DIY Wedding: Table Settings

Because we decided to have such a short engagement (only 5 months!) we needed to get our wedding-planning butts in gear straight away. During this time I was also taking thirteen credits worth of summer classes. That meant most of the work and planning fell onto my husband's workload. I'm lucky he is so gracious and diligent.

We are definitely a "do-it-yourself" kind of couple and this wedding turned out to be the master of DIY Weddings. You might be wondering how many aspects of a wedding you can truly DIY, and why we felt the need to do it that way. Here is a list of items and our reasons for doing it ourselves and how we did it:

1. Buy mismatching dishes and silverware instead of renting. By actually buying plates and silverware we were able to cut down the cost enormously.

Why? First of all, we loved the idea of having an outdoor wedding with mismatching dinnerware for all of our guests. I came to think of the wedding as having a vintage garden feel to it. However, there is a more economical reason for doing this: the cost of renting is outrageous.

Renting Costs:

• 12" Dinner Plate, white, $1.75
• Fork, $0.35
• Spoon, $0.35
• Knife, $0.35

That equals $2.80 per guest. We invited 200 guests. The plates and silverware alone would have cost us $560 (and we would have to return them)!   

How do you DIY?  We started out by stopping at any (and every) garage sale we saw signs for. I stopped at one sale and purchased a dozen spoons. As I was paying I explained to the woman running the sale that I was collecting mismatching silverware for my wedding. She then told me she had a whole bin full of mismatching pieces she didn't put out because she couldn't imagine anyone wanting it. I bought 50-60 pieces at that sale alone for only $5.00. (I guess it pays to be a yapper!)

To help lessen the workload for ourselves we took to asking friends and family for help whenever possible.  Because these items came from so many different places I don't have an exact amount for dollars spent vs. renting but we had very strict budget guidelines.

Buying Guidelines:

• Dinner Plate, <$0.50
• Fork, <$0.25
• Spoon, <$0.25
• Knife, <$0.25

At most, this equals $1.25 per guest. Multiply by 200 and that's $250. By having DIY table settings we cut those rentals by more than half (and saved $310).

It is also important to mention that we did not rent glassware. We have a lot of canners in our family and were able to borrow as many mason jars as we needed. However, we did buy mason jars with handles for our bridal party to keep and my husband and I used mason jar wine glasses (mason jars attached to upside-down glass candlesticks).