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Lucas and I got married in 2018 and we knew our budget wouldn’t be very big. Fortunately, we are both pretty handy and creative so we found ways to save money by DIYing what we could!

I was able to find used items on a Facebook group of local sellers, researched and learned how to create our invitations, created our seating chart (which was also our favor), created decorations, put up our own “photo booth”, and created our centerpieces just to name a few projects!

No one even knew the amount of work I put in, which I suppose is a good thing, but I was also wanting to show off all the work I did haha!

So instead of walking everyone around to the different DIYed things at my wedding, I’ll just share them here for you! I hope you can get some ideas and save yourself some money.

Invitations

I have no idea what sparked this in me, maybe it was the insane prices for ordering nice invitations, or maybe I was just feeling especially crafty, but whatever the reason – I had decided I was going to make our invitations.

I found myself some really nice card stock in the colors I liked, found a youtube video of someone making an invitation in a style that I liked and put it together as a prototype to see if I liked the outcome.

Lucas and I ended up loving how they came out and I’ll tell you I got TONS of compliments on these. Someone told me, they appreciated my old school Italian style of invitation.

I’ll be honest, I’m a bit of an old soul. I wanted a classic wedding with tradition, a flair of contemporary, and a lot of happy guests. I think I delivered on all accounts.

I wish I had better photos of this, but I just used office Word to create the invitation part (this was before I knew the wonders of canva.com) and cut and pasted the card stock to create an envelope with a pocket for the info card, and RSVP card.

We closed each envelope with some ribbon and a wax seal just for an extra classy touch.

Seating Chart

I wanted to come up with a creative way for my guests to find their seat and I thought it would be fun if that was also keepsake. On the Facebook used wedding items page, I found these adorable 3 inch chalkboard hearts with twine loops.

Because of this find, I came up with the idea to hang these chalkboards in some way to indicate where each guest would sit and then they would take their chalkboard with them to their table and then take it home.

I’m not a huge fan of twine, so I replaced the twine with ribbon to match the colors of the wedding. I then found an “H” stencil for our last name and I used a Sharpie paint marker so the H and the guests’ names wouldn’t rub off. I thought it would be a personal touch to have my handwriting on each favor, but now that I have a Cricut Maker too bad I couldn’t have used that!

Here’s where my creative hubby comes into play. I can’t remember how it was decided, but we chose to use a peg board to hang the hearts. The peg board was already white, so he used blue painter’s tape to block out stripes on the board and a heart near the bottom. Then we had purchased some gray spray paint to spray the whole board.

After removing the painter’s tape, we used my mother-in-laws Circuit, which we were so fortunate to be able to use to create our names out of vinyl. We also made card stock hearts with the table numbers so if the guest’s name was in that row, that’s how they knew which table was theirs.

Centerpieces

I knew that I wanted something a little different, small, and elegant for my centerpieces. I love the look of a gorgeous display in the middle of a table, but I wanted my guests to be comfortable and I don’t know about you but having a giant centerpiece that blocks the view of others at the table doesn’t make it very comfortable.

My wedding colors were blush, burgundy, and gray and I found blush fake roses on Amazon. I took the heads off of the stem and wanted to find a way for them to float on the water.

At first, I tried the bubble wrap method, where the bubble wrap is under the flower and it supposedly floats. It kind of worked, but we were finding it wasn’t that stable and the flower would flip over.

Then I found a method of spraying the bottoms of the petals with Scotch Guard like this one.

This seemed to work the best! We spent a bit of time spraying all the flowers the day before the wedding. This might not have been our best idea, I’m one who likes to work smart not hard haha. However, I have to say they came out pretty great! The venue had the bowls, vases, tea lights, and mirrors so they put together the final product for us.

Additional Decorations

There are so many little decorations to consider when putting together a wedding. There’s signs, programs (if you choose), flowers, candles, etc. In order to save money, we went light on the flowers and decided to let the bouquets and centerpieces do the talking.

