u/boneyjoaniemacaroni

My husband and I made this and used it at our wedding and the photos came out SO great. It’s all one piece except just the stand on the back. We can unscrew that bit, though. It’s 92” tall by 48” wide. It’s 2” deep and then the stand adds 6.5”. We set up black pipe and drape behind it (we made the pipe stands ourselves and still have those as well that we’d love to sell), and set up a ring light and phone stand in front.

I live in a small city in central Oregon and am having a hard time selling it, but I’m willing to deliver pretty much anywhere in Oregon. We also have plans to go up to Seattle next month so could deliver there if needed! It’s been too tall for some folks to fit in their cars, and it’s so pretty. I don’t want to just throw it away and would very much like to recoup the cost of making it! Please excuse the state of our garage, still trying to get rid of so much wedding stuff and it’s a hot mess but I wanted a photo of the back of it.

I planned, designed, and executed about 99% of my wedding. Before anyone comes for him, my fiancé was absolutely present and helpful, but I have a skill level that he does not, so I did (and enjoyed doing) the vast majority of all of my DIYs.

A lot of folks hate on DIY weddings, and I totally get why (I attended one a few weeks ago and it was a hot mess). They’re a lot of work, and if you’re not familiar with crafting, it can get really overwhelming really fast. I am very experienced at LOTS of kinds of crafts, and was overwhelmed for a minute there, too.

The biggest thing that saved me was a) doing so, so much research on how to do everything before jumping in, and also a ton of searching to thrift items before making them and b) I was really, really organized on the execution of the items. I mocked everything up and took photos so our setup crew would know exactly how to set up. We had no day-of-coordinator, just the groom, groomsmen, and a couple good friends who weren’t bridesmaids setting everything up, and it took about 3.5 hours. There were very few hitches, and alllmost everything came out how I planned.

Both our families and the bridesmaids were able to relax and get ready, while the groomsmen still had plenty of time for a cocktail and a shower. We also rented a u-haul van and loaded everything up the night before so nothing was missing, and then we did hire a cleanup crew to re-load the van, and I sent my adult niece and her partner back to our house with it at the end of the night (they don’t drink so they didn’t miss the date party!).

I also assigned specific tasks to every person via text, spreadsheet, and binder at least a week (in some cases several months) in advance so no one had to wander around looking for something to do, and I got lots of complements for how a) all the helpers felt supported and clear on how things were supposed to go and b) how everything looked in the final result!

DIY List:
I did Sola wood flowers for all our centerpieces and extra floral decor including the arch. I ended up paying a local florist to do the bouquets and boutonnières because I simply couldn’t hack it. My mom did help a TON with the centerpieces because flowers are very much her thing. Husband also did a TON of work helping me paint the flowers- I ended up mixing up custom colors with paint I bought from Michael’s (RIPmy girl Joann). I’m happy to post a separate tutorial for sola if folks will find that helpful!

I bought and learned to use a circut to make the placecards, table numbers, welcome mirror, and seating chart. Note: gold foil is Satan himself straight from hell. Do not recommend as your first cricut project if you’d like to keep your sanity. If you do use it, set your blade to the Washi tape setting and do a duplicate cut. My gawd.

I also learned how to use Canva and designed and printed all of our signage, which I absolutely loved. In the photo for my bar signage is also the candle holders that we used on all the tables. I bought those secondhand from someone, and then drove out into the forest with husband to collect a bucket full of local lava rock to put in the glass globes. One of my favorite details-they looked so nice with the tea lights on!

I did our ceiling drapery too. I wish I had bought twice as much tulle because I wanted a gauzy cloud look but there was no way for me to mock it up in advance. I did put a lot of effort into measuring the fabric and marking where each swag should hit the rafters, and we cut and painted dowels so they’d have somewhere to rest where there weren’t rafters. Still overall happy with that, but not my favorite.

We also made our own pipe for the pipe and drape (I did order the fabric but the stands were really expensive to buy). We literally bought pipes from Lowe’s and fiancé spray painted them black and made a stand with some spare wood we had laying around. They looked janky af underneath but no one could see behind the fabric!

