Your Pros and Cons on DIY? Saving Money or Saving Time

In my humble experience, everything I DIY takes longer than I hoped and costs m ore than I thought....

I think it really depends. For me I am doing a lot of stuff myself but I love crafting and I only work 9:30-2:00 so I have quite a bit of time to work on things. To save money I only buy things when they are on sale or when I have a coupon. Michael's and Hobby Lobby if you check their site they always have 40% off coupons!

So far, my diy projects have been totally worth it money wise. I researched my materials, and got them on sale. I have 1 day free every weekend, and several hours in the afternoon free for projects. I get bored easily so it easy for me to load my plate up with many different DIY shenanigans. Most people advise taking on ONE DIY project. So far I have knocked out 1, with one more well on the way (75% done) and another started (50%) and one to two more that are still in my head being mulled over.

TLDR: If you are crafty, ambitious, with free time for planning and researching, as well as actual construction then DIY is for you!! If you don't have a lot of free time, minimize to one or two projects MAX.

Hope this helped!

First, I totally agree with Jean. I am mostly non DIY and am extremely laid back about most things and still spend about a day a week on something wedding related. I am only DIY-ing a few little things and then am doing my own centerpieces.

I love to be crafty, but am limited in my skill and time so I didn't want to go overboard. The centerpieces are just spray-painted mint julep cups (I liked the shape but need a more bronze color to go with the rest of the wedding) in two different sizes and they are going to have baby's breath and cornflowers and a "Table X" sign--I bought small chalkboards on sticks that can stick in the taller cups so that's just writing the table number. Then I am putting them on mirrors with lots of votive candles. Just finding the right spray paint and color took about 3 hours between various trips to different stores and testing them out at home.

They have been a blast to come up with and play with to get looking how I want and I like the way they look--but I did them just b/c I wanted to "do" something rather than just buy everything. I think one or two (or a few) little DIY touches is great--but if you bite off too much, you might end up with no time and no money!

Personally, I am not a fan of DIY at all. I'm not creative and whenever I make something it takes too much time and looks "homemade." I'd rather pay the professionals :-)

I am going to make my own garter and veil. Im not terribly crafty but I think I can manage. For now I only want to undergo one or two small to medium projects. Like gettin'Hitched said, if you bite off too much, ya might end up with no money or time. Sense you don't have a lot of time to focus on one thing, I would try only doing small projects that take a little bit of time. Overall don't swamp yourself with to much. Hope this helped!

For big projects like...flowers, photography, catering...definitely go pro. But my family (and future in-laws) and I have been working on our centerpieces, STDs, and eventually the invitations.

I like actually working on wedding projects. It makes the whole process feel more real, and those who have helped me (FMIL, MOH, and my mom big time) have said that even though it takes time, it really lets them know they're contributing. I like being hands on.

For my part, the items I AM doing DIY is really paying off. I'm making paper flowers instead of buying real ones, I'm using lanterns that my venue rents for free, and I'm making wooden bases out of actual tree stumps that someone is giving me and we'll slice them ourselves. I'd say we're saving at LEAST $500 in decor alone. Probably more like $850. It's worth it.

Everything I DIY definitely saves me money, my brooch bouquet saved me $300+ but took a while to complete, probably about 30 hours to clean pieces, access what would work, wire, tape and assemble to my liking; I did it over a course of three weekends, but collected brooches over an eight month period (you can do this a lot quicker, if I were to make another I would order a bulk of them from international sellers on ebay).

Centerpieces will save me $500.

Invites will save me at least $5.00 a piece (elaborate pocketfolds).

You can definitely save money depending on what you do, I make sure all my supplies are bought on sale, off of ebay at awesome prices or with coupons, I never pay full price for ANYTHING.

If you have crafty family members/friends that are reliable I would definitely enlist help; I plan to make my mother help me assemble our invitations, programs, favors and out of town kits; my FH and father will cut down, sand and stain all wood for signage; FH helped design our invites, my aunt is a florist and will help assemble bouquets, boutonnieres and centerpieces just a day before the wedding.

I say if you have one free day a week choose little projects that will add cute touches to your wedding, you can definitely get a good amount of things done in your time frame.

