DIY Wedding for Under $3000

My first completed DIY project!

2011-10-19T23:10:00.002-04:00

I'm awesome at starting projects, like I really kick some project starting booty. Finishing them...eh not so much. I have a drawer full of beeswax and coconut oil from a lotion bar project, boxes full of scrapbooking paper, loads of paint, spools upon spools of ribbon, knitting needles I've yet learned to use...this list could go on and on.

However one of these things actually came in handy tonight. Something I've seen on a few blogs are "Will you be my..." cards. I dug out a pack of scrapbook paper I've never used (I hate using expensive things though I've had it for years! For some reason I always think a better reason will come up!) and came up with these:

I'm very excited about this because they were super quick to make and used materials I already had in my possession. So cost out of wedding budget = $0!

I'm thinking of doing mismatched invitations just because I have so many materials but I somehow doubt Phil would go for that! I'm so glad just to have started and finished a project in one night!

When Life Gives You Exploding Cupcakes...

2011-10-17T22:31:00.000-04:00

...cover them in frosting. Lots and lots of frosting.

This post was originally going to be titled "Cupcake Trial Run #2" and have an awesome tutorial of how to make yummy filled cupcakes. Cupcake run #1 went incredibly well, red velvet cupcakes with white chocolate filling and cream cheese frosting. These were consumed by my co-workers before lunch. I took that as an excellent sign. I hoped this trial run would be as successful. I was wrong. I wanted cupcakes that looked like this:

Happy Cupcakes!

Ultimately I got cupcakes that look like this:

Sad, exploding cupcakes.

Which made me look like this:

Sad Sunny.

What happened? What went wrong? It all started beautifully, devils food cake mix in hand. Added sour cream to make them not taste like they came from a box. Baked to perfection, which is a feat for someone who regularly sets off Phil's smoke detector.

It happened with the marshmallow filling. Filling was prepared, put into pastry bag. As I began filling the cupcakes I realized it wasn't working. So I apparently squeezed too hard and the pastry bag exploded at the seams. Phil laughed. I pouted. I finally just made holes with the end of a wooden spoon and used a ziploc bag to try to put the filling in. I decided to hide my mistakes by covering them with lots of chocolate frosting. Here's the finished product:

Not too terribly shabby.

I'm sure this will not be my last wedding project mishap. I'm not exactly a graceful person, just tonight I have had 3 very ungraceful incidences, one involving knocking out the screen door, a near mixer mishap, and not realizing that the pizza crust recipe was actually for two pizzas. Or one really disgustingly thick pizza. Ew. Now to go clean up the kitchen and head to my house to get some sleep. Good night!

~Sunny~

The Engagement: Fireflies in Mason Jars

2011-10-17T09:56:00.004-04:00

Hey All, Phil here. So the proposal happened actually just a few weeks ago, Friday, Sept 30, the day after Sunny's birthday. I had planned for weeks how I was going to do it. I knew that Sunny loves lightning bugs so I rigged up a series of 5mm LEDs and put them in mason jars (also one of Sunny's favorite things). I placed about 20 of them all around a dark room and proposed by candlelight and "lightning bug light". The effect was better that I imagined it was going to be (having never seen the end product anywhere but in my head) and it got an emotional and emphatic head nod when I finally asked the question.

Cost:
I turned to eBay for most of my materials. If you're willing to wait for overseas shipping, you can find things that cost less than the price to ship them.

5mm Green-Colored LEDs (100pcs) - $2.99 + free shipping (Hong Kong)
Pencil Tip Soldering Iron - $5 w/ shipping
Tin "Soldering" Solder - $0.99 + free shipping (Hong Kong)
(470 Ohm) Resistors (50pcs) - $1.95 + free shipping (I didn't end up using these, but they should be used in most electronics projects)
"9V Snap" Battery Clips (20pcs) - $4.30 w/ shipping
9V Batteries (8-pack) - $9 w/ shipping (Since I needed 18 I had to buy 10 more at the last minute for $20 at the store... moral of the story, use the internet to buy things if you have the time to wait)

So that comes out to under $25 for the electronics.

"The works"

The rest of the project consisted of a hot glue gun (already had), some crafting moss (which I got at Wal-Mart - you could just go out into the woods and get the real thing, I was pressed for time) and some really old mason jars I got out of my parents' basement and cleaned up.

