Has anyone decorated their own wedding?

Welcome bags were handed out to every room provided with a welcome note, wedding day schedule, activities and dinner details night before the wedding.

Wedding programs printed at home 2 sides folded onto the stick. Material kit provided by Craftsticks.com.

Guest favours were Crystal tealight candle votive holder in box with cards set accordingly to seating.

Thank you cards same design as invitation. The picture onside the thank you card matched the menu card except red colour on a clipped bell. Stationary was ordered from vistaprint site.

Guest book with personalized pen (Vistaprint) not expensive and heaven note printed at home.

Hurricane lamp set at head table. Inside of it had gold wreath and tealight holder whike outer was black ribbon hot glued.

Backdrop was easy to put up in 5 minutes and less than $100 to rent.

All this work was done by myself and help of my husband.

We are decorating ourselves, the only thing I got a vendor for was the flowers, which I got an amazing deal on and my florist is amazing! But all the centrepieces, table numbers, guest book table, dessert table, ceremony decor and reception decor is DIY by me and my bridesmaids. I am a perfectionist and want everything to be exactly how i see it in my head, plus saving money on a decorator is a bonus lol Pinterest has been great for me, as well as wedding magazines that I have been using for inspiration and ideas!

Also, we may have access to our venue a couple of days before the wedding depending on availability, so if that is the case then we will have plenty of time to decorate for the wedding. If we can only go in the day of the wedding, we are headed up there at 6am to start, and we will have an army of us get it done the day of. Praying that we can go in a couple of days before though!!

We have done all of our decorations. Big paper decorations. 100s of paper cranes, paper flowers etc. I started in October making things and we are pretty much done now. The Wedding is in 25 days. I am looking forward to putting it all together the day before the wedding.

Yes pinterest has been my bff lately too! We are going to make out own centre pieces, hubby is going to cut us some wood slabs and im decorating some mason jars and have bought cute burlap/lace votives on sale at micheals! Im hoping to make my own signage, guestbook, cake stand and other misc decor to put around the room. Like you im hoping it looks professional! Lol Hope everything works out! Thanks for tje advice

By decorating yourself, do you mean setting up the decorations yourself or making the decorations yourself? Both can definitely be done but just keep in mind that DIY does not always mean less expensive or easier so some things are best left up to the professionals! We DIY'd some of our projects like centerpieces, guest book/escort cards, signboards,etc. We did set up our decorations ourselves. If we could have afford a Day Of Coordinator that would have been great but I wanted to see everything set up myself anyways. You should talk to your venue to see when you would have access to set up. Can you set it up the night before or will you need to do it the morning of the wedding? Is there another wedding before yours that do? Do they have a contact for you to work with that will set everything up for you? We set ours up the morning of the wedding and since my husband and I didn't want to see each other before the ceremony, my sisters helped me set it up.

If you're going to set up the decorations yourself, I would recommend trying to replicate the conditions as much as possible and try everything out in advance. You may encounter things that you weren't expecting and if you find out in advance, you can try different solutions out rather than scrambling the day of the wedding! Our escort cards were pictures in little holders but we found out when we were setting up that the holders weren't standing up on the table cloth and as soon as someone walked by, they would all fall over. We ended up finding a store nearby that sold white sticky tack and we stuck the holders to the tablecloth so they wouldn't fall over. You never know what's going to happen until you have it all done!

Also, if you pick a venue that is already nice on its own, you won't have to do much in terms of decorating. Our location was beautiful so we didn't have to do pipe and draping or uplighting and just mainly focused on decorating the tables themselves. (Which you also don't have to do a ton of because there's not a lot of room and people need space for their food and drinks.)

I'm hoping to do the decorations myself but also terrified it won't work out. I bought lanterns for centrepieces already, just need to do the flowers around it now and flame less candles inside. Not going too big or too diy because I have no time since we have a 3 year old and a 1 year old running around but trying to do basic stuff.

I am in your boat.

We are having a destination wedding with approx 50 guests. I have all these ideas in my head. I asked for Mondays or Fridays off work this summer and I am going to do DIY projects like making signs for the ceremony, making our drinking glasses (technically buying the glasses) but wrapping them in burlap type rope, seashells etc., doing something with oysters, centrepieces, wild greenery etc.

I have big ideas but like you wondering if I can pull it all off. I bought fans and ribbons and I am going to tie the ribbon to the fan and do some type of caligraphy with our wedding date on the fan for the ceremony.

I am thinking of tackling it all myself but I may have my girls over for wine/cheese one weekend and do a DIY craft day.

Pinterest has been extremely helpful and addictive for ideas. It is just wondering if i can pull it off vs. looking like a 3 year old made it in daycare.

We are also on a budget and paying for every aspect of our wedding ourselves.

I am also making lanterns for each table ourselves along with table decor super cheap and its lightweight and portable.

Would love to hear your ideas too.

Hey Daykota! That's amazing! I'm so happy to hear it! What are you favourite DIY inspiration pictures? I can't wait to see them!

Sounds exactly like what I will be doing. 60 guests, a whole lot of diy projects, decorate it at 10am the morning of, and tear down the next day. I made a list of things I need to get done and am in the process of gathering all the mateirals so I can start all the little projects as soon as I can. Saving edible ones for the last. Definately get some friends and family invloved. You can even a diy girls day!

Awesome! Thank guys! Im totally going to do it! I'm able to decorate the day before and have a few crafty friends that can help )

My sisters girlfriend did all DIY with her mom and they had a week to pull it off. Needless to say, it all turned out beautifully!

You can definitely do it. Just be aware of how much time you have to do things and figure out who can actually do them the day of if you can decorate the day before

We are DIYing our own decorations... Our venue will allow us in the day before and we can come back the next morning to tear down... My bestfriend who had her reception at the same venue, did her own decorations and hired a decorator to polish it off... It looked amazing (mostly due to BFF) it wasn't one of the things she recommend when planning mine.

Thank you!!

I think it's totally doable! We have about 200 invited guests and we also want to get married on the cheap which is difficult with that many people! So we are considering doing as much of our own decoration as possible!

Hi Daykota,

I haven't decorated my own wedding, but I think it's doable. If you have some trusted friends/family that are willing to help, and will be able to gain access to the venue a day or two before, then I think it's very doable.

That said, you may want to assign a go-to person other than you, in case of any decor related emergencies.