
#4 - I get a real sense of pride when i hear "you;re invites were gorgeous!" "that bouquet is amazing, where did you get it?" and i can say "thanks! did it myself!"
Did I mention that I do it to save money. :)
People were calling me Martha Stewart at my wedding because of my DIYs. I didn't think I took on that much, but for people who aren't in the bridal world it was alot!
At my first wedding, I didn't DIY anything. I was working full-time and going to law school 3/4 time, and I just didn't have the time. And a lot of the things I see people DIYing are things we just did without. We didn't decorate either the ceremony venue or the reception venue, except that my ILs got some flowers for the ceremony venue. (We would have left even those out, left to our own devices.) We didn't have programs. We had the reception at a restaurant, so they supplied food, tables, chairs, linens, etc. We didn't have music or dancing at the reception. The wedding was just fine as far as I was concerned. I made it through law school without going insane, and I stayed married for 20 years. (I wish I had been able to stay married for life, but the issues certainly didn't relate to anything about the original wedding.)
This time, my wife and I did far more DIY. There were several reasons for this. First, I am now self-employed, and my wife was unemployed during our engagement, so we had more free time. We had no financial assistance from anyone with the wedding, so if we wanted something we couldn't afford, we either DIYed or did without. And the wedding itself was a much bigger deal to me, because we had believed for so long that we would never be able to get married.
Even so, I rationed our DIY efforts. With regard to each project, we would DIY only if: a) we wanted something that was not commercially available at all (e.g., invitations and programs based on the artwork of our ketubah (Jewish wedding contract) or b) the amount saved represented a reasonable "payment" for the amount of time and energy required. This meant, for example, that my wife designed our invitations. However, we did not make the pocketfolds ourselves, and we did not print the invitations out ourselves--we paid Cards & Pockets to handle those tasks. We didn't DIY pomanders, because pomanders were just not important to us to justify the time involved.
I do see some people who seem to think that DIYing every aspect of the wedding is a moral imperative. I don't believe that. If a project is going to take you hours, and save you only a couple of bucks, I'd say don't do it unless you really want something you can't get commercially. And remember that your marriage, and your career, are more important than the one day of your wedding, so don't let wedding planning jeopardize those things.
I didn't.
I planned everything myself and decided at the beginning not to overthink things and keep things simple. In some instances I chose to eliminate things I would have to DIY, such as favors. I wanted this time to be stress free and I didnt want to have anything to do my wedding weekend besides hang out with my out of town guests.
I don't! I greatly admire people that do! But I am all thumbs when it comes to "crafty" things.
I started doing it to save money. Plain and simple. But as I got going I realized that I really like how personal it makes everything feel for me. And Mr. E loves it too.
Funny thing is, I'm not a crafter. I'm not really super creative nor am I a scrapbooker or a graphic design gal. Heck, I can't even sew a button on a shirt. For reals. But for some reason I haven't messed this all up yet so I'm just going with the flow and hoping I'm not making some freaky hokey wedding plan.
DIY as much as you feel like and are able to do. I don't DIY or sew or craft or bake NOW, so I was hard pressed to start or learn just because I was getting married! I have reached out to my friends with DIY skills and only took on things I could do without stressing myself out including painting lanterns for a custom look, stamping custom napkins, and our reception signage and maps in Photoshop. The rest I purchased or chose to do without.
Weddings are not competitions...Your wedding is YOUR wedding. Please don't feel pressure or create undue stress on yourself to DIY your way to wedding uniqueness and perfection. I had to stop reading Style Me Pretty for that very reason! LOL
I *only* reason I am going to DIY things like invites and programs and whatnot is to save money.
I am planning a BUDGET wedding and though at first I'd do as many DIY projects as I possibly could....then I quickly realized I HATE crafting. I hate the mess it makes, the time is consumes, the headaches I get. It is not for me. I will be making my bouquet and the floral centerpieces and that's about as far as I go.
I think people mainly do it to save money. I DIYed my programs, my flower girl basket, ring bearer pillow and my guestbook and I loved them all!! And I saved a lot of money by doing so as well!
I'm not DIY'ing, but I understand how you feel - when I started reading online about wedding planning I felt the same way. It took a while to realize that I didn't have to DIY to get married and be happy :)
I'm not good at crafting and so forth, and I know that anything I tried to make would end up looking too 'homemade' (i.e. like pre-schooler art, haha) and be a waste of my time and whatever money I spent on it.
If I were better at crafting, I might consider it. We semi-DIY'ed our invitations (someone else designed them, but we printed, cut and stuffed them ourselves), and that was more than enough for me!
I don't think I actually saved any money DIY (with buying samples and gadgets I didn't have) but the main reason why I did it was that the things I wanted I couldn't find. It would have been a lot easier just buying the stuff and a lot less headaches.
I craft all the time anyway, with jewelry, mosaics, soap, knitting, and anything else I can pick up, so I LOVE learning how to do paper crafts, bouts for all the guys, the girls' gifts, my veil and headband and favors. And I'm able to make a completely unique look that expresses my FI and I for our wedding.
That being said, I would not suggest you DIY unless you are 100% comfortable with doing and you have the time and patience. It can be rough if you don't know what you are doing. This is also stuff that is going to be in pictures for the rest of your life, make sure you are proud of it!!
I do it for two reasons:
1) If I DIY I can afford a lot MORE stuff. I don't have to choose between 3 ideas, I can do them all myself.
2) I like crafting. Its fun for me!
