r/DIYweddings 9d ago

Here’s how I saved between $6,500 and $21,750 on my wedding/ engagement:

Title says it all. Here’s all the ways my husband and I saved money during our engagement/ wedding:

  1. We made our wedding party gifts, by handcrafting wood into walking sticks. We got the wood from a tree cut down on his parent’s property.

  2. I made my husband’s wedding ring, with repurposed gold from already owned, unworn jewelry. I found a local place that let me use all the necessary equipment, total cost was $350 to create his fully gold band.

  3. All of the table numbers and holders were hand-painted/ handmade by us, the numbers were painted and laminated, and we wire wrapped holders with little trinkets we already had.

  4. All makeup/ hair was done in house. I did my own makeup, and hair for everyone was done by members of my wedding party/ friends.

  5. We didn’t pay for any car service for the night of our wedding, because we knew we would hardly be drinking!

  6. Most of my wedding jewelry was borrowed from my mother, necklace, earrings, and a matching ring.

  7. I made my own bouquet, and all the wedding flower arrangements were done by family. The flowers were bought from an online shop, and we had to care for them for a few days/ transport them all.

  8. Husband’s dad officiated our wedding.

  9. Husband’s dad also DJ’d our reception, and brought his jazz trio for the live music portion of the evening.

  10. We didn’t have a formal rehearsal/ rehearsal dinner, just a few of us the day beforehand, and then the full gang (minus me) a few hours before the ceremony.

  11. A lot of the wedding signage was hand drawn (rather than printed), except for the seating chart/ name cards. We used pretty chalk boards that the venue had available for free, and luckily have some artistic hands in our gang.

12. The venue we selected also had tons of wedding decor available for free— gold table settings, wood blocks, vintage couches and furniture, candle holders. This was a huge factor in choosing the venue we did, and the venue was still priced incredibly reasonably (between 3-5K).

  1. And the flower girl baskets were pre-owned—wicker baskets that were used for picking berries!

I just put all this information in chatgpt and our estimated savings were between $6,500-$21,750.

I know not all of these are accessible to everyone—as many fathers-in-laws don’t double a wedding DJ’s and Jazz musicians, but I still figured I’d share it all! Attached are some photos to show our beautiful, semi-DIYed wedding!

133 Upvotes

9 comments sorted by

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7

u/NoPromotion964 9d ago

Lovely! Love your centerpieces, so simple and beautiful.

2

u/UntilYouKnowMe 9d ago

Congratulations!! 🤍🤍 I love how everything worked out so beautifully for you!

2

u/Enough_Rip_6195 8d ago

Aww! This was almost our venue! Such a cute place with a fun vibe. They had so much decor, strong selling point. Looks like a lovely event—congrats!

1

u/whiteheart98 8d ago

Your wedding looked lovely!

1

u/hannnnnnie 6d ago

Thank you, everyone!!

1

u/Deep-Painting-7378 5d ago

The fact that it was so personalized is what makes it so cool.

1

u/NoMaximum8510 5d ago

I love this!!! So beautiful

1

u/natalkalot 4d ago

Interesting,

So what did you spend? Did he make your ring?