5 Tips for DIY Wedding plus Answering Your Q&A

Two weekends ago, Dan and I got married! While there were approximately twelve million hiccups along the way – like my DJ cancelling the day before and my hair stylist cancelling the morning of – it turned out to be the perfect evening, and since I’m still on a high from the day, I thought I’d sit down and write up a blog post offering my tips and answering the questions submitted via instagram.

1. If budget is important, doing it yourself is the way to go for (nearly) everything.

Because I’m me, I share a lot of my life on instagram Stories, and the number one thing people messaged me was: “Why are you doing so much yourself?! You should be resting!” The reason we chose to do much of it ourselves was because I just didn’t want to spend a ton on one day. It’s so easy to go down these rabbit holes of all things wedding – believe me, at one point I found myself on Etsy deep in an abyss of pet portrait foiled cocktail napkins that said, “Let’s pawty” and Dan was like, “Rein it in, babe!” But honestly, Dan and I just bought cars, and we are very financially conscious, so we really weren’t willing to suffer financially for the sake of one day. In addition, I have the luxury of making my own hours, and I had a friend who loves event planning and the two of us did nearly all of it ourselves with relative ease.

Initially, I wasn’t going to get a photographer, but I am so glad that everyone encouraged me to get one. My argument was that everyone has phones, and therefore cameras would be out all night, but no one takes photos like an actual photographer, and you’ll want to remember the day! My photographer was Rob DeMartin and I love his work because it’s very journalistic rather than staged, and truly tells the story of the day.

2. Decide what’s important to you and what’s not, and spend on the former, rather than the latter.

I am not a flower person. I can appreciate them, sure, and I like giving and receiving them, but after being quoted a near five-figure amount for flowers (lol, not in my world!), I just decided to do them myself. First, I tried ordering them myself off a very legit-looking website, which wound up being an absolute scam – so do your due diligence and look them up on the Better Business Bureau first! After that fire was put out, my friend Sofia talked me into going into the flower district in New York City and buying everything there. It was so easy and seamless, and I wound up spending just under $1,000 on all my centerpiece and decor flowers. More tips on that below.

I am a bit sentimental, so it was important to me to have something special to wear on the day, that I could wear again and be reminded of the day, and I was okay spending a little extra on whatever that thing may be. I tried so many shoes but nothing was really that comfortable or re-wearable. Further, our wedding was on our friends’ lawn, so it was tough to find a good shoe that wouldn’t stick in the grass. I decided to just wear a pair of shoes I already owned that were super comfortable (a leopard print version of these). So then back to the drawing board I went to find something special. I looked at rings, bracelets, necklaced, and tried many pairs of earrings, and finally wound up falling in love with these beauties, that I found at a fraction of the retail price, brand new with tags at a consignment shop.

3. Stay true to who you are as a couple.

I know people say no one ever remembers the food or drinks at weddings unless it’s really bad, and so you could definitely phone it in with the food for your wedding if you wanted, but I really wanted to try to throw a great party if I could, and to us, good food is an important part of our lives. I wanted the food and drink to have a slight nod toward who we are as a couple. Both of us are pretty health conscious, so we found this farm to table style food truck and the owner was a classically trained chef. We tried their food at an event they were doing, and it was excellent.

With the drinks, we went with CT Cocktail Car. The car itself was booked, but the owner Dave asked what we were all about. Truth be told, neither Dan nor I drink much, but when we do, Dan is into whiskey and I prefer clean cocktails. I had a couple messages asking what clean cocktails are – basically they just don’t have a ton of sweetener, and when they do, it’s honey or agave or something. They’re also made with fresh ingredients like pressed juices, fresh herbs, etc. Our cocktails were:

• Campfire Margarita with a splash of Mezcal

• NY Sour with whisky

• French 75 with gin and bubbly

• Old Fashioned

• Dark and Stormy

We also had:

• Sauvingnon Blanc

• Cabrnet Blend

• IPA

• Light Ale

4. Wear something you feel good in.

I was lucky enough to be gifted this gorgeous dress from BHLDN. I tried on about five dresses and this one just fit like a glove, and felt so, so comfortable. I did wind up getting it hemmed and tailored just the littlest bit, and I felt so good in it that I never even changed into the party dress I bought for the reception! And I have zero regrets about that – I was truly so comfortable and felt so good in my wedding dress! Plus the party dress I can wear another time – it’s a classic short white dress with a plunge neckline.

