#weddingprojects

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I am not the most ‘crafty’ creature, but for our Brisbane wedding I wanted to have a very personal atmosphere while staying within a budget, so doing some DIY projects seemed like a great idea. I’m not going to lie, at some points along the way though, I felt like it was all too much effort. Here are some pointers that I learnt (the hard way)…

My first tip would be: consult Pinterest, books, blogs and magazines for step-by-step tutorials and pictures to help you along. I got a lot of ideas from the Martha Stewart Weddings magazine and ‘real wedding’ blogs. Pinterest also seems to be an amazing resource for creative brainstorming for wedding DIY. It was not around at the time of my weddings, but I am getting more and more addicted.

Next – ask for help from friends and family. This is key! Host a craft night with wine and snacks and get your friends to help with stamping, gluing, folding – whatever they are happy to assist you with. What about having a girls’ night with your bridesmaids and while you sip champagne and watch Bridesmaids, have a production line? Maybe your future husband will pitch in if you buy the beers? (Truthfully though, my husband would probably not have been interested in doing this even if beers were on the table).

I was extremely lucky to have the help of my fabulous Mum who is a craft wiz, and we worked many long hours making paper flowers; stamping and putting ribbons on lolly bags; making bird shapes for our guest message tree; and making the table number signs (amongst other things). Without her, I would have definitely gone crazy with this amount of work! But seeing the end product made it totally worth it for both of us.

Thirdly, don’t leave your DIY projects until the last minute. You will have plenty of other things to perfect (think: vows, speeches, jewelry choices) and will not want this stressing you out. Plan your workshopping times for when you can make this a fun activity, well in advance of your big day.

My last tip would be, if you don’t have time to do everything yourself, take a look on Etsy! Though technically you would not be DIY-ing, Etsy has so many amazing products that are handmade and can be customized. This way, you save time and support small business while still achieving the personalized feel for your decor. I was so happy with our cake topper from Etsy store CountrySquirrelsRUS and our rubber-stamp bird logo (seen on our lolly bags) from Etsy store Stampoutonline. I made many other small purchases for the three of our weddings from this website and swear by it!

Our custom-made cake topper from Etsy store, CountrySquirrelsRUS

Did you do any DIY-ing for your wedding day? I’d love to know how it went – tell me in the comments!

Happy crafting!

Abby xx

The photos in this blog are courtesy of Inexpensive Wedding Photography – http://www.inexpensiveweddingphotography.com (based in Brisbane)