I love to DIY because it gave me something to do while i was deployed to Afghanistan and I love that the wedding is personalized. I just started letter pressing my invitations today and it felt so good doing it knowing I would have paid about $3000 for what I am doing for about $400. Loves it!
I'm not planning (yet!) but I will DIY a lot of things. I make things all the time and paper crafts are my favorites!
I'm a scrapbooker so I loved the thought of DIY. I had fun doing my invitations, and even though they were really simple, everyone commented on how neat they were. The only thing premade were the pocketfolds, but I cut all the paper, printed the actual invitations and rsvp's, taped the paper to the pocketfold, applied the little embellishment flower to the invitation, etc. It was nice to know that mine was one of a kind.
After those I thought that i should do the programs and menus myself as well with paper that matched the invitations since I loved it so much.
The little imperfections are what makes it worth it for me too. It's not about having everything be PERFECT, it's about doing it my way and being proud of what I've made.
DIY is a trend, pure and simple. If you want to participate in the trend, there are ways that you can do so without losing your mind--even something as small as using a rubber stamp to decorate the cover of your programs is DIY.
Me? I'm a DIY freak so I love the trend! I'm letterpressing my invites, doing my own calligraphy, making the placecards...And I'm happy as a clam.
But the best advice is: only take on projects that you would love to do and that you have time to do. Don't bother with things that would be "nice to do" or things that will stress you out. So if you're not into it, farm it out--that's what vendors are for!
I'm a little bit of a control freak and it was great, for me, to be able to control many of the details of our wedding (ie. paper weight, exact design, etc) without having to go to another person each time. I was able to save a TON of money DIYing projects but also got suckered into some DIY's that were probably more trouble than they were worth. I also enjoy crafting in general and it was really fun for me to learn about different crafting techniques, tools, and projects along the way.
I definitely don't feel pressure to DIY. I don't follow the wedding blogs anyway, the majority of which focus on DIY, as they don't fit my personal tastes. If I didn't feel comfortable with doing crafts, then I would definitely spend the money to get something already made. I don't have issues with being crafty (I did have a crafty grandma when I was younger so I couldn't exactly escape it) but I don't go out of my way to do it either when I don't feel up to it. Some crafts that I may like the look of, I already know my limitations so I won't do anything that I know will stress me out in the process and/or is clearly beyond my abilities.
That said, DIY provides the opportunity to exhibit part of your personality and individuality that the pre-made stuff from the wedding catalogs does not offer, since they don't want anyone anywhere to be even slightly creative. But if you do go the DIY route, be aware that it may end up more expensive since being crafty is not automatically cheaper, plus your time and stress are equal to money as well, which many people do not realize.
I am not DIY'ing a bunch, because like others have said, a lot of the typical DIY projects are not something we would do anyway.
I am taking on a few projects though. Our invitations are blank printables with pocketfolds, bought at Walmart on clearance for $1 for 25. So I bought two, and we will print them at home and I will add some personal touches (ribbon and such).
I'm also DIYing our ring bearer pillow... because I wanted something very specific AND I found the stuff I need to do it very inexpensively. And I suppose it's not 100% DIY because I'm just buying a premade pillow and adding pre-made appliques and such to it..
I am most likely going to add to or embellish my shoes when they get here.
Sometimes I just get a kick out of bucking the system a bit, and getting something for 1/3 of what the wedding world expects us to pay for it. Like my DIY "sash" (basically a long piece of quality ribbon, same as DB will sell you!)
I do it for the money savings, but also for the sense of accomplishment. For example, I found someone on etsy who would make me the same pillow for basically what I spent on supplies ($15)... but I declined because I want it to be something *I* did all on my own.
Same with the shoes. There's nothing wrong with them... I just love to put my "stamp" on things.
Then again I have to respect my own time limitations and believe me, if it was in the budget to simply place an order for invitations and have it be done, I would be all over it, because I have to limit the amount of projects we take on with both of us being full time students, working, and having 3 kids.
But mostly, I love the creative outlet. I am creative by nature and when I don't get to express that, well it's just not good for my soul. ;)
I would have to be honest here though and say that being RESOURCEFUL is more important to me than even being creative.. (well the two are related but you get my meaning).. I am known for being resourceful in all aspects of life and I get a huge kick out of THAT aspect of DIY'ing.
I DIY for the same reasons that others have said I just love to do it. I am already a crafty person and I have know for years that when I got married I wanted to make as much as I could. I think most people would be shocked if my wedding wasn't DIY. I also do it because it safes me a ton of money and it is nice to say I did something for WAY less than it would have cost me.
I have realized though that my list of DIY projects is too long and I have changed the list into a ranked order of things that I MUST have vs things I would like. I will go down the list and work on it as I can get different task accomplished.
DON'T take on too much.
to save money!! to add personality and uniqueness to the wedding?
actually it's all of the above.
but I think it's important not to overload yourself with projects, do what is reasonable. For me, I do it when it's practical.
I think what how we appreciate DIY in the bee world, vs general bride world, vs the rest of the world is different. they don't appreciate it as much, sometimes they think the bride is cheap.. (opps, I said it)
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I'm newly engaged and just starting the wedding planning process. When I first started looking at wedding blogs, I thought all the DIY stuff was fabulous. But the more I looked, the more I started to feel like--well, pressure to make everything myself! Like not only does the wedding have to be perfect, but perfectly handmade BY ME. Does anyone else feel the DIY pressure? Why do YOU DIY?