Dan initially was going to get a suit from Bonobos because – again – we were trying to stay true to who we were, and Dan is a pretty casual guy. However, neither one of us was sold when he tried the suits on there. They were fine for, say, a day at the office or something, but it wasn’t what he wanted to wear for the wedding. We ended up going to Neiman Marcus around the corner, and he got a much more formal suit. The second he put it on, Dan said it was night and day different from the one he’d just tried on at Bonobos. I thought the lapel was a little much but the sales guy who helped us told me I was crazy and that the lapel was a Tom Ford lapel, and not to disrespect Tom like that, lol. To be clear, the suit brand wasn’t Tom Ford, so I’m still unclear why he called it a Tom Ford lapel, but either way, it ended up being perfect. Dan felt so good in the suit he didn’t even take the jacket off the entire night, ha!

5. Pick, choose, or modify wedding traditions

We really wanted to keep things simple and as stress-free for everyone as possible, so we didn’t do a wedding party. However, when Sofia and I were arranging the centerpieces, we had so many flower petals from removing the outside petals to encourage the flowers to open that we decided to ask our nieces – the day of the wedding – if they wanted to be flower girls. It was so cute!

I did want my dad to walk me down the aisle, and I also wanted Buckles to be a part of the day somehow. I was hesitant to have him walk with me down the aisle because I thought he might get stressed out with the noise and number of people and everything, but it worked out beautifully. Buckles walked with me down the aisle, and because everyone was so quiet, the energy was so good in the little courtyard where we were married, that I don’t even know if Buckles noticed just how many people were there. He wasn’t distracted, he didn’t pull, he wasn’t agitated or stressed at all, and it was a memory I’ll have for the rest of my life. I’m so happy I did that.

We didn’t do any father/daughter or mother/son dances, but Dan did walk with his mom down the aisle, which is different but something he felt much more comfortable with.

We did do a very brief first dance, but I asked the DJ to invite all the couples onto the dance floor after our photographer got a few shots, about twenty seconds in or so.

We did cut the cake, but there wasn’t a big to-do about it. We didn’t shove it into each other’s faces, and we didn’t bring the table out onto the dance floor or anything. It was just a quick slice for the photo and then back to dancing.

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Ok now let’s tackle the questions submitted from IG:

1. What would you DIY and what would you pay to have someone do, if you were to do it all over again? I would still do my flowers. They were a damn pain in the ass to do – it took us SEVEN HOURS just to arrange the centerpieces alone, but I’d much rather spend seven hours of my time arranging than pay the figure I was quoted. However, I did have an actual florist do my bouquet, the boutonniere and dog flower collar, and I am glad I did that because I’m not sure I could’ve done a better job and these are the flowers that are in the photos most. I’d still have sourced the same vendors – food truck, cocktail guy, etc. myself. For invites, we did e-vites through Zola.com. While there were some hiccups with the older generation not being able to access their invite, nearly everyone received it without a problem, and it made it really easy to send messages if we had to communicate with the whole group. I would not have changed the location for anything. Our friends generously offered up their property and it was absolutely perfect – there was a courtyard on one side surrounded by bamboo which was where our ceremony was. The cocktail hour was on their patio, and the reception was under the tent just off the patio. Of course the obvious is that in order to have a backyard wedding, you -or someone close to you- needs to have a yard you can use. The caveat was that everyone had to be bussed in and that required some logistics in terms of permits with the town -I had people who lived nearby park at the local middle school if they wanted – and we had to communicate with the hotel in the next town over where people were staying, so that they could create signs for the guests to know when they shuttles were coming. We did our own party favors – lotto tickets with custom stickers that said Hope you get lucky tonight – I thought they were cute and very ‘us’, since Dan enjoys gambling. We had DJ Chachi dj our wedding and he was phenomenal – I would not, in a million years, have wanted to do my own music. Dance and music is such a huge part of who I am that sub-par music or sound equipment just wouldn’t cut it. That’s just me, though, not everyone loves to dance! The ambiance was important to me, and I’m so glad I went with a clear tent – if you have that option, I would definitely go for that. It looks so pretty under the sky!

