I have about a million DiY ideas for the wedding (ARE YOU SICK OF THIS BANTER YET? NO? I DIDN’T THINK SO), so I’m going to take a minute to record them!
1. Faux mercury glass votives with letter-stamped copper tags (just like my wordspell 
tags). This brings in the grey and brown in our color scheme (okay, copper is NOT chocolate, but it’s the closest of the metals). Best thing about this? Decorations that double as wedding favors. Needed? Votives, mirror spray paint, copper sheeting, glue, and an ampersand stamp. Expected total? $50. I can get about 72 of the votives with candles included for $40. Spray paint will be about $10, copper I have (or can get cheap), glue and/or epoxy I have, and I have several sizes of ampersand metal stamps (and if I didn’t, sets can be purchased for as little as $10 at places like Harbor Frieght, including numbers!). I think this is a delightfully classy item to give to friends and family in memory of the event, especially with the handmade touch of the tags. So this is what it should look like in theory… Photoshop, ahoy!
2. Centerpieces of dark chocolate bamboo in paper-wrapped ‘vases.’ Remember these bamboo reeds from the wall feature project? I have TONS of them left. I really wanted 
the pretty bunches of branches in vases as a decoration, but manzanita or other branches can be expensive to buy (and for some reason, the park behind our house is always mysteriously clean of any laying around…), and why waste those great bamboo reeds? They are so perfect, and so FREE. I also still have the dark brown paint left that we used on the box, and that serves perfectly for our chocolate. The best part? The vases will not actually be vases, but sections of PVC pipe. For pennies each, wrapped in old book paper and glazed with our robin’s egg blue color, they’ll be a feature that’ll cost us nearly nothing. Similar to the photo, it’d be a lovely, economical way to decorate our dinner tables. I hope to add some decorative large letters to the head table – a B, &, and N, of course.
3. Antique book ring holder. Since Nick and I are voracious readers (we got each other e-readers for birthday and holidays this year) I suggested we go the route of having a book instead of the traditional pillow for the ring bearer. I sought out Ebay as a good source for vintage and antique books with that pretty, aged look and prayed for the right color… and I think I may have found it (bidding is in process, so I won’t link to it!)! We also went the direction of choosing specifically a Jules Verne book, since we both love sci-fi and fantasy and those make up the bulk of our reading habits. Loads of blogs have instructions to DiY this project, and hopefully a small splurge of $15-20 won’t be stretching the budget too out of whack.
4. Super simple baby’s breath bouquets. This is the SIMPLEST 
bouquet I’ve ever seen, and I immediately fell in love with it. It’s simple to create, can be done ahead of time – even with fresh baby’s breath – looks gorgeous, and will be really inexpensive. This photo from the Sweetest Occasion really illustrates how beautiful, elegant, and timeless this look is. I’d like to add just a few navy flowers of some kind to my bouquet (probably silk, as navy flowers do not exist in nature, according to the internet!), as navy is the color that Nick chose.
That’s just a short list… I think a lot more things will come up in time, but I also want to keep things simple. I plan on making my own jewelry, as it’s such an important part of my own life, for one thing. DiY for me isn’t just about saving money, after all, it’s about expressing who I am and doing what I love: creating.
What are your favorite wedding DiYs?
