To DIY Or Not To DIY Literally Everything For Your Wedding

Should you really DIY that one thing for your wedding? Or would this particular element be better left to the pros?

I’ll be honest, it’s amazing to DIY things for your wedding, especially if you love to DIY! But just how far can you really take it, before it becomes too overwhelming, and takes away from your big day?

I DIY’d the majority of my wedding, because I LOVE to DIY, but I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone. 

Here’s a quick list of what I DIY’d. 

• sewed my husband’s jacket
• made the cake and several dozen sugar flowers
• designed all of the stationary: invitations, scavenger hunt cards, mad lib cards, programs, signage, thank you cards
• did my own hair and makeup
• made all the vendor and travel arrangements 
• bought and organized the decor
• picked most of our playlist
• organized the AV and video cameras
• catered the whole thing with a lot of help from my dear mom

Do I recommend this? Absolutely not, unless you have lots of people with specific skills to help you on the day. 

But the most important thing was, I had a great support team behind me for every step of the way, and, I had an incredibly detailed plan on how to get it all done. However I think the key thing here is that I have a lot of experience in most of what I listed, so I wasn’t trying to learn new skills while working on projects that I ultimately wanted to end up in our wedding.

So, should you DIY or not? Here’s what we’re going to cover in today’s episode:

• Do you have previous experience doing the thing you want to DIY?
• How much time do you have before the wedding to get this done?
• Have you considered budget vs. stress levels?
• Do you really want to be worried about it on the day?

While it’s awesome to DIY as much as possible for your wedding, there are some circumstances where you should probably leave it to the pros!

If you found this video useful I’d be so grateful if you subscribed! Drop a comment below if you have questions about staying present and I’d be happy to share what I know to help! I’ll be back next Thursday with another wedding planning video, so until then keep it joyful!

Links:

Ali Syed https://www.instagram.com/moments.by.ali/

TAKROC Music https://www.youtube.com/@Takroc_Music

Highlights:

00:01 Intro

00:42 What I DIY’d for my wedding

04:09 Do you have previous experience doing the thing you want to DIY?

05:44 How much time do you have before the wedding to get this done?

07:59 Have you considered budget vs. stress levels?

08:44 Do you really want to be worried about it on the day?

If you found this episode useful I’d be so grateful if you followed and shared this episode with a friend, or your fiance! If you have questions about staying present and I’d be happy to share what I know to help, drop me an email at [e-mail]! I’ll be back next Thursday with another wedding planning episode, so until then keep it joyful!

Follow me on Instagram @joyfactorweddings
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Follow me on Facebook @joyfactorweddings
Watch full videos on YouTube @joyfactorweddings

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to Joyful Wedding Planning your
spot for de-stressing andrelaxing while you plan your
wedding, you might be thinkingis that even possible?
Well, heck, yeah, it is.
I'm your host, emily DeCluv,founder of the Joy Factor
Weddings and Events, and I'mhere to help you plan the
wedding of your dreams joyfully,whether you're a DIYer or a

(00:24):
delegator.
This podcast will help you findthe Joy Factor as you plan your
wedding.
Should you really DIY that onething for your wedding or would
that particular element bebetter left to the pros?

(00:46):
Hi, I'm Emily DeCluv, founderof the Joy Factor, a wedding
planning company based inToronto serving couples globally
.
I release new podcasts everyThursday to bring the Joy Factor
into your wedding planning, somake sure to hit the follow
button wherever you get yourpodcasts.
It is amazing to DIY things foryour wedding, especially if you
love to DIY, but at what pointdoes it get too overwhelming and

(01:10):
start to take away from yourbig day?
So I DIYed the majority of mywedding because I love to DIY.
Like I look at a shelf, I'mlike, oh yeah, I could build
that.
Like no, I cannot, emily.
No, I'm not a woodworker.
I should probably just buy theshelf, but there are a lot of
things that I know how to DIY,that I just love to do because
I've either taught myself how orI have an educational

(01:33):
background in it.
And in fact for my wedding IDIYed all of the catering, with
some help from my mom.
I did my cake, I did the sugarflowers on the cake, I sewed the
jacket for my husband, I did myhair, I did my makeup and I did
, of course, all of thelogistical planning, because
that's my bread and butter.
I organized all of the vendors,the travel, I did the budget.