2. What is something you wished you cared more or less about for the day? I wish I had insisted that the name cards with table assignments go in a different place. They were on a side ledge on the patio but they were easily missed and a good number of people didn’t know where to sit once they get in the tent. Luckily, my friends sprung into action, brought the name cards down, and helped people find their seats. But definitely put the name cards in a place that is easily found. Same with the card box – I didn’t really think too much about that, and it was on a side table just outside the tent with the dessert, and people kept asking where it was. As silly as it sounds, make it obvious where people can drop off gifts or cards. That’s pretty much it!

3. What are some of your favorite moments? Well, like a day or so before the wedding, I suggested to Dan that we write our own vows. Now, Dan is a planner and I basically operate by flying by the seat of my pants so initially he was not pleased with my suggestion, but we did end up doing it, and they were perfect. It felt so special to read one another what we’d written from the heart, in front of our closest family and friends. I also loved how involved our families were, in unexpected ways – like Dan’s older brother married us, and even though we didn’t do a wedding party, his middle brother gave a really funny, heartfelt speech. My brother stood at the end of the aisle and took Buckles from me once I got to the altar. Dan also gave a speech before we cut the cake, and while I expected him to thank our friends who owned the property we were on, I didn’t expect him to thank me for all the work I’d put into making the day happen. It was so heartfelt, punctuated by a joke that I hand blew the vases from the centerpieces, and it was just really sweet. I also will never forget walking up to the ceremony with my dad and Buck. It was a long path, and we stopped at the top of the stairs so my dad could fluff my dress, and it was so quiet except for the song that was playing – which, by the way, was a blend of Here comes the sun and Can’t help falling in love that my friend The Arcitype produced for me. Buckles sniffed around, not even noticing how many people were there, and then the three of us made our way quietly down the steps and down the aisle and it was just so magical.

4. Where did you get your neon signs? Ahh the neon signs, I was so on the fence about them. I felt like they were super trendy and would be lame in a year – and maybe they will – but I’m so glad I got them. Initially I was going to only do one. One was white light and one was pink light, so I was going to see how they looked under the arbor, which we were going to repurpose from the ceremony as the backdrop from our photo booth. But when we plugged them in, we just thought they were both really cute. Sofia had a copper rack made, and we bought drapes to create a backdrop for the Crazy Little Thing sign, and used it as a photo opp at the cocktail hour on the patio. The Better Together sign was used under the arbor near the reception area.

5. Link your energy because you were radiating in all the pics/videos! Ha, you are so funny. Honestly, there were so many hiccups – my dj cancelled the day before and never even responded when I said yes, I’d like some help finding another dj. (Luckily, our friends have connections in the nightclub industry and were able to get an unbelievable replacement, but the stress!) Then, my hair stylist cancelled the morning of my wedding, but luckily my make up artist used to do hair before she got in a bad car accident, and so despite having not done hair in a million years, she did such a fantastic job! Other hiccups… I told you I placed a huge order of flowers online, paid for them, and then the company turned out to be a scam. Oh, the day before the wedding, Buckles got his mouth on one of the chickens that lives on the property and were it not for Sofia diving in between the two, he surely would have killed it – that was an awful experience! There were many other hiccups – but honestly, aside from the dj situation which I did burst into tears over, I just kind of surrendered and thought to myself: the day is going to come and go – I can stress over these things, or I can just take each moment as it comes and trust it will all work out. And guess what – not only did it work out, but it was honestly probably the best weekend of my life. So if you’re getting married soon and finding yourself stressed – try to surrender. Not to be morbid, or a debbie downer, but we are literally on a spinning rock in the universe and nothing really even matters, so make the best of whatever the day brings!

