For the budget-conscious couple, doing DIY for your wedding can be a lifesaver! And there are many aspects of a wedding that make for perfect opportunities to get your craft on. But there are also some things you should leave to the professionals. Here is our breakdown of what you should and shouldn’t DIY for your wedding.

Do DIY: Favors

Forget spending tons of money on expensive customized favors, and do it yourself! Pick out something simple and inexpensive, but something that has meaning to you as a couple. From there you can just use your home printer and some yarn to create custom tags to tie on, or depending on what favors you chose, you can just write directly onto them with a permanent marker.

Don’t DIY: Tableware

Paper or plastic tableware may seem like an easy alternative to rentals, but the negatives usually outweigh the positives of purchasing disposable tableware. Real china and flatware has a look, feel, and presence that disposable tableware just can’t match. And when it comes time to clean up, the effort of putting the dirty dishes into the containers they were delivered in versus the effort of putting disposable tableware into trash cans is about the same. Cost differences are mostly minimal, and of course skipping the disposables means a lot less waste, and that’s something everyone can get behind!

Do DIY: Signage

If you need to direct your guests or provide important bits of information via signs, it’s simple enough to DIY. Buy or rent chalkboard signs, have someone with good penmanship write out the information you need and post them up where necessary. For the experienced DIYer, you can even make your own chalkboard sign with chalkboard paint and an empty picture frame! Then you can stand them on tables, hang them on walls, or place them on easels around your venue.

Don’t DIY: Photography

Almost everything that goes into a wedding will be gone the next day. The most important exception to this is the photography. The photos of your wedding day are going to be something you’ll cherish for the rest of your life, so you want to make sure you are getting the best! Hire someone you really trust to capture your day exactly how you want it to be memorialized. This is also an area where you don’t want to make cuts in the budget – quality is very important when it comes to your wedding photos!

Do DIY: Centerpieces

Depending on the number of tables you plan to decorate, the amount of centerpieces you need shouldn’t be a terribly large number. This makes it a simple DIY that won’t take up too much of your precious wedding planning time. If you want a more traditional floral look, buy or rent some vases or floral bowls and load them up with fake or real flowers. Candelabras or candlesticks are an easy one-step option, or get creative with different looks and themes and practice your arts and crafts skills on totally unique centerpieces!

Don’t DIY: Cake

Unless you happen to be a professional baker, chances are you don’t actually know exactly what goes into making a wedding cake. From the sheer size to the considerations of conditions, temperature and storage, a lot goes into a wedding cake. It’s not exactly the time or place to experiment with your home baking skills. It’s best to leave all of that to the professionals.

Do DIY: Paper Goods

Some websites like Shutterfly, Vistaprint, or even Etsy allow you to customize templates for invitations, programs, and menus, or upload your own custom design and get them printed and sent straight to your house. Or, if you really want to save some dough, just type up all your paper goods on your computer and print them at home on some nice cardstock for a gorgeous minimalist look.

Don’t DIY: Dinner

Similar to the cake situation, catering a wedding is not as easy as it may seem. Feeding that many people is a no easy task, and getting those calculations correct takes practice. Then you would also have to arrange where to cook it all, how and where to store it, and how to serve it. A caterer can usually handle all of those things behind the scenes, so you can happily cross that off your to-do list.

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