r/DIYweddings

I really wanted a romantic, floral look but didn't want to spend a fortune, so I decided to make my own. I started with a simple plain veil that came with a built in comb. Then, I ordered some preserved flowers and pearl decorations from SHEIN, and picked up some fake greenery from a local supermarket. Before gluing anything down, I spent some time laying all the flowers and pearls out on the tulle to figure out the placement. Once I was happy with how it looked, I used a hot glue gun to secure everything.

Originally, I only planned to use this as a prop for our wedding photos. However, my husband saw it and insists that it's beautiful enough to wear during the actual ceremony too! I'm a bit torn. What do you guys think？is it ceremony worthy, or should I stick to just using it for photos?

Hi everyone! I had a lot of fun making little DIY projects for our whimsical forest wedding and wanted to share :)

1. Velvet mushrooms: bases are glass vases filled with plush stuffing & rocks, then covered with velvet. Caps are plastic bowls covered with velvet. To decorate, we added flat-back pearl beads or pearl trim or charms.
2. The velvet mushrooms were used to line ceremony aisle, then repurposed for reception & a fairy ring photo op
3. Mirror welcome sign: mirror found on FB Marketplace, Cricut’d wording
4. Invites and programs were drawn by me, then printed at a local print shop. Envelope liners were cut out with my Cricut
5. Programs included a note from us, schedule, wedding party line-up, bar menu, and the seating chart. Basket sign was Cricut’d on some linen
6. Cake topper (our zodiac animals!) was made from Sculpey clay, the wood base they're standing on is from Etsy
7. Table number holders were wooden animals (from FB Marketplace, Etsy) that we cut a notch in
8. Menus (and table numbers) were printed at home on handmade paper from Etsy
9. Bar menu was made on Canva with some pet art by me, then printed at Walgreens
10. Temporary tattoo bar included our actual matching cat tattoos and a cute drawing of us by my 5 y/o niece and were printed through Etsy sellers
11. Giant crossword was created using an online crossword maker, assembled in Canva, and printed at Walgreens. The big frame we found on FB Marketplace. This was super fun to see everyone working together
12. S'mores kits had to be assembled the day before so they wouldn't get too stale, these were a hit

All in all, we probably did NOT save much money doing these, but they were fun to make and added personalization to our day!

Looking for advice!

I am getting married in December and planning on DIYing my florals. I understand it it a pretty large undertaking but I am a SAHM and planning on enlisting tons of help from mom, MIL, and bridesmaids once it comes time to assembling things. That being said, if you did your own florals, what was the most useful resource for you? What were some tips that you wish you had known when prepping? What are your feelings on fake vs real?

I’ve attached a screenshot of one of my pintrest boards of our vibe for the wedding and we are planning on keeping things relatively simple, our venue already has quite a bit of tropical greenery all over so we are also leaning on that aspect of the venue to make things easier on us.

Thank you in advance for any advice!!!

Wedding decorations $400.00
12 4’’ Candle Holders, 12 3’’ Candle Holders, 12 Votive Candle Holders, 12 Tea Lights, 2 3 1/2 Garland Flowers with a big flower in the middle, 5 25” Garland, 5 Bootineers, 1 Maid of Honor arrangement, 3 Bridesmaids arrangements, Ribbon and other wider ribbon for other flower arrangements or decorations, Material for tables 5 blue and 5 Berry 30” wide and 5’ 28”long, 1 tall vase and 1 Brushed Gold
Arch. Original all over $1200.

Hi everyone! I DIY’d the florals for my April wedding and wanted to share my experience. I ordered flowers from three providers. My wedding was a two hour drive from my home, so I also transported the flowers and finished building arrangements at my AirBnb.

Cost breakdown:
Whole Blossoms: $1,955.59. I purchased the majority of my florals from Whole Blossoms. While their website says they’ve been awarded The Knot’s “Best of weddings” award, I was a little anxious about ordering from them. I hadn’t seen many reviews on Reddit, and they use a lot of AI images on their social media and website. Ultimately, I was pleased with the flowers I ordered from them.

Flower Moxie: $586. I placed a smaller order from Flower Moxie for flowers that were not sold by Whole Blossoms.

Costco: $71. I only ordered white hydrangeas from Costco. They have great prices, but a much more limited selection.

Supplies: ~$600. I purchased floral shears, foam, tape, wire and vessels for my various arrangements including glass vases, Lomey dishes and foam trays and bud vases. For hydration and floral prep, I purchased small and large sterilite bathroom trash cans and a large collapsible trash can, which was clutch in our AirBnb. I also purchased a Flower Moxie Floral academy membership; it was $45 and I felt it provided a lot of great instructional videos and resources. 

Prep:
I decided I wanted to do my own florals over a year in advance. This gave me plenty of time to learn about floral design and care. I watched a ton of YouTube videos and even read some floral design books. Flower Moxie videos were my favorite; they explain things well and showcase a lot of different designs.

Delivery:
I set a delivery date of three days before my wedding (Wednesday) for all orders. Only the Costco flowers and half of the Flower Moxie flowers arrived on time. All the Whole Blossoms flowers arrived on Tuesday, and the second half of my Flower Moxie order arrived Thursday. The early Whole Blossoms arrival wasn’t an issue; if anything, it gave me more time to prep and build arrangements, and the flowers stayed fresh. The delayed Flower Moxie order was frustrating, and I didn’t use many of the florals from that order in my arrangements.

