November 3 Wedding =) Already super stressed!

luckingfooser

Listening to your already married friends' advice is awesome, but it's all so conflicting! My fiance and I are both teachers (poor) so I want to do a lot of DIY stuff, and have a bunch on friends on board to help. I am hearing "Oh that's wonderful!" and I'm also hearing "Hire someone else to do it, seriously." I don't know if I can hire anyone because that is too expensive, but am I in over my head with all this DIY talk?

t12ubeauty

i'm getting married the same day and plan on some DIY as well because of cost. what are you planning to DIY? it can be very overwhelming. you don't want to stress yourself out or your loved ones on the big day. 

i'm having a florist do the bouquets. we're doing the floral centerpieces ourselves...although i'm getting wary of that idea...i might have the florist do all the flowers.

printed things like save the dates, invitations, programs, menus, placecards...you could totally do that yourself and save a lot of money...and you can do it way in advance.

if you insist on doing centerpieces yourself...think of things that are low maintenance or can be done in advance like crystal manzanita trees, metal lanterns, candles, a potted flower plant in a nice pot, etc. i'm not a fan of silk flower arrangements, but some people do that as well to save money. 

tiffanydaniels

YOU GOT IT GIRL!

We have been engaged for a while, since February last year and I knew I wanted to DIY a lot of things, and guess what I have 2 things done on my list of like 25, hahahaha. My suggestion is to make a list of what is important to you, to what is least important and start from the top and work your way done! We have lots of little projects going on right now, so once i get moving and finishing stuff I will feel a little better. But every month on the 10th i get a little panicky because I have 1 less month and I got very little done the previous month! 

suzy gates

My partnerd dad sadly died 17 months ago and left him some money so that is what we are using to pay for the wedding so alot of it we can afford to do but I want a few D.I.Y touches and plan to do D.I.Y scroll invites and a friend of his mums is making the cake for a cheaper price. I was also considering making my centrepiece flowers my favours have 8-10 stand out flowers in the vase with name tags on ribbon around the stem for each person.

ElisabethJoanne

I think the key is to just not have too many projects, and to not be too picky. DIY flower girl basket? Nope, skipping flower girl. DIY ring-bearer pillow? Nope, no ring bearer, either. Favors? Skipping. Pew bows? Skipping.

rachel10488

I am literally DIYing EVERYTHING...that means ALL ceremony decor, programs, petal cones, bouquets, and all reception decor, centerpieces, favors, guestbook...I mean everything, I'm not even hiring a florist. haha pretty much the only things I'm not doing myself are making dresses and cake/food. Maybe I'm crazy but the way I thought about it is this is the ONE chance to have the wedding of my dreams and to incorporate everything I want rather than compromising because I can't afford to pay someone to do all of it. Also, I saw it like I've had 10 months to get it all done, and my plan is to have everything pretty much ready 1 month out. How I am going to accomplish this to relieve the pressure later is I've hired a DOC to pretty much take everything I've made and put it all together for me so that I can relax the day of my wedding. I will probably end up having over 50 projects, but to be honest, it's not that bad. I love doing crafts so doing this stuff in my free time is fun for me and I know the more I get done now and fill my now "wedding room" with, the less there will be for later.

You can definitely do it! Don't stress now, save that for the week of! I have a Bridal binder and have pictures of some of my DIY projects and when I'm done I just cross it out, that can help alleviate some of the stress!

leslieredfield

i'm also getting married on nov 3rd and i'm all about budget and diy b/c my fiance is not working right now. ( just bad timing). my dad is paying for the vennue so everything else is on us or mostly me. we are doing a halloween themed wedding so there is alot of decortations needed. my dad picked up tons of halloween decorations really cheap at a flea market ( ceramic pumpkins and skulls) those are going to be my accent pieces for the food and guest book tables. our center pieces are going to be the manzanite branches in a short cylinder vase w/ black rock like stuff and skull jems then hanging from the branches will be tree lights. found everything cheap online. place cards are coming from the venue and my niece is going to decorate them. got a lot stuff from michael's ( plain table numbers for my niece to decorate) and found some old halloween decorations around the house. our bridal party flowers are being done by a florist and for reasonable price since we are doing small bouquets for the girls. i paid for a lot of vendors cash so they didn't let me pay the tax. my dj and photographer have worked together before so they gave me discounts. flower girl is probaly going in a black body suit w/ a halloween tutu and a accent halloween hair piece. w/ spider stockings. i started googling, cheap wedding stuff ( decorations, favors, etc. ) i found decent prices on zazzle for inviations ( i looked up coupon codes) and my StD's are going to be from magnet street. 

good luck and i hope this helps. 

Ayntastic

I'm at the point in my planning where it feels like I'm writing a lot of checks!  I'm sticking to my budget pretty closely, but it feels so strange.  I'm so lucky to have the support of my parents in the planning but I can't help but stress about the money a little bit.  Glad I only have to plan a wedding once!  Yay November 3rd! (and fourth )