Wedding Hive Podcast

The Real Cost of Wedding DIY: Time, Space, and Sanity

• Wedding Hive

Share episode

We tackle a listener's Instagram question about DIY versus pre-made wedding decor, sharing our personal experiences and professional insights. Our honest discussion reveals the hidden costs, storage challenges, and post-wedding realities of the DIY approach while highlighting strategic ways to balance handmade and purchased elements.

• Grace used a 50-50 approach for her wedding, buying statement pieces while DIY-ing others
• Professional signage creates a cohesive look and reduces stress during wedding planning
• Consider your venue's natural beauty before overinvesting in decorative elements
• DIY projects require significant time, space, and mental bandwidth during planning
• Post-wedding storage becomes a challenge for purchased decor items
• Rental companies offer hassle-free alternatives that disappear after the event
• Pinterest fails are a real risk when DIY skills don't match wedding day expectations
• Choose your DIY battles wisely and know when to invest in professional help


Follow the Wedding Hive Podcast on all social media and podcast platforms!

Check out 4 Carat Vodka on all social media and check out their website to learn more!

Speaker 1:

Hey Queens, welcome back to another episode of the Daily Buzz. Today we are answering a listener's question from Instagram. This question is what are your thoughts on DIY brides versus splurging on decor that is already made? Grace, let's talk about your decor too.

Speaker 2:

Yes For my wedding. Honestly I would say probably 50-50. Half of it I did DIY, the other half I just bought. I'm going to be completely honest, I'm not really a DIY kind of girly. I wish I was, and me personally the stress of already planning a wedding alone I didn't want to put even more added stress on myself to make stuff, build stuff, whatever. So I would definitely say, if you have the money to splurge on certain decor pieces, like we had, I spent money on, you know, our welcome sign. That is my favorite ever and we'll have that for a long time. So that was worth the splurge. But then, like our seating chart, I DIY'd it with a mirror and put the printed table seats on there, diy'd the centerpieces and everything else. A lot of the signage I just bought because I am not very artsy. So and it was easy too. I liked doing the signage part, like purchasing that, because I was able to make it cohesive and all the colors like matched and just went back to the same company.

Speaker 2:

Etsy was probably my best friend during wedding planning and just buying stuff for the wedding decor. So, and thankfully the venue I got married at it kind of speaks for itself. I didn't really want a lot of decor anyway. So I think, also just being mindful of what your venue looks like, we felt like the venue spoke for itself, so we didn't want to overdo it with the decor and it definitely saved us a lot of money. But signage and things like that I would just buy. I would not DIY. I feel like definitely seen some DIY projects that you know it didn't go that well and sometimes you're just crunched for time and you just have to go with it. So, and I'm very picky about that stuff, so I would say definitely splurge where you can on decor.

Speaker 1:

I might be slightly burnt out from the DIY weddings. What I've noticed is people are trying to save a lot of money, so they go out and purchase things themselves and it takes up a lot of time and a lot of space in their homes. The every. I mean candles, candle vases, floral vases, and then purchasing the flowers in bulk off Costco or Sam's Club or having them shipped in as like a rental item. To ship back All of those pieces, there seems to be a lot more legwork when you're doing your DIY decor. More legwork when you're doing your DIY decor. I've also seen a lot of people try to return and so they are frantic on wedding day, thinking you know, as long as nothing breaks and it stays in great condition, then I can return it to Amazon or Timu or wherever they're getting their decor items from. So I've seen a lot of people DIY their decorations for the sake of saving money. I think that on wedding day when you go through rental companies, have somebody bring it all in. If that means the rental company sets up or the coordinator and their team set up and then the rental company comes back and takes it all, there is just less of a headache with it and then you're not having to think about where you're going to store all of the items.

Speaker 1:

I actually just went. I was at Goodwill probably three weeks ago. We were looking for some vases for a birthday party and they were 99 cents and we bought like 50 of them. So we spent 50 bucks on all these vases and as we were in there collecting them, I was in shock because I know how much they go for as rentals. But now we have 50 vases stored and I'm like, oh, this is cool, what do we do with all of this?

Speaker 1:

So, storing it afterwards it can be irritating. If you don't have a plan with it. Definitely don't bank on returning all of it because it might not be able to be returned. Some of it might, but I think just the timing has a lot to do with it. Also, if you're getting married in a short time period, that's also going to be crunch for your decorations. And if you have more time, then you have more time to decide. But for smooth transitions, recently I have seen rental companies are kind of, you know, just renting it, having it come in and serve its purpose. Then it leaves and it's no longer your lingering headache of what to do with it, um, but I am also not a. I'm a minimalist when it comes to storage, so I don't like to have all of I don't like to have a lot of stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I agree, I have all the vases from my wedding and we were joking the other day because we were moving, so we had some at my place, some at my parents' house and I'm just like, what are we going to do with all these? And you know, my mom's posted them on Facebook marketplace, so we try to get them sold, but it just never works out. So, yeah, if you DIY a lot of stuff or you buy stuff that cannot be either returned or that you're not renting, then it's something that you're going to have to deal with after the wedding comes, which is just, you know, it's not the end of the world, but definitely, I think, something a lot of people don't think about is you're going to have all this leftover decor. So you know.

Speaker 1:

I do agree they can choose your battles. Signage should be custom, like customized signage. But if you have the eye for it, sure go ahead and DIY it. If you do not leave it to an expert that does otherwise, you don't want to have a Pinterest fail on your wedding day, yeah we do not want that and we don't want you guys to bite off more than you can chew.

Speaker 2:

So that is your daily buzz.