I also designed the fabric draping for our arch, which I was super happy with when I did it myself, but it looked a little flat in our photos. Would’ve added more fabric to that, too, to account for other folks not having the same skill level to floof it up. Same with the sweetheart table!

My absolute favorite DIY was the Photo Booth. I saw examples of these on Pinterest and my fiancé jigsawed the heart cutout (I drew it for him), then he painted the wood black and helped me staple on the fabric drapery. It was kind of a pain but not TERRIBLE. If I was going to do it again, I’d add on a thin foam before stapling the fabric (I just bought super cheap silk twin size sheets off temu, so together with the wood I think we spent about $115 on it?) so there was something for the pins to hold onto before I stapled everything in place. It was a huge hit and the pictures came out SO beautifully (we set up a ring light and phone stand in front so folks could take their own photos, but we also got quite a few from our photographer).

I also used ChatGPT (i know, I hate it, but it came out really well) to make temporary tattoos and printed those on our printer at home. They were a huge hit and the paper cost me about $15 iirc. Definitely going to make those again for future events!

Final kind-of DIY that was mostly a design detail I loved- we did a champagne wall on some folding bookshelves we already had at home. I used acrylic glassware for the flutes because I wanted a uniform look, and we alternated those with miller lites bottles (the champagne of beer!). We had a lot of beer drinkers at our wedding, so those were a hit too.

I thrifted a LOT of our decor, especially glassware- I drove all over Oregon (no small feat) collecting amber, black, brown, pink, and purple glassware and it looked awesome on the tables.

I also DIY’s our cocktails- I used the same base for both of them (local SUPER flavorful honey syrup with rosemary from my garden simmered in + lemon juice) and then folks could add either gin for a Bee’s Knees or whiskey for a Gold Rush. Both were a huge hit (our taco caterer also provided margaritas which are DELIGHTFUL but way more people did the ones I made, they got a ton of complements).

I also thrifted and reupholstered the chairs for our sweetheart table, which did NOT save me money but I love them anyway haha

Last thing I did that absolutelyyyyy saved my sanity: I blew up and printed at office max on foam board a floor plan of my venue and made to-scale tables so I could make sure my layout had enough space and made sense for flow. Also did the seating chart there, and it was AWESOME. I tried some of the digital tools for seating chart but found them to be way more cumbersome than just physically moving the names around.

I’m so happy to give any help/advice/instructions for anyone who is doing any similar DIYs!

Hey y’all, I got married a little over a month ago, and I did my own makeup. I fully intended to post the practice looks here for review but ended up not having the time/gumption. Nevertheless, I’m SUPER happy with how it came out. There are one or two photos where my eyeshadow looks a titch uneven, but I’m chalking that up to the lighting :) I also think I could’ve gone a bit heavier on my blush (I definitely was looking a bit pale in my reception photos, so I’m not suuuper thrilled with how the blush stuck around, any tips there are helpful! I did do a couple rounds of setting spray and then did setting powder on top)

Anyway, I’d love any feedback after the fact if there’s anything I didn’t see so I can keep learning (or just hype me up, I’m a Leo). I learned SO much while preparing for this (thanks Lisa Eldridge and Alex Anele), and I feel way more competent in general at doing makeup, especially skin makeup.

Product list:
Urban decay all nighter setting spray
Estée Lauder double wear
Laura Mercier translucent setting powder
NARS velvet matte lip pencil Valkyrie
Charlotte tilbury lipstick- pillow talk medium
Benefit brow 24-hour brow setter gel
Anastasia of Beverly Hills brow wiz taupe
Lisa Eldridge pinpoint concealer (expensive but I use it almost daily now, so worth it)
Tarte shape tape concealer
eyeshadow: Patrick TA major dimension palette in deep, idk what the shade names are but I used the medium brown from it
Natasha denova retro palette (patty, Amara, mod, go-go, apart)
Stila stay all day liquid eyeliner
Blinc brown tubing mascara
Ardell pre-mapped eyelash extensions
Lash couture super strong eyelash adhesive in black
Rare beauty gentle liquid contour gentle
Angel eyes eyeshadow primer light nude
Lancôme twin idole ultra wear camouflage green color corrector
Bobbi brown vitamin enriched face base (technically a moisturizer but works great as primer)