How Stressful is a Do It Yourself Wedding?

I put the do it yourself wedding to the test this weekend as we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, just to see how stressful it could possibly be. True to cheap wedding solutions ideals the budget was minimal.

As with all good wedding receptions it is vital to invite your guests. At the beginning of the year when the idea first struck we had grand ideas of making the invites ourselves, we had visions of black and white photographs from our wedding all very arty. But as with most grand ideas time began slipping away, we changed the date so as not to clash with a family wedding and ended up emailing the invite to all our guests, which did save us a fortune. A word of warning if you are thinking of emailing your invites make sure they haven't been designed in a package that only the most techie of friends can open! Oops!

We decided to have our do it yourself wedding anniversary party in our own home and spent ages tidying up the garden and creating areas for guests to stand on as our garden is on clay and can get very boggy. Several bags of granite chippings (you always need more bags than you think) and one decking later, the garden was ready. Then as it started to get closer to the day the weather took a turn and it poured with rain for what seemed like weeks. We had guests phoning up the days before asking if it was still going ahead - of course we said yes and hoped we wouldn't need to hold the party on a boat.

Due to the weather we had to shelve the idea of a bbq and the bouncy castle and it all changed to inside. We borrowed a huge gazebo and put that over the decking to create more space and asked our older nieces and nephews to create some indoor entertainment for the children.

For food we laid on a buffet with salads, seafood, cheeses, cold meats and french bread followed by strawberries and cream or my mum's very yummy chocolate cake. It all went down well, although it would probably be a good idea to pass on the responsibility of getting all the food out to someone else as I kept talking to friends we haven't seen for ages and forgetting the food!

Wine and champagne flowed throughout the afternoon, boosted by lots of bubbly donations and we had a great time.

So in reflection, a do it yourself wedding is possible - just ask many friends and family for help and then relax and enjoy yourself.

More cheap reception ideas here! Do It Yourself Wedding to Home