(01:55):
Like I did literally everythingon my own.
The one thing I did not do waspick up and bring back the
chairs oh, the chairs at mywedding.
The one thing it's fine, theywere fine, we got the chairs.
They left at the end of thenight.
We paid a lot of money for thechairs, but it's okay.
Every wedding has one thing Ialso was able to set up, like

(02:19):
the AV equipment, so recordingthe ceremony, the videography,
all of that sort of stuff.
But that's because we have theequipment already and we have
friends who help us make filmstogether, so we were kind of
sorted out for all of that stuff.
I did not do my own photography.
I got a great photographer, aliSyed.

(02:40):
I will link his info in theshow notes and in the
description below so that youcan check out his work.
Honestly, if you're in Torontoand you need a wedding
photographer, he is your guy.
Now, do I recommend this foreverybody?
Absolutely not, unless you havea very specific set of skills
that can translate into doingthis in a joyful way, not in a

(03:02):
stressful way.
I don't think it's really thebest use of your time.
If I'm being completely honest,if you have the budget for it,
just pay people, just pay people.
It's so nice.
If you have the budget, thereare lots of different ways to
think about what it is.
You want to DIY what it is, youwant to get a friend to help
you with, or just see if there'sdifferent ways to arrange this

(03:24):
stuff to make it a lot easier onyourself, because, at the end
of the day, you want yourwedding day to be like enjoyable
, joyful, even a joyful factormoment.
Yes, indeed, that's not mytagline and it never will be,
but here we are.
I also want to shout out my dad,who helped us with the AV stuff

(03:44):
, but he's got his own musicproduction going and I will link
to that as well.
It's TACRock music and healready knew how to record like
multiple tracks and make surethat the piano my uncle was
playing was recorded while theceremony was recorded, with our
efficient and Justin and Italking, so like we had an
amazing, incredible support teambehind all of the DIY stuff,

(04:08):
which is why I'm like I was ableto do all of it and if you have
that, then go for it.
Yes, do it, but if there's like, if there's another option, you
might want to take it.
So let's look at a couple ofdifferent factors that might go
into this.
So I had a great support teambehind me every step of the way
and I also had a really detailedplan on how to get there.
I think what also kind of setme apart from maybe other DIYers

(04:31):
is that I actually have beentrained in a lot of the skills
that were required to make allof my DIY projects come to life.
So I wasn't trying to learn newskills while I was creating all
of these projects.
And that brings me to my firstpoint Do you have experience
doing the thing you want to DIY?
Because if you don't, you'rekind of setting yourself up for

(04:52):
heartbreak.
I heard this great analogy onceabout artists and that we tend
to have a really elevatedpalette and high expectation of
the end result.
And when we're just starting tolearn a new skill, oftentimes
what we produce doesn't reallyequal this very high expectation

(05:15):
.
And then we get reallydisappointed in ourselves, we
get angry and we're like, oh mygod, I wasted all this time,
this energy and money doing thisthing that I really should have
just paid for.
And that's sort of the samething with DIYing stuff for your
wedding.
We all have like extremely highhopes of how it's going to turn
out, but if you haven't done itbefore, you may be setting
yourself up for some prettycrappy disappointment.

(05:38):
But look, if you want to, ifyou're like I really want to DIY
this thing, I want to make thecenterpieces, I want to make my
own bouquet, I want to do allthis stuff like, please go for
it.
But practice.
Spend lots of time practicingin the months leading up not the
days, the months leading upbecause otherwise you're just
going to be like well, I guess,I guess I'm walking down the

(06:00):
aisle with this tulip and I'll.
All I've got is a tulip.
And now I'm sad because allI've got is a tulip and it's not
meeting the expectations that Ihad.
You can definitely turn thisaround, like I said, just with a
little bit of practice, or youcould choose to allocate some
budget to that particular item,totally up to you.

(06:20):
Point number two how much timedo you have to get this done
before the actual wedding day?
Like, are you like me and it'smaybe less than it's like three
weeks away from your wedding andyou're like now is the time to
start sewing my husband's jacket?
Disaster could have struck, butI had been practicing.

