GOING DIY?

DREAMING OF HOMEGROWN FLOWERS, VINTAGE FINDS AND HANDMADE FAVOURS? IT'S TIME TO HARNESS THAT KIWI INGENUITY AND LOOK CLOSER TO HOME FOR ALL THE ELEMENTS YOU NEED FOR A TRULY DO-IT-YOURSELF DAY.

How to harness that Kiwi ingenuity and stick to your budget

HOPES OF BEING A DIY BRIDE often involve an American dream: we fall in love with an item on Etsy only to have our dreams dashed by the horrendous shipping costs, or the most perfect tutorial online is courtesy of items from Home Depot. But I’m here to tell you it’s time to put a stop to that right here and now, and embrace our Kiwi ingenuity.

Being a DIY bride in New Zealand doesn’t have to be hard, it simply calls for a little more creativity and organisation. While there are some who thought we made things harder on ourselves by not making use of a wedding planner for our out- of-town wedding, we managed to push the boundaries of our big day successfully. I want to show you how, too.

Once you have the big-ticket items out of the way, such as your venue, it’s time to start thinking of a theme. Hopefully you will have a rough idea of what this is going to shape up like given you’ve already chosen the location where you’ll say “I do”. And let’s be honest – you may well have been hanging out for years to make your wedding Pinterest board a reality!

GET STARTED EARLY

Making your own stationery is one of the quickest ways to save money when it comes to your big day. I invested in a monthly subscription to Adobe Photoshop to make save-the- date cards myself, and produced our invites with a huge helping hand from my sister-in-law Lucy, from Magill Designs. If you don’t have a Photoshop expert at hand, YouTube is the best virtual teacher. We used my subscription to make name cards, seat reservation signs, programmes, menus, photo boards, our Tinder sign, thank-you cards – it was truly open season!

If you have time on your side, you could make paper folds and envelopes yourself, but do remember how valuable your time is – we purchased these instead. Support New Zealand-made like we did by purchasing your paper goods from Kiwi company Pinc Ltd. Remember to keep