6. How did you put it together so fast on your own? A huge part of it was having a friend who has experience planning events. My friend Sofia had ideas that just worked, on things that simply don’t come naturally to me – like the centerpiece decor. I honestly didn’t even know you put candles in hurricane vases before last week, so that basically tells you all you need to know about my understanding of decor and setting a table. She was just really good at that kind of stuff. She also is extremely detail oriented and I am just…..not. I mean, when we were trying to get a tent, she wanted photos of the thing set up – and not just a pic from afar. She wanted to see the underside of the tent (she was looking for mildew), what the stakes looked like, how it looked at night, etc. These are things I never in a million years would have even thought to ask. So if you can, work with someone who is extremely detail oriented, who crosses every T and dots every i.

7. What’s the honeymoon plan? Well, Dan doesn’t have any more personal days, so I’m probably going to plan something as a surprise for him during one of his school breaks – it depends on what’s going on in the world with travel restrictions, etc. We are taking a trip with friends later this month- it’s not a honeymoon but it will feel special nonetheless.

8. What jewelry did you wear? I linked the earrings up above, and I also wore my engagement ring which is from Ring Concierge, and I had two wedding bands made at a local place called Jewelry Designs – one is an extremely thin gold band, that I’ll wear on my right ring finger, and one is a very thin pave band that I’ll wear on my left index finger. I also wore my bracelets I never take off, and after the ceremony, I put my whoop and watch back on because I wear them daily and I felt naked without them!

9. How did you cope with planning/postponing during the pandemic? Well, we only got engaged in June, so we didn’t postpone anything. With planning, we just had to get creative. There were literally no venues around, so when my friends offered up their home for our wedding, I was beyond grateful because truly – there wasn’t anything available. Every caterer and bartending service I called was booked, so that’s when I started looking at food trucks and bar cars. With regards to guests, you just had to be understanding. We had about twelve people drop out in the few days leading up to it due to illness or unforeseen issues. We also asked that everyone take a covid test prior to attending the wedding. We followed local guidelines – no masks are needed in CT if you’re outside, and everything we did was outside. Guests did have to wear masks on the shuttle coming to the wedding, but they could have also taken an uber if they wanted to be around fewer people.

10. Favorite or least favorite part? Best ideas? Favorite was walking down the aisle and also dancing the night away with Dan and my friends and family. Least favorite part was the panic I felt when I thought I forgot my earrings! Right before the ceremony was about to start, I was tearing my bag apart looking for them, and even sent someone we’d hired to staff the event back to my house to look for them – but then five min later I found them! I am really glad I booked Genies Mirror for our photo booth. They were excellent to work with, and I loved that all the guests got to take as many photos as they wanted and have the prints to take home at the end of the night.

11. I’d love to hear more about doing the flowers yourself. Ok so a client of mine owns a restaurant in NYC and she said they get all their flowers from the Dutch Flower Line in NYC’s flower district. It’s first come, first served, so Sofia and I wanted to be there the second they opened. We arrived around 4:45am, and got first dibs on everything. I wanted cream, white and pale pink flowers with fluffy greenery. We picked dahlias, peonies, roses, dianthus green balls, eucalyptus baby blue, silver dollar eucalyptus, myrtle, and chamomile. I wouldn’t use the chamomile, were I to do it again, because they were wilting and dying after just a couple hours and really flimsy to work with, but all the others were amazing. I also bought a ton of six foot tall huckleberry branches and some oversized pampas for the geometric arbor. For the centerpieces, we were just using 5×5 clear glass vases, so after a bunch of failed attempts and watching a million youtube tutorials, I found a method that worked for me. I started with the best flowers first and created an X with their stems. Then I picked two more of the “best” flowers (not the filler ones or greenery, but the peony-types) and then created an X with their stems in the other direction. Then I just continued to add to that, positioning the flowers so to stems basically acted as the foundation to hold the flowers in place. All the flowers were cut to almost the same length, although I shortened a few and kept the greenery a couple inches longer so there would be a very slight variety in height. It was a real process that took about seven hours to do the 15 centerpieces, plus one for my sweetheart table, and then about 18 or so vases of flowers that we used for the ceremony. We put them down the aisle to the side of every other chair, and I stuck three small pampas in between each vase.

We created a little DIY photo booth area at our cocktail location using this neon sign, fluffy rugs, branches cut from their yard, sheer panels, up lights, and a copper stand my friend had made.

