9 DIY Wedding Decor Ideas (Tested and Proven By Graduated Brides AndGrooms!)

Here's a list of DIY items compiled by me from various graduated couples for other budding couples to try out on their own! I'm so glad to meet so many like-minded graduated brides along the way. 

1) Giant Gatecrash Angpow ( 大红包 ) by Mr OOPS

A giant angpow

You know how bridesmaids always requests for the gate crash ang pow to be BIG and BIGGER. Well, now you got it. Mr OOPS did this customized 大红包 from scratch. He started using Photoshop to do up the images below and getting them printed. This angpow is as huge as an A4 size! I have to say, I'm impressed!

Materials and tools you will need:

-A3 size paper

-Sticker

-Tape

P.S. Coloured printing services and decent photoshop skills required for this DIY project to succeed!

2) Wedding Tree Fingerprint Guest Book By Yi En

Photo by Yi En

This wedding tree is drawn from scratch by my dear friend, Yi En for our friend's wedding. She started by sketching the tree out lightly with pencil and then touching up with black pen. Get ready some finger print stamps! And that's all you need. The final product is filled with fingerprints of all sorts of colours! 

Materials and tools you will need:
-Black pen for drawing
-Pencil for sketching
-Good quality A3 sized paper that does not crease easily
-Fingerprint ink pads (colours of your choices)

P.S. Remember to prepare wet wipes for your guests to clean their fingers thereafter!

3) Tree of Hearts by Julia Liu

Photo by Yi En

Photo by Yi En

This 2D tree art is done up for Yi En and Benjamin for their wedding by her friend, Julia. It serves as an awesome photo backdrop for the wedding reception. This is a great idea for wedding receptions with lotsa empty plain walls. It's so pretty that your guests will take a photo with it.

Materials and tools you will need:

-construction paper

-blutack

P.S. 10 tablespoons of creativity and 5 cups of conceptualization required in order for this tree to be proportionately right after piecing them up together! 

4) Creative Ang Pow Box by Jia Hui

Photo by Jia Hui

Photo by Jia Hui

Photo by Jia Hui

Jia Hui is one bride who speaks of optimism and always open to share her ideas and experiences. She came across this DIY ang pow box idea few days before her wedding day. She then made a last minute decision to do it together with her hubby. They had to measure and cut out the ang pow slots and speech bubbles on their own. The "TEAM" words are wooden alphabets while the FH and JH (the couple's initials) words were styrofoam letters coated with glitter. They completed this "mega project" in one day! Super efficient!

Materials and tools you will need:

-Cardboard Box: Ikea

-Speech Bubble and letterings: Art Friend

-Sticker letterings (House/Baby/Travel): Urban Write

-Gold and Silver Tape: Muji

P.S. A reliable and efficient partner in crime is most needed in such impromptu DIY projects.

5) Biscuit Glass Jar By Wei Bang and Alice

This cookie glass jar is filled with colourful gem biscuits and was once mentioned in my previous post titled Review: Solemnization at Dutch Colony Coffee Co. (Frankel Avenue) . The palm sized jar is filled to the brim and sealed with the metal lid. The cloth are cut into square pieces and secured with a twine. It's physically challenging to create 300 of these on your own. Maybe this DIY is better for intimate affairs or solemnization. Instead of biscuits, couples can also opt to put candies or nuts. This will be make a good snack while waiting for the wedding to start.

Materials and tools you will need:
-RAJTAN spice jars from IKEA
-Snacks of your preferance
-Cloth either bought or recycled from old garments or blankets
-Twines
-Stickers (optional)

P.S. Besides the materials, you will need to think about the transportation and logistics arrangements for these bottles! :)

6) Polaroid Wall by Wei Bang and Alice

This is yet another DIY idea which was mentioned in my previous post titled Review: Solemnization at Dutch Colony Coffee Co. (Frankel Avenue) . A really simple way to make an empty wall come to life. 