(06:43):
Luckily, you know.
Point number one make sureyou're experienced in the thing
that you've been doing.
If you're working on like thejacket for your husband, like I
was, for example, you may wantto allocate more than just a
week to do it.
I researched a lot of differentthings and people were saying

(07:03):
like, yeah, it takes about aweek to make a jacket and to get
it all done because there's allthis hand stitching that's
required.
There's like all of thesedifferent things and I'm like,
okay, I need to make sure thevery minimum, I'm doing this at
least three weeks before mywedding, which was like really
cutting it tight.
I probably should have made ita little earlier than that, but
we were at my brother's weddingso kind of busy doing other

(07:24):
wedding things, so I gave myselflike a two week window to make
it.
Luckily I was done in about aweek and that was fine.
And then I just decided to makemyself a dress for my
bachelorette party instead.
Fill up that time, because youknow, like the two weeks before
your wedding.
I don't know about you, but I'mjust like, wow, I got to keep
busy or else I'm going to startspiraling and it's not going to

(07:46):
be pretty.
So, as long as you've plannedout all of your DIY projects in
advance like I had to make allof the sugar flowers for my cake
it took probably more than amonth of me doing them in the
evenings watching TV.
I thought it was going to takeme a week.
Oh no, not the case at all Planout how long it's going to take

(08:09):
and then give yourself likebuffers of time between each of
between each of these projects,because otherwise you're just
going to be like what is thepoint in doing all of this?
I don't like it anymore.
I just don't want to even dothis wedding stuff anymore.
You don't want that you want tohave a good time, you want to
have a joyful wedding.
So think about how much timeyou have for each of these

(08:30):
projects that you want to do andmap it out months in advance.
Point number three I havetouched on this a little bit,
but have you considered budgetversus stress levels?
Like, like, is it going tototally destroy you to play with
little finicky things likemaking the boutonniers for all
the jackets, or is it going tomake you, like, want to tear
your hair out if you have tobake a whole bunch of stuff?

(08:52):
Or like, are there certainthings that you know will stress
you out that you could allocatesome budget to?
In some cases, no, and I get it, you know.
And that's where the timefactor comes in.
Give yourself enough time toget this stuff done, but if you
can pay for it, I would highlyrecommend just paying for it and

(09:14):
making it so much easier onyourself.
And speaking of stress levelsnumber four have you considered
that it might be very stressfulon the day to be a DIYing the
thing?
I made my own cake, but I was atrained pastry chef at one point
.
I've since not really used thatskill as much.

(09:36):
I got to use it quite a lot onmy wedding day because we did
all the catering.
I made tons and tons of squaresand cookies and truffles and
blah, so many things.
It was really good and I reallyenjoyed it.
But the cake I probably didn'twant to deal with that on my
wedding day.
I'm not going to lie Like itended up being not exactly what

(09:57):
I wanted because I was just like, okay, putting all the flowers
in, okay, stacking the cakes oh,the cake is a little wobbly.
I don't want to deal with that.
I was like I don't have thetime or energy.
As much of you know as much asI did all of the planning that I
possibly could.
I was like this isn't going towork for me.
This is just what it is and I'mmoving on from it the end.

(10:19):
So if you're considering doingsome type of DIY that requires
day of work, do you really wantto be worried about it on the
day?
Maybe you do, I don't know.
Maybe that's what you enjoy,but if you don't think of some
other options, that may be abetter choice for you in your
wedding.
So all that to say.
Well, in some circumstances itis a great thing to DIY for your

(10:41):
wedding.
It can save you money, it canbe fun to do, it can be really
nice projects to like, connectwith your family and your bridal
party, whatever.
Whatever all of the thingsthere's so much fun.
I love DIYing.
I feel like I've said that athousand times.
Even if you love all the DIYingstuff, there are some
circumstances where it's justbetter to let the pros handle it

(11:03):
, so that you don't have tothink about it, because at the
end of the day, it's your dayand you want to have a good time
, right, you want to enjoy it.
You want to bring back in thejoy factor.
Weddings and events by EmilyDeClu.
So, hey, that's me.
If you found this episodeuseful, I'd be so grateful if
you followed and shared thisepisode with a friend or your

(11:23):
fiance.
If you have any questions aboutDIYing like should I or should
I not send me an email at Emilyat Joyfactorweddingscom.
I would be so happy to help youwith that.
And hey, if you need a weddingplanner, find me over at
Joyfactorweddingscom.
I've got lots of differentoptions for all different types
of weddings and especially, Ilove working with DIYers.

(11:44):
I will be back next Thursdaywith another wedding planning
episode.
So until then, keep it joyful.
Thanks for listening to JoyfulWedding Planning.
I hope you got something out ofthis episode and, hey, if you
did, leave me a review.
Wherever you listen to yourpodcasts, it helps me to find

(12:06):
more listeners just like you, sothat we can take all the stress
out of wedding planning and gofrom panic to joy-filled moments
.
Need help to plan your weddingBook?
A call with me atJoyfactorweddingscom.
I can't wait to help you planthe wedding of your dreams.
This podcast was produced bythe Ultimate Creative.

(12:33):
Learn more about producing yourown podcast at
TheUltimateCreativecom.