Real Bride Blogger, Abby – D-I-Dying
Hi brides and grooms! Part of the fun of wedding planning is putting your personal touch into the decorations, on the cake, and on everything in between. I feel like the eternal question is HOW to add that touch. I see it debated on bridal blogs and social media pages all the time. How do you make a wedding feel more like who you want to be as a couple?
One thing I found that WASN’T the answer? DIY projects.
Look, I’m not a horrible crafter. I logged my time in a sorority, made what feels like literally hundreds of crafts for my big/littles/sisters in general. And yet, my ability to hot glue glitter onto literally anything seems almost wasted in the face of a momentous event like my wedding day.
I learned two things very quickly when investigating the DIY versus “hire a professional” debacle.
First – It’s Expensive
I want really tall flowering branches for a few of my tablescapes, with some lower arrangements for others. By the time I added together purchasing enough vases to fill each table and finding realistic branches and filler, I needed a glass of wine. I discovered that DIY is typically more expensive than hiring a professional who already has the materials and is skilled at the labor required to pull off the project. My florist could do it all at a higher skill level and at a lower bottom line than I could! (PS, still need to find an amazing one? We have a list of florists we LOVE.)
Find Local FLORISTS:
Second – It’s Hard & Time Consuming
DIY is a lot of work. Like, a LOT. I can’t even make my bed every morning, let alone make 16 table centerpieces worthy of a magazine spread. I have never in my LIFE created a floral centerpiece. I came to the realization that my wedding was not the time for me to dive into new creative projects. I’m sure all of you can agree: a LOT happens as your wedding draws closer. Moving into a new place, keeping track of RSVPs, and getting ready to combine lives with someone else can really put a squeeze on the extra time you have. Ending up on a Wedding DIY Fail Blog wasn’t on my bucket list, and that’s where I would be headed if I didn’t have the time to invest into my creative projects.
Pros of Hiring a Pro
Let’s put it this way: you hire a professional photographer because you know your iPhone is really only useful for glamorous selfies under your $10 ring light. FaceTune can only fix so much! A photographer has access to equipment that costs thousands of dollars (both physical and digital) PLUS years of educational experience. You know they won’t mess up your first kiss or miss the tear in your dad’s eye as you prepare to walk down the aisle. Your Aunt with a point-and-shoot camera? Not as reliable.
Same goes for crafting. A lot of those glossy DIY projects you see online are created by professionals. They look SO easy to re-create until you’re three hours into your evening and your “Love” mason jars look more like a toddler’s handiwork than a full-grown adult’s (WRITING WITH GLUE: NOT AS EASY AS IT LOOKS).
Learning the Hard Way
In case you’re wondering: YES, I did learn this lesson the hard way. I wanted to DIY some of my wedding signs. I thought, “Ya know what? I’ll go to my local craft store, buy a Cricut, and become a CRAFTING MASTER. Maybe even open my own Etsy store. Live the high life.”
(This is the part in the TV show where the episode pauses on my jubilant face, and the narrator points out to the waiting audience, “Abby did not, in fact, do any of these things.”)
I priced out a Cricut for funsies and quickly realized it was more expensive to buy the machine and materials than to hire a calligrapher to professionally create sign decals for me. No one wants me free-handing signs. NO. ONE.
For me, it came down to one question. When I looked back at pictures 5, 10, 30 years from now, what do I want to focus on: the love my husband and I shared on that day, or all the mistakes I made trying to craft my way through the wedding?
If you need some design professionals in your life, check out the lists of AMAZING vendors on TodaysBride.com.
Next time I check in, we’ll be less than a month away from our big day. EEK!!
