How to Have a DIY Wedding
Advice 18.02.2021
Having a DIY wedding means having your celebration exactly how you and your partner want it.
From your favourite dishes and personalised cocktails to quirky decorations and an all night party: when it comes to DIY weddings, anything goes. But where do you start?
Venue
What should you look for in a DIY wedding venue? If you want to get married and have the celebration all in one place, make sure your wedding venue has a licence. And if you want some friends and family to stay over, check the venue have enough rooms to accommodate them. Or has space and facilities for camping if you’re going down the glamping wedding route.
And how about the catering facilities? Make sure there’s a well-appointed catering space or kitchen for your outside caterers. And check there's no corkage fee. A DIY wedding means you’ll be buying in all the alcoholic and soft drinks yourself. You don’t want to be charged for cracking open your own bottles of fizz.
Catering
When it comes to the wedding catering, it’s a question of how DIY you want to go. Having a DIY wedding means you get to choose exactly what’s on the menu. Big dishes of paella? An outdoor hog roast? An afternoon tea with clotted cream and jam? Or bacon butties served at midnight? There are some fantastic wedding caterers around who can create a menu around a theme, such as a favourite holiday destination, or create dishes that reflect the different nationalities of the wedding party.
But if you want to go completely DIY, you can always opt for a potluck buffet. Ask each guest to bring a dish and let everyone tuck in.
Bar and drinks
A DIY bar means you get to choose what drinks you serve and when and how. But it also means you need to think carefully about what drinks to buy in and who will be manning the bar.
Calling in a professional bar team is the way to go. They can advise you on what drinks to buy and how much to buy. (The last thing you want to do is run out!) And they can be on hand all day to serve glasses of fizz on arrival, drinks in the garden after the ceremony and personalised cocktails at the bar as the partying gets going.
And the good thing about a DIY bar? If there’s any booze left, you can just pack it up and take it home with you. If there’s any left that is.
Music
If you choose a DIY wedding venue with a no curfew policy, you might as well as party all night long and have the time of your life. But who’s going to play the music? When it comes to the entertainment, the most DIY music option is to download a playlist on to your phone and play it at the reception. Or you can ask your most muso guests to put together their own one-hour playlists and play them back to back throughout the day. Or if you have musically talented friends or family, ask them to sing at your wedding. It always brings the house down. As does getting your best mates who are in a band to take to the stage to perform.
Booking a professional DJ or your favourite band is always an option of course. Have a chat with them well in advance of the big day to let them know your favourite songs and genres and ensure you get a really personalised playlist.
Flowers and decorations
If you want fresh flowers for your bouquet or table or venue decorations, go the DIY route and buy the flowers yourself from a flower wholesaler. Then the night before the wedding have your bridesmaids make up simple posies of flowers for you all to carry. Of course, you don’t have to have fresh flowers at all. Bouquets made from paper, or silk or dried flowers can be just as lovely.
If this feels too much like hard work, buy in the bouquets from a local florist but do the floral table decorations yourself. Drop wildflowers into glass jars, antique vases or wine bottles for a really pretty and inexpensive table display.
When it comes to decorations, flowers aren’t your only option and there are hundreds of low-cost ways for decorating your venue. Dig out the sewing machine and some scraps of material and make bunting. Or buy paper garlands or paper lanterns and string them across the venue. You can also print out old photographs for table names or even write on pebbles for place names.
Cake
When it comes to wedding cakes, we’re seeing more couples eschew the big traditional white iced fruit cake for alternative wedding cakes that are altogether more personal and quirkier. This means you can go down the DIY route when it comes to your wedding cake and ask the best baker in the family to make your cake for you with all your favourite flavours. Or have them bake a stack of moist chocolate brownies and pile them high. Or even go for a wedding cake made of cheese.
A shop bought wedding cake is always an option too. Buy a simply iced cake and then ask the most creative friend to decorate it with fruits, fresh flowers and decorations.
Photographer
Unless you’re an A-list celeb who’s banned attendees from using their mobile phones, chances are all your guests will be carrying a smart phone on the day of your wedding. And with the quality of the cameras now better than ever, you’ll probably end up with some decent images of your big day. But as the festivities progress and the fizz flows are your guests going to capture the after-dinner partying in quite the same way an official wedding photographer would? Probably not.
Another option is to ask a friend with a decent camera and a good eye to take wedding photographs for you. Have a chat with them before the big day as to the kind of images you want. This works particularly well if you’re having a micro wedding in lieu of a bigger celebration later in the year. But our honest opinion? If it’s a big celebration with family and friends, book an official wedding photographer. They’re worth their weight in gold and know exactly what’s needed to get those perfect images of your happy day.
Make-up
If you’re a regular make-up wearer and have a distinctive style you’re happy to recreate on your big day, opt for DIY wedding make-up. After all, Kate Middleton famously did her own make-up for her own wedding back in 2011.
But if you want to feel a bit pampered on the day or you just want you and your bridesmaids to have a similar look, it may be worth hiring a professional make-up team. If you do, have a practice run with your make-up artist beforehand and make the most of their expertise.
Wedding planner
Having a DIY wedding means having a wedding exactly how you want it. And there are plenty of wedding blogs, Facebook groups and Pinterest boards filled to the brim with amazing tips, ideas and inspirational pics. But a DIY wedding doesn’t mean having to do absolutely everything yourself.
Call on the support of your family and friends. Get the arty bridesmaid to make the table decorations or the bouquets. Have the Bake-Off enthusiast in the family to make the cake. And there’s always some music fan in the family who’s more than happy to organise a Spotify playlist for you.
But sometimes it pays to have a little extra help too and you might want to call on the services of a wedding planner. They can recommend suppliers, source decorations, advise on the running order of the events, and of course be there on the day itself to ensure your DIY wedding runs absolutely perfectly.