All our wedding stuff – vases, candle holders, beverage dispensers for the ceremony welcome drink, bamboo utensils and plates, etc. You can find nearly everything here.

DIY Wedding Arbor

The arbor was purchased off Facebook Marketplace – an excellent place to source wedding materials, just FYI. Dan said he could’ve made it for $100, so if you or your partner is handy, see if you can make it yourself. Then, Sofia and I used huckleberry branches and oversized pampas to decorate. We wired it with copper wire, and hung our ring boxes from it for the ceremony. All my materials are linked on my amazon storefront. Then, after the ceremony, we had our staff move the arbor from the ceremony to the reception area, and we hung our Better Together neon sign from it using hooks and chains, and used that for the backdrop to our photo booth. For the photo booth, I hired Genie’s Mirror – and they were wonderful, but you could also make a DIY photo booth with an ipad and an app – just google it, there are lots of options.

A couple more things we did ourselves – table numbers, a little hashtag tent, and custom stickers for our scratch off favors.

• A word on the hashtag, though – no one can see Story hashtags, so to be honest, I don’t even know if it’s worth it to create a hashtag unless you tell people to use it when posting to their permanent feed, because for whatever reason, story Hashtags can’t be seen by just anyone.

• I loved our little favors – we did lotto tickets and a penny in a little kraft bag sealed with our custom stickers. They were a nod to Dan’s love of gambling – don’t get that twisted, he’s not like a gambler gambler, but he does enjoy scratch offs, poker games with friends, and sports betting.

Taking some pictures in the photo booth with my friends.

I absolutely loved my hair – I can’t believe my hair stylist cancelled, and was so glad my make up artist was confident in doing my hair. Again, though, I didn’t really stress about it. The day was going to happen no matter what – the time was going to pass anyway – so I could choose to just be happy no matter what happened, or I could spend the time stressing. I did the former! Also really loved my flowers here – and this is a good pic of Dan’s suit. If you look closely, you can see what I mean about the aggressive lapel but while you probably wouldn’t want to wear it to a meeting, it was perfect for a groom, you know?

Had a bit of an emotional moment here. This was right after I found my earrings and I was getting ready to walk over to the ceremony. I was nervous, and excited, and ready to get the show on the road – it had been such a rollercoaster of emotions leading up to the day and I was so ready to get going!

Grateful to have my best boy by my side. His being there meant everything to me. He was so sweet and so calm during the whole day, which made me really happy because I’d been on the fence about including him in the ceremony, but he really did so well. After the ceremony, he just chilled in the house and slept in their living room.

My DJ was hands down the most incredible DJ ever. We had the absolute best time – pretty sure I didn’t leave the dance floor once!

When I say it was the most fun, I mean it!

The clear tent was a little pricey but I’m so glad we got it – it was such a beautiful ambiance and made everything feel so bright and airy. I think a clear tent would be awesome if it rained, too, because it would still feel really bright and light under there – so I highly recommend it, if it’s an option.

Another photo of our arbor. I know it’s not everyone’s taste but I really really loved how it came out – those fluffy pampas are everything, and the huckleberry had such great texture and just looked so beautiful. Also, Dan’s eldest brother married us, which was special.

The tent at the end of the night – so so pretty underneath the moon. On the right hand side you can see our photo booth set up.

Wedding Welcome Bags

For our out of town guests, we left welcome bags at the hotel. In addition to face masks, which needed to be worn on the shuttle over to our venue, and hand sanitizer, we also included:

1. Munk Pack Keto Nut and Seed bars – these are so incredibly good, and contain real ingredients, and have low sugar. Highly recommend them!

2. No Days Wasted DHM Detox Recovery Blend capsules – I tried these and they really worked! Despite three or four drinks that night, which is a lot for me – I felt great the next day!

3. No Days Wasted Hydration Replenisher – These are fantastic hydration packets. They contain excellent ingredients, and taste really good, too!

The weekend was truly such a happy time. I sometimes feel like I have to pinch myself – it was such a wonderful day, and getting to celebrate my love with all my closest family and friends – and Buck – just meant the world to me.