Pros and Cons of a DIY Wedding
Pros
1. It can be cheaper if done correctly.
Often times making something yourself is cheaper than buying it pre-made. Take your wedding veil, for example. Do you realize they charge anywhere from $100-1000 for a veil at bridal shops?! Do you also realize that you can buy the piece of fabric to make a veil for about $1?! Yes, the more detailed veils with lace appliques, beading, etc. are more expensive to make, but I can almost guarantee that you could make the most drop-dead stunning veil for under $100. This is a picture of my veil, which my mom made. It cost about $35. The fabric cost about $0.25, but the hair piece I just had to attach it to cost around $34.75. She also made my sister's fingertip-length veil with a beaded edge for under $40. Finding the right trim, comb or other accents is often the hardest part of this DIY project!
2. It's fun to make stuff!
Doing a ton of DIY stuff for your wedding can be so much fun! You get to be creative and artsy. But not only that, you can have lots of fun getting together with your friends and/or family to work on wedding stuff together. How much fun would it be if, instead of having a traditional bridal shower, you and all your girls got together and made bouquets and boutonnieres?! Even just sitting around and having a glass of wine with your maid of honor while you paint all your signs can be lots of fun.
3. It's exactly what you want.
It can be hard to find your "exact vision" in stores. Maybe you really want certain colors for your flower crown, but you can't seem to find those colors available from any reputable shops. Doing DIY means you get to hand select every single flower for your flower crown and get it EXACTLY how you want it. It's also a lot easier to make than you might think! Check out this article on DIY Flower Crowns!
4. You can re-purpose some of it afterward.
Often times you can reuse or re-purpose your leftover wedding stuff after the wedding. For instance, I use my card box as decor in my house, I have my "memorial" frame hanging in my house, and some of the signs I made have been re-purposed as decor in my house as well! It's great having stuff around from the wedding because every time I look at it, it reminds me of the happiest day of my life (not to mention I feel proud because I made it!). You can easily reuse vases, candles, fairy lights, etc!
5. You can make some of your money back.
Anything that you can't re-purpose or reuse can often be resold after your wedding to make a quick buck back. In fact, I host wedding resale events in Missouri for just that purpose! You rent a booth at our event, set up your stuff, and have hundreds of brides come looking to buy. I resold some of my stuff at my first event and I made hundreds of dollars back that day! (Did I mention, my stuff was mostly black and white, so it was not even the "popular" colors that are selling well right now, and I still sold a ton of stuff!) If you're not into those kind of events you can always try selling on Facebook Marketplace or on Craigslist--those just take longer (and you never know who you're going to have to meet with to sell it!).
Cons
1. Setting it all up can be chaos.
Getting everything set up yourself (with the help of friends and family) can be total chaos. I was lucky to have a venue that allowed us to start setting up the night before. Some people who came to help were SUPER helpful. They tried really hard to get everything done in time. Then, there were people who came to help that used it more as a time to sit and talk and be social. Looking back, I totally get it. Some of my family hadn't seen each other in a long time! But the day before the wedding I was freaking out a little. Being the bride you have to direct people, and not be afraid to gently tell someone if they are doing it wrong. You will be pulled in multiple directions the entire time. There will be people who don't ask your opinion and just start doing something, and they might get it wrong--and unless you supervise EVERY SINGLE thing that is going to be done, you may not realize it was done wrong until it's too late.
2. It can be more expensive if you're not careful.
Sometimes DIY is actually NOT the cheaper way to go. Sometimes just buying the supplies to make something ends up costing more than what you could purchase ready-made for. A good example of this is those flower crowns we talked about in the pros section. When I made my friend's flower crown for her wedding, I think it cost us about $30 to make. I've seen flower crowns on Etsy for half that. The main difference is getting to make it yourself, you get to hand-select everything that goes on it. If that's important to you, spend the money and do the DIY. If you just want a generic flower crown and don't care about the colors, you might want to just buy a pre-made one. Just make sure that before you decide to DIY something, you check the price of a pre-made one first!
3. DIY causes more work and stress leading up to the wedding.
I mentioned that it can be chaos the day before the wedding, but I didn't mention how much work and stress it can be in the months leading up to the wedding. Again, using that flower crown--I think I spent about 2 hours in the store picking everything out. I spent about 2 hours researching how to do it (yes, I read online tutorials too!) and then I started making it. About an hour in, I was ready to pull out my hair because the stupid flower heads kept popping off their stems. I finally realized I should hot glue the heads to the stems and start over. Hot gluing took maybe 20-30 minutes, and making the crown after that took around 3.5 hours. So in all, I spent about 9 HOURS on this damn flower crown! That's pretty much an entire day, all together. Now imagine that I've decided to make a flower crown, a veil, all my signs, print my invitations, etc. That is going to be A LOT of work and a lot of stress and time. It can be well worth it, but consider that when you decide how much stuff you're going to DIY.
4. It can mess with your day-of timeline.
This one kind of ties into number 1, but the day of the wedding, you have enough to worry about without having to stress about whether everything got put out where it's supposed to go and how everything looks. If you let yourself get stressed out about this, it can seriously impact your day-of timeline. Some of my stuff didn't get set out in time, but my bridesmaids didn't tell me until later that night or the next day. If I had known, I might have tried to do it myself. And did I mention everyone was still trying to get stuff set up for mine and they forgot to start getting ready when they should have?! We ended up starting the ceremony a little bit late. It all worked out in the end, but just try not to stress about it too much.
5. Hauling it and storing it is a pain.
We did so much DIY for my wedding. We made decor, a candy bar, outdoor games (it was at a camp), a s'mores bar, a tux for the ring-bearer dog, lots of signs, my veil and garter, our programs, our guestbook puzzle, welcome bags, and a photo booth! We actually had an ENTIRE ROOM in my Mom's house completely dedicated to all things wedding. We had boxes and totes of stuff stacked up in that room. And guess what?! We had to figure out how to transport all that all the way to my venue, which was an hour and a half away. We ended up renting a U-haul van and we filled it all the way up (and had about 4 cars full! No joke! Of course, that includes 2 dogs, our luggage for the weekend, several tuxes and dresses, lots of blankets and pillows, and all of the drinks for our bar) Now, if you live close to your venue it might be possible to just make multiple trips. But, figure the price of gas and/or a van into your budget if you're going to DIY almost all your wedding stuff! (I have to say, this little adventure was lots of fun for everyone involved and the venue, etc., looked amazing for all our efforts!)