Just for your viewing pleasure, these are the bouquets, made of silk flowers. I found a local vendor to make them for us and she made it exactly how we requested and for a great price! She also gave us some extra flowers to have our bakery put some on the cake to match.

In this photo you’ll notice the boutonnieres, mother’s corsages, and my toss bouquet. Like I said, I wanted some tradition so I threw the bouquet.

I made other signs with Office Word as well for the wedding. I found some really nice wooden frames on the Facebook used wedding items page, and used them for various signs. One of which was an “In Loving Memory” sign. What was nice about making signs on my own, was I used the same fonts and graphics such as a floral pattern I found to keep things succinct.

I also knew that I wanted chalkboards to be featured in other ways, it became a little bit of a theme. I again found these chalkboards on the Facebook page/garage sales. I used the Cricut for vinyl on the bigger signs, and put a handwritten message on the little bubble sign.

I found lots of other little decorations on the Facebook page/garage sale/friends who got married such as a big H with flowers on it, pew bows, the bubbles for the send off, table numbers, photo booth accessories, etc.

To further decorate the reception, I went to Joann Fabrics and found a fabric for a photo booth backdrop. I borrowed a backdrop stand, and my fabulous mother-in-law who, side note; also happens to be a seamstress and altered my wedding dress for me (BIG Savings!), she helped me sew the fabric so it could be put on the stand.

This was such a fun addition to the wedding! I knew I wanted a photo booth because I always enjoyed them at other people’s weddings. I bought a REALLY nice fabric so it was a little costly, but still cheaper than renting a photo booth. I put up a selfie stick, some photo booth accessories, and my photographer took photos of the guests too. It was a lot of fun and gave us a nice backdrop for additional photos!

This particular photo at the end of the night gave us an opportunity to show off our matching tattoos. I know we’re super corny. We may or may not have matching license plates..

Extra Favors

So for some reason, the ONLY big thing my husband wanted for the wedding was to create a wedding favor. Never mind the fact that I had spent hours creating the hanging chalkboard hearts that I was excited about…

But he was excited about it, so we had TWO favors haha.

He was not as cost effective as I, so he ordered wood coasters off Etsy..

BUT really cool, more DIY – most people probably don’t have this opportunity, but my brother works with machines and was able to create a brander for us. My husband and his best man took a lot of time branding each coaster. Fun fact, he over ordered so have a lot left. haha! Classic. But our guests really liked them and they’ve become a staple in everyone’s home – mostly ours.

Best Tips for Saving Money Putting Together a Wedding

• Do Your Research
  • Look into prices for elements you want at your wedding.
  • Could any of them be DIYed?
  • Is it worth the time and effort to save the money, or will it stress you out more to take the time making something?
  • Does it actually save money through DIY or is it comparable or even more expensive??

• Ask Friends Who Recently Got Married
  • Especially if it’s an acquaintance looking to get rid of some of their materials, and you have a different guest list or can revamp what they had go for it!

• Search Online Local Sales
  • Whether it’s Craigslist or Facebook, there are many places to find lightly used (because let’s be real, it was all used for 1 day) items wanting new life.
  • Make sure you are comfortable with whichever site and seller you choose.

• GARAGE SALES!
  • Keep eyes out at garage sales, you would be so surprised at what you’ll find!

• Enlist the Help of Friends and Family
  • Guaranteed someone will be there to help, it doesn’t hurt to ask!
  • You might have some friends or family with creativity or a trade, they can save you some money!

• Use Technology to Your Benefit
  • There are many online templates to use to create beautiful documents and signs.
  • For my wedding, I should have been much smarter than to just use Word, but hey even that worked!

We were so blessed at our wedding, it was a dream day that I would love to re-live. No matter what, your wedding will be special too! Enjoy every minute, don’t let ANYTHING stress you out, and if it pleases you to add a personal touch to your day like it did me – give some of my tips a try 🙂