Materials and tools you will need:

-Sheer fabric to cover the wall

-Fairy lights (to be placed behind the fabric)

-Twines

-Hooks (to hold up the twines)

-Wooden Pegs

-Polaroid camera and film

P.S. You will need enthusiastic friends who will help you with Polaroid taking and clipping them on the rope. I recommended having at least 2 cameras for one event to speed up the photo taking process.

7) LOVE Marquee Lights by Shi Yan

Photo by Shi Yan

The LOVE lights at her wedding
Photo by Shi Yan

Shi Yan was one of the graduated brides whom I got to know from Budget Brides forum. She chanced upon this step-by-step instructions to make textured LOVE marquee lights at SingaporeBrides website. She did some minor changes. Instead of cutting the letters out from styrofoam, she used corrugated cardboard and thus took longer time to poke the holes with a screwdriver. The red colour is done using red foam sheet and glitter. She spent about 5 hours to complete this project. I have to say I am VERY IMPRESSED!

Materials and tools you will need:

-Corrugated cardboard from ArtFriend

-Screwdriver

-Tape

-Pen

-Scissors

-Red Foam Sheet

-Fairy lights (10m)

P.S. You can opt to stick to cutting the letters out from styrofoam and use red or different coloured construction paper instead of the foam sheet if for a different look. 

8) Photobooth Idea: Personalised Frame and Photobooth by Jiayu and Friends

Photo by Jiayu

This personalised frame is handmade by the bridesmaids for the wedding of Justis and Penny. The materials were mostly bought from Daiso and pasted onto the wooden frame. The backdrop black cloth and stand was rented for $40. Helium tank is also rented so that the sisters could pump the floating balloons. The black cloth helped to make the frame stand out! I may recommend a different colour cloth for future btb so that the hair doesn't blend in with the background! =)

Materials and tools you will need:

-Wooden frame from Daiso

-Fake flowers from Daiso

-Wooden letterings

-Glue

-Balloons

P.S. Definitely need to allocate some helpers who are able to be at the photobooth area to guide the guests on how to use the frame! 

9) Pastel Theme Wedding Reception by Shirleen

I always leave the best for the last. Shirleen is another very hands on bride who literally made every single item in her wedding reception! It's not an easy feat considering the amount of logistics and time required to make this beautiful reception. The wedding venue is at Jurong Country Club's Fu Lin Men.

Photo By Shirleen

The "fishing net" is made from twines and decorated with the couple's photos. It acts like a polaroid wall with a rustic feel. The cloth buntings are also handmade from scratch.

Photo By Shir Leen

Snack Bar: The wordings "Snack Bar" and "Celebrate" are acrylic pieces cut out by the groom himself using a laser machine cutting machine. Snacks were bought from the old school snack shops. This snack bar is now complete.

Photo by Shir leen

Shirleen also had this candy cane pole which directs the guests to the snack bar, photobooth etc accordingly. I don't know how she got it done! *jaw drop*

Photo by Shirleen

Photo by Shir Leen

These beautiful tin cans are painted and decorated with ribbons and lace. Afterwhich they are loaded with baby breaths and placed at every banquet table. Effort ttm.

For more input on Shirleen and KK's wedding preparations, do hop on over to their wedding blog at https://journeytoaisle.wordpress.com/.

Afterthoughts:

DIY?! Seriously?! #whysotroublesome 

Then again, there are so many benefits to DIY for your own wedding! It saves costs. It makes your wedding uniquely yours. There will be this huge sense of satisfaction when you look at the end products.

Shirleen was telling me how she had the help of a friend who could help her to execute her vision. That just reminded of how my awesome bridesmaids also put in lots of efforts to DIY our wedding reception. I will definitely share photos of my lovely wedding reception too.... soon! =D

I hope this post give other btbs some doable ideas which they can consider during their wedding prepartion. Then again, if time is not at your side, the fastest and most convenient way is definitely to spend some money to engage a wedding decor vendor or just skip the decor altogether. 

With love,

Mrs OOPS