The Project:

Note: Use proper safety precautions when using a soldering iron, and consider ventilation - the solder smokes.

I used 5mm green LEDs, the perfect size and color for this project.

The LEDs have two prongs (or leads): the positive (long prong) and the negative (short prong). First I bent all the positive leads at a 90 degree angle to make sure my circuit would go the right way.

Bend the long (positive) leads at a 90 degree angle

After letting the iron heat up (note: always use a damp sponge to clean burnt solder off the iron throughout the project), I added a little solder to a positive lead then soldered that lead to a negative lead of another LED. I gave them a few millimeters of overlap to insure a good strong connection.

Add a little solder to one lead at a time.

A couple millimeters of overlap creates a good bond.

When I started doing to project, to make sure I was soldering the circuit correctly I put the battery connector on the battery and would touch the leads with the connector quickly (you don't want to burn out the LEDs) to see if they lit up. I soldered four LEDs together, negative to positive with two open ends to solder to the connector leads. I used four because that seemed to be the magic number to get the brightest shine without burning out the LEDs with my 9-volt battery. (I started using the resistors at first, which are meant to prevent overloading the circuit, but it limited my voltage too much so I scrapped them.)

I soldered the remaining positive (long) lead to the red wire on the battery connector and the remaining negative (short) lead to the black wire. Be sure that the connector is not snapped onto the battery while soldering.

Remember: red to positive lead, black to negative lead. If you get it wrong at first, just melt the solder and try again.

Snap on to your 9-volt battery and you have fireflies ("lightning bugs"). Now you can bend the leads to make a design if you wish (just don't cross the leads with each other).

Now I used a hot glue gun to fix the battery to the cap of a mason jar and eased the wiring into the jar. But in the end, it seemed to work just as well to set the battery down in the moss and let the LEDs "float" on the wiring. (Be careful, though. This could be a fire hazard.)

How did we get into this mess?

2011-10-16T13:32:00.000-04:00

Hello! Welcome to our blog, we invite you to join us on our journey of planning a DIY wedding for under 3k. Who are we exactly? Sunny and Phil, wedding planners extraordinaire. No, not really. Neither of us have done this before. While we both have some DIY projects under our belts (Phil does freelance web design, and Sunny has a small jewelry store on Etsy), we’ve never tackled a monster as big as a wedding. Why do we have such a small budget? The simple answer is: College.

We both decided to try to better ourselves (and our pocketbooks) by furthering our education, and in the process we racked up some pretty hefty student loan debt. Together our debt amounts to a little over $100k. We both attended private colleges. Myself (Sunny) at a very traditional 4-year private school for a degree in American Sign Language interpreting, and Phil at a very overpriced technical school for Graphic Design.

We approached school in two very different ways, Phil went to Chicago which is pricey to begin with and thought that since he was in an accelerated program he wouldn’t have enough time to work (even though I completely disagreed). He paid for everything with student loan money. I attended school in Tennessee and while I took out student loans to cover the cost of tuition and room+board I worked an on campus job as well as taking off campus babysitting jobs to fund my daily living needs.

So here we are, newly engaged and on a super tight budget. We both work full-time jobs and supplement our incomes with Phil freelancing websites and me babysitting at a fancy schmancy resort. Thankfully we are able to pay all of our bills with our 9-5 jobs and now all of the supplementary money will be going toward the wedding.

So right now this is where we stand, ready to embark on a DIY adventure of sorts. Our goal is to show that you can have a great wedding without going into debt or draining your savings. While you may not have a rock like *insert celebrity here* adorning your finger, the most important thing to remember is that no matter what your wedding looks like, at the end of the day you will be married. It’s easy to lose sight of this and get wrapped up in planning leading to some bridezilla-esque moments (What do you mean I can’t cover everything in pink glitter? This is my day, I’ll do what I want!!!). Trust me I know, we’ve only been engaged for two weeks and I’ve already had a few moments! Phil is not very happy about this, I’m sure you so will not be either.

Thanks so much for checking out our blog, I hope you come back to see us, and maybe our ideas and thriftiness can give you some ideas help you plan your special day.