Like many of the soon to be brides who’ve posted their wedding ideas, I have been struggling to have an elegant wedding on a low budget. Our wedding is only six weeks away and over the past year I have found that making everything ourselves and having a DIY wedding – from our wedding invitations, Save-the-Date cards, unity candle and my wedding bouquet – rather than buying them, has not only saved us money, but makes the items and the day more special than ever.

Working in public relations, we were able to design our invitation and all the pieces that go with it and print them from the office. We were also fortunate to have the owner of a local print shop we work closely with donate all the paper we needed for the invitations, RSVP cards, Save the Date cards, bookmarks, thank you cards, seating cards and the programs. In addition, she also cut and folded the pieces as her wedding gift to us. Everything is perfectly coordinated since we did them ourselves. The pieces are done on nice white paper with blank ink, but we added sheer paper to many pieces and tied the papers together with nice purple ribbon to add color. Not only have my fiancé and I been involved in all our projects, my two teenage daughters have enjoyed helping us too.

I gathered flowers from the Dollar Store to use in my bouquet and other wedding flowers and arrangements we need for the reception and ceremony. My fiancé made me the most beautiful hand tied bouquet (see instructions for a DIY wedding bouquet) one evening while we were watching Monday night football. Not only is it beautiful, knowing he made it for me makes it something I’ll treasure forever. You’d never know it wasn’t done by a pro or that it didn’t cost a fortune to make.

When we went shopping for unity candles, we realized they were expensive and boring. We decided to buy a tall white pillar candle from the Dollar Store. We cut out the picture we created for our invitations, which includes our names and wedding date, and glued it to the “front” of the candle and trimmed the edges of the picture with lace. We then took boutonniere pins and with the help of graph paper, placed them around the candle with only the pearlized heads showing. It appears there are pearls all over our candle. We then took small silk purple flowers and glued them between the pins. It costs us less than $10 to make and is unique and personalized.

Because there are so many people who have touched our lives, we wanted to be able to tell them how we feel without taking up a bunch of time during the reception. We decided to make an insert to put inside the programs. It has personalized notes to all our family members as well as close friends. It’s a great way to say all the things we normally wouldn’t and it’s a memorable stroll down memory lane that they can take home as a keepsake.

Lisa Worley & Marty Vines
Rossville, KS