I have even done projects on my lunch hour!

Everything I DIY'ed saved me tons of money but took 2x the time I had anticipated and I was able to allocate it somewhere else within the wedding budget to splurge! There were also a lot of big 'DIY' projects that my husband did because he is a carpenter... I would draw out my idea or lay out the ground work and he would build it! DIY is a ton of work. Keep it as simple as possible and ask for lost of help... but totally worth it in the long run!

It really depends on what you are DIYing. I wanted to DIY a lot of things but I was running out of time too. And it was hard to find certain items that I needed for materials and to have to order them in would take too much time and just searching for them took forever.

Then I priced out the materials if I DIY and compared it to if I just got them as a part of a package with a vendor and realized that I am saving SO MUCH MORE money if I went with a vendor. So I just went with the latter even though it would have a been such a cool project. This is was for my centerpieces.

What I DIY was my invitations, seating charts, mostly stationary stuff because materials were cheap and it was my expertise anyway when it comes to designing stationary so it was not very expensive at all.

DIY is a lot of work and I had to find out the hard way that I could just have saved a lot of time and money going through a vendor. Just had to find the right price and someone who was in tune with what I wanted.

Pick and choose what you want to DIY and let the rest be done by someone else. Keep things simple and less stress for yourself. Trust me, it will help a lot! If you really want to DIY big projects, make sure you have A LOT of help or else you will stress like no tomorrow and as a bride, you really should not stress out and start having a mental breakdown.

A friend of mine decided to tack on every DIY project there is when it came to her wedding and she was working non-stop until the wee hours of the night before her wedding and she had been working on all her projects for 6 months! She over spent on materials, had to change her ideas many time because some of the ideas she had didn't even work out and it was a nightmare for her. And she unfortunately didn't have as much help as she thought she would and her work made her do a lot more overtime than she anticipated too she I felt bad for her.

that's just one experience but like said, just manage your time, budget everything, and make sure you have help and pick and choose what you would like to DIY.

Just like everyone else said, I think it really depends on you. I lived my entire life crafting, pretty much since the time I was born lol. I love making pieces that are cute, personal, and elegant. I also have a very good concept of what I am capable of, and would not try a DIY for the wedding if I knew I couldn't rock it. I like things to look a little homey-but not cheap and homemade. It also helps if you have family that are similar in that way. my FAuntIL has done so many wedding flowers and I have helped with one wedding and am helping with a second.... As long as both you and they know what you all are capable of, that is fine.

A lot of people try to DIY even if they are not up to the challange just to save money, and a lot of the time it wastes them money.

Mt DIY's.... some have cost more to make myself and some actually saved me time. Either way, they are more personalized.

I think the best thing to do is, before you launch into a project, evaluate the costs, the time savings, and whether you are truly capable of completing the project.

We had centerpieces quoted at about $35/table. I decided to DIY and it's going to cost us $8/table instead. On the other hand it saved us time and money just to order invitations as opposed to making our own. Plus, I would never have the patience to make my own, as much as I'd like to!

If you are creative, you will DIY just fine.

I have saved a ton of money DIYing.

I think the only thing that I did NOT anticipate with DIY is that I think of more and more things I want to make, and then I spend money making more and more things I have made all of my decor, my centerpieces, my cupcake trays, my garter, our invitations.... I can't even remember everything I have made because I literally think it is like, our entire wedding It takes a lot of time, yes, but not an overwhelming amount I don't think.

I have been buying vases for twelve months, and candlesticks etc. now I have to fit them into my tiny car to get to Virginia from Missouri. I just hemorrhaged money last week buying floral wire, shears, ribbon, candles, foam, buckets which again will have to fit in my car. Then, ill have to get my bridesmaids to all help arrange the flowers all together the day before the wedding. I thought oh ill save so much money and right now trying to Tetris my trunk I wish I had just paid someone else to do it

DIY for me has saved me a ton of money so far and I actually enjoy doing it!

A&J-- Hi Date Twin (The first one that I've seen so far)!!! If I remember correctly, you had the maple syrup favors and I think that's awesome!!