Floral quality:
Many of the blue hydrangeas I ordered from Whole Blossoms were partially brown and smashed on arrival. Thankfully, we were able to revive the majority of them by removing browned petals, dunking their heads underwater and cutting their stems. The spray roses I ordered from Whole Blossoms didn’t open up much by our wedding day. All other flowers looked great after hydration.

Timeline:
Tues / Wed / Thurs: I prepped the flowers as they arrived. For most of them, I gave the stems a fresh cut at a 45 degree angle and placed them in water

Wed: I made 12 vase-based centerpieces, 6 bridesmaid bouquets and 2 nosegays

Thurs: Transportation day. We consolidated florals in their hydration buckets, packed up our floral supplies and loaded the already made arrangements and bouquets in two SUVs. After we arrived at our AirBnb, my sister and husband helped me green out our floral foam-based arrangements. We hydrated the foam, taped it into the appropriate vessels and added moss and greenery to the arrangements.

Friday: Before our rehearsal and welcome reception, we continued working on our foam-based arrangements. We made 12 double-brick foam tray arrangements, 2 urn arrangements, a ground arch consisting of 4 Lomey dish arrangements, 2 back of ceremony ground arrangements and a welcome sign arrangement.

Saturday morning: I woke up early to make my bouquet, assemble bud vases and do finishing touches on all other arrangements. I added ribbon to all bouquets in the bridal suite at our venue.

Venue transportation and set up:
Venue logistics were stressful. Our venue didn’t have space to store florals and didn’t allow access to the reception space until 3 hours before our ceremony start time. We delegated set up to our groomsmen and family members, and when they arrived to set out flowers, the reception tables weren’t set up. Florals from the previous wedding were still in the ceremony area as well. Thankfully, our wonderful family and friends figured it out for us. Our groomsmen also moved florals from the ceremony area to the reception area during the cocktail hour. DIY florals aren’t possible without a big support system!

Value:
DIY-ing your flowers can be a huge cost savings. I spent $3200-3300 on florals and supplies. Our flowers turned out beautifully, and I believe a professional florist would have charged us between 7-10k for our florals in our HCOL area (Orange County, CA). I loved learning about floral design and choosing the exact florals I wanted. However, DIY is extremely time consuming, and I will always remember my wedding week as a time when I was exhausted, stressed and wishing I had more time to spend with my family and out-of-town guests. 

TLDR; DIY florals are much more affordable, but require a lot of work and flexibility. If you decide to go the DIY route, I highly encourage you to involve your friends, family and bridal party in the process. Thinking through transportation, understanding your venue’s restrictions and asking for help building your arrangements should make the process more enjoyable. 

I’m happy to answer any questions you may have about cost, the process, resources or anything else!

Hello! I practiced at home with decorating the table. We are having a stand up bbq so people can sit if they want. I still want the tables to look nice. In the two little jars there will be candles and in the middle some flowers. We dont like fake garlands/flowers and I like to make stuff. Anyone has some advice on how what I can make or buy?

Big thanks!

Looking for some feedback thoughts on our wedding book alternative. I'm thinking of many petals like this or else a few whole flowers representing where we're from out of clay, coloring it lightly and then having people sign that. We're hoping to be able to mount it the on the wall and have it as part of our wall decor.

I just can't really find a sample photo or example of what the finished product might look like though so all thoughts, suggestions, critiques all welcome!

Hi!! I’m getting married next month and planning to use real florals from trader joe’s or whole foods- but creating a faux just in case it doesn’t work out!

Any thoughts on how I can improve? Going for a whimsical, colorful vibe. Thank you!

I really like these chargers, but after getting them in person, 9/10 have chipped paint on the golden part (not just the top plate but throughout). They tried exchanging for a different set on Amazon and the second batch has the same problem so I think this has to do with the product rather than a fluke in delivery.

I really love how these look with my place settings. Does anyone have any experience or suggestions for how I could fix the paint? I thought maybe a gold sharpie or some kind of paint, but I am not experienced in what paints will adhere to plastic or how best to make it look smooth with the rest of the rim.

Any suggestions welcome!

This is about $600 worth of fake flowers from Hobby Lobby, Amazon, and SHEIN! My mom, sister and grandma helped me make them this weekend and wow, was it a weight lifted off my shoulders lol. I’m a month out from the wedding and had been procrastinating. Planning to get real florals from Costco and Trader Joe’s for table arrangements and bouquets :)

Thought? I think I love them but need 3rd party opinions! Thanks

Hi! I am getting married in December and we are trying to cut costs wherever we can by focusing on things that guests and ourseves will actually remember. That being said, getting a bakery to do a wedding cake is very expensive no matter how simple the design! I’ve been toying with the idea of getting plain white round cakes from a bakery that I know is delicious and entrusting one of my family members to place some of our themed flowers on the cake to tie it into everything. Has anyone done this? Any tips for making it come out actually looking good? I’ve attached a inspo pic to show what we are kinda going for. Thanks in advance!

I love my tiny bell jars. The bumblebee ended up a bit foggy because I didn't let it dry long enough before sealing, but I'm pretty pleased with these first few.