DIY wedding decorations: what’s worth making, what’s better hired

Hundreds of homemade decoration ideas circulate online, and almost all of them look easy in the photo. What you do not see is the Sunday night at 11 pm when a hundred and twenty place cards are still waiting to be folded, or the eve of the wedding when the centrepieces wilt in the boot of a car.

DIY can really save money, and above all give the day an identity nobody else will have. But not everything, and not at any price. Here is how to choose what is worth the effort.

The rule: time is a cost, not free

Before starting, compare three things for each project: the price of materials, the time it takes (yours and your loved ones’), and the risk of failure. A project is worth it when it is cheap, quick to repeat and easy to fix. It is not worth it when it is fragile, heavy, perishable, or demands expertise you do not have.

The projects that really pay off

The day’s stationery

Place cards, menus, table numbers, a welcome chalkboard, a sign for the restrooms: this is the best return on time. Templates are easy to print, paper is available everywhere, and personalising is done by hand or with a printer. Have a local or online printer do it if you have more than a hundred pieces: it will be cleaner than your home printer.

Table centrepieces

Candles in jars or recovered glasses, coloured glass bottles with a single branch, potted plants or herbs guests can take home. These centrepieces can be prepared the day before or the day before that, without anything wilting. Dried flowers can be prepared weeks ahead and forgive approximation.

Borrowing and recycling

Ask around from four months before: jars, bottles, crates, blankets, linen tablecloths, candle holders. Many people have objects sleeping in a cupboard that they lend gladly. Write down who lends what, and plan how to return it: it is the part people forget.

What is better hired or left to professionals

• Chairs, tables, tablecloths and tableware: hiring is often cheaper than buying, with no transport or storage.
• The ceremony arch: a large structure is hired, delivered and removed. Made at home, it is heavy, unstable and hard to transport.
• Fresh flowers in quantity: a florist buys wholesale, advises on seasonal flowers and delivers. If you want some flowers of your own, limit yourselves to bouquets.
• Outdoor lighting and fairy lights: ask the venue what is allowed and provided. Extension leads across wet grass are not a weekend project.
• Anything you cannot set up on your own: a hanging installation that must stay up all evening takes experience.

A timeline for a DIY project

1. 4 months before: define the styleA restrained moodboard, three or four colours, one atmosphere. Decide before you start buying, otherwise you accumulate objects that do not go together.
2. 3 months before: testMake one of each item. The real time of a centrepiece is measured with one, not with ten. It is also the moment to give up whatever proves too long.
3. 2 months before: buy suppliesPaper, candles, ribbons, jars, glue. Buy wholesale what can be bought wholesale, and plan a tenth extra for breakages and failures.
4. 6 to 4 weeks before: make what keepsStationery, labels, paper garlands, dried flowers, signs. Organise one or two workshop afternoons with loved ones.
5. The last weekPrepare fresh elements, sort by table, label boxes with table number and contents.
6. The day before and the day itselfSet-up is done by a named team with a list and a plan of the venue. Neither you nor your parents set up: you get yourselves ready.

Basic supplies

• A glue gun, good scissors, a craft knife and a cutting mat.
• Ribbon, string, fine wire, pins or painter’s tape if the venue bans nails.
• Heavy paper, envelopes, labels, suitable pens.
• Sturdy boxes, bubble wrap and crates for transporting without breaking, with labels.
• Templates and a model of each item, photographed, so everyone remakes the same thing.
• A repair kit for the day: glue, thread, scissors, tape, pins, spare candles.

Organising with loved ones

Loved ones want to help, but need guidance. A message saying “come and craft” produces chaos; a message with a precise task, a place, a duration and a model photo produces centrepieces.

• Name one person in charge of decoration and another for set-up and take-down. Neither is the couple.
• Organise a one or two afternoon workshop, with drinks and music. People work better together, and it makes a good memory.
• Give everyone a short, precise task, with a model to copy.
• Plan the take-down: who collects what, who returns borrowed items, who takes the jars home. Put it in writing.
• Thank those who helped, by name rather than as a group.

The budget, in orders of magnitude

These ranges are indicative and vary a great deal with region, season and style. For about a hundred guests, an entirely homemade decoration often costs between €300 and €1,000 in materials, furniture hire excluded. The same result from a decorator often runs to thousands of euros, depending on scale.

Always add a tenth for the unexpected, and count the price of failures: the paper you reprint, the candle you rebuy. That is the difference between a planned budget and an overrun one.

The traps to avoid

• Wanting to make everything: five projects done well are perfect, twenty exhaust you. Choose two or three strong elements and keep the rest simple.
• Underestimating the time for take-down and transport, which falls on the evening of the wedding, on tired people.
• Forgetting the venue’s rules: nails, confetti, naked-flame candles and balloons are often banned.
• Making perishables too early: fresh flowers are prepared at the last moment, or not at all.
• Not testing first: a project that works as one can collapse at fifty.