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The Dos and Don'ts of DIYThe creative vision for our wedding started with an inspiration board and ended with a massive sigh of relief when, the day before our wedding, I handed off all our decorations to our wedding coordinators and walked away content in the knowledge that they were someone else’s problem now. Along the way, I burned myself many times on my glue gun, replaced my Cricut blade twice, grew to hate the silk-floral scent of the local chain craft store, and suffered at least two papercuts so deep I was sure I’d hit bone. I made or designed nearly every decorative detail of our wedding, from the invitations and programs right down to the labels on the candy jars. But I wasn’t the only DIY-er. My sister-in-law Geneva worked through some epic crepe-paper-poppy-making sessions. Seth, my dad and my cousin Darcy cut the tops off the nearly 100 wine bottles we used for vases. My mother actually made my veil. My dad and his friend Brian rigged up an incredible floating chuppah. And my Aunt Donna, God bless her, masterminded and administered the assembly of dozens of floral arrangements, assisted by our aunts and cousins. It was, truly, a family affair. And it was a ton of work. In the end, though, it was all worth it. (At least, I think so.) You can see the results of our DIY projects, along with some of Aunt Donna’s epic floral arrangements, on our wedding coordinators’ Facebook page. The snapshots don’t quite do them justice (I know our photographer, Michael Dinneen, spent quite a bit of time making photos of the details, and I can’t wait to see them), but you can at least get a sense of what I was going for: sort of an elegant-whimsical garden party mood. There were a fair number of rhinestones involved. Now that I’ve survived the DIY wedding experience, I feel like I’ve got some wisdom to share. Here are some thoughts on equipment and supplies in which you might consider investing if you plan to go down the same road. (And if you need moral support, you can find me on Facebook.) My first and most crucial piece of advice is to use your coupons. Jo-Ann and Michaels both include 40 percent off of one item coupons in every single Sunday newspaper. Sometimes those coupons are for 50 percent off, and occasionally there’s an incredibly valuable coupon for 10 to 20 percent off your entire purchase. If you don’t get the paper, you can sign up to receive coupons via e-mail and browse the weekly ads online. Jo-Ann seems to have a lot of great sales on papercrafting goods -- I don’t think I paid full price for anything I bought there for our wedding. CricutI don’t usually get excited about Black Friday sales, but I did venture out to Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts last Thanksgiving weekend after spotting a deal that seemed too good to be true: Cricut Personal Electronic Cutters marked down to $59.99. Let me tell you right now: That was the single smartest purchase I made in the course of the entire wedding planning process, with the possible exception of the bottle cutter (more on that below). I used the Cricut to cut out every page of our invitations, every label for our candy buffet, and every cardstock bird that decorated each of our 30-plus floral arrangements. Caveat: Cricuts require replacement blades and cutting mats. I went through three blades and a half-dozen or more cutting mats over the past year and a half, but if you have a smaller guest list (and an invitation suite with fewer than six pages), you probably won’t chew through quite as many supplies. |
