My DIY Wedding

Weddings are a magical thing, it's one of the happiest moment for the bride and groom to share with their loved ones, and let's all admit it, specially girls, we all have that dream wedding in mind even before the proposal happens. Yep! I have that as well, been planning my dream wedding in my head even before we had "The Talk".

I am a very organized person, but not the OC type. I just like things to be where they are supposed to be, so it's easier for me to find them. When Jay proposed, I took up the part of organizing our wedding, since I am in the wedding industry as an Event Stylist and Makeup Artist, and well, because, I don't really have a choice since the proposal went "Ikaw na bahala sa wedding natin ah", and I was like "G! kung yung VMI nga nadeploy ko, ung wedding pa kaya" wahahaha... not as easy as 1,2,3 but I managed.

We have limited resources, and we started with 0 savings (not a good Idea, wag po tularan). So I set a budget for us to save every month, used my excel expertise, and the plan is to DIY everything we can DIY. Thankfully we are surrounded by very talented family members who helped us with our journey.

DYing is one of my favourite past time, it's one of the things I love to do and a happy place. I just love to watch do it yourself videos that make life much much easier, so this wedding prep will be a fun one.

I am also a harry potter fan, so those who attended my wedding may have guessed by wedding theme. Yep! this is a DIY Harry Potter wedding. we did everything from bouquets, invitation, give-aways, table map, to the wands used during recessional (thank you google for the tutorials).

The Invitation

I'll give this one to Jay, he is an expert with photoshop but we used Adobe Illustrator which is very frustrating to use for those who are used with photoshop. His patience was tested when he created our invitation. I gave him the idea but since we were not able to find any template online, he had to create it from scratch, he even have to draw some or most of the pieces in the invitation. Some of the wording were googled from the net such as the dress code and gifts.

The result was worth-it, it's very beautiful and everything I have in mind. we weren't able to distribute this though because we only printed 20 copies and gave it to some family and friends, since I know invitations just get thrown away after the event.

 Marauder's Map inspired

You can comment below if you want a template of this invi, I can share it with you :)

The Bouquets

This one I worked so hard to finish, Yes, I created all the bouquets used in our wedding. That's a total of 5 bouquet including mine and 3 flower ball for the flower girls.

They are made of paper and ribbon flower, I printed a chapter from harry potter book, Chapter 33, one of my favorite chapter from Deathly Hallows.

I made the paper and ribbon flower by following this tutorials below, link here and here. There are a lot of tutorials out there but those were the videos I followed, it will not be easy at first, I got burned a lot, but once you get the hang of it, you'll find it easy to do.

I used styro ball (3" for the entourage and 4" for me), I added pearls in each of the flower, white ribbon for the entourage bouquet.

For the ribbons, I bought a lot from divisoria which I used in a lot of my diys.

I was able to roll around 300+ flowers (that's a lot of rolling) and got burnt a hundred times. I did this while watching TV or when I am bored and not doing anything.

For my bouquet, I also have pearls in them alternated with crystal beads and a golden snitch on top. For the handle, I used hermione's wand (ordered from shopee), and instead of ribbons, I created a dangling crystal beads on the handle. I added my mom's rosary (not seen in the pic) wrapped around the wand.

Groom's Boutonniere 

For Jay's boutonniere, I used one paper roll and added them to the little flower ribbons, glued them together on a circle cardboard. the pearl on top added a final touch to the boutonniere.

The Key to the guest's seat
Sticking to harry potter theme, I wanted my guest to have a vintage key with their name and table number on it, the key can be used as a keychain or an accessory.

Created this with a two(2) cork board attached with door hinges and a frame stand at the back. I used glue stick to stick the frame stand at the back, cut the pointed part from a white pin and stick them into the cork board to where I will hang the keys.

Giveaways
I had fun doing this giveaways, I had help from my cousin setting this up.

I looked up a template from pinterest (link here), I printed out 150 of this to give away to the guest. the candy inside is a jelly bean, you can buy a lot of jelly beans from candy store in the malls.

I used the same template from the net, but I added "Mischief Managed" at the back to stick to HP team.

Steps: 

1. Print out the template
2. Fold the paper according to the instruction from above link.
3. Put jelly beans inside the plastic, I used the one that is being used for ice candy.
4. Staple the beans inside the paper

For the sponsors giveaway, I gave them an invisibility cloak. A large blanket wrapped with a brown paper with our name printed on it and a snitch. I hope put it to good use and not cause any trouble.

Other Details

• Flowers

          I created 10 of these for 10 guest tables. The fake flowers are from shopee, the popsicle sticks I glued them together to make a crate. I added a ribbon around and a mini flower ribbon in front.

•  Table Numbers with little owls

            For our table numbers, I printed "The Wedding" and "The Unbreakable Vow" chapter of the Harry Potter book. I glued them to a cardboard and placed a black paper around it so it will look like a frame. The owl sticker on the side is from national bookstore, scrapbooking section.

         The little owls, which was hoarded by the guests, were ordered from shopee as well. 

         There are also a books, spray painted with gold, where the popsicle crates were placed. I bought 40 pcs of books from book for less in SM hypermarket pasig, they are 20 pesos each.

• Photo Booth

          There is an option for the photobooth that we booked to layout the background that will be used for the photo printouts, but since we are stubborn and we want to have our own design and just to make sure that we will like the output, we opt to create our own. 

           Jay is also good with layout, I asked him to do the 9 and 3/4 brick design from HP with a background of the map.

           I also created HP props, printed and cut them out myself. you can search google for images.

• Guestbook

          Copied from tom riddle's diary concept, I created a guestbook filled with our pictures, and asked the coord to pass it around for the guest to put their messages in it. I got to read their messages the next day, which I will cherish for the rest of my life.

           
              I asked my cousin to write the statement where harry was talking to tom riddle's diary but we changed it a little.

• Wands

            Ever Since before, I already wanted to try this DIY, to make my own wands and here is a chance for me to make it. Making my DIY wands was fun and looking at the result, make me so happy, my family and friends enjoyed it, I guess.

            I used pencils for the wand, which we bought in divi (7 pesos each), then I used glue gun to create the design I wanted, you can look at pictures while doing this, for me I printed out the wands I copied and looked at them while making the design on the pencil. Next, I spray painted them with gold and attached a white ribbon and the tip so its like casting a spell.

Prenup photo AVP/Growing up AVP
Jay edited all this, using his adobe premiere pro skill. Photos were from our photographer friends, Aldring Mortiz Photography.

Hair and Makeup

Being a makeup artist, It's no surprise that I will do my own makeup. I thought about it a lot, looked for other professional makeup artist to do my makeup, but I just cannot find what I wanted, and I know I can do the look I imagined for myself on my wedding day, so why not?.

My sister, my forever hairstylist, did my hair on my wedding day. we used a hair accessory, which I bought from shopee, to wrap around my hair to add that sparkly touch to it, as if my dress is not that sparkly enough.

More about this on my next blog for the products I used and the process.

Entourage Dress

Super thankful to God for giving me a very talented mamang. Yes, she made all the entourage dress. I only have 3 bridesmaid, who were also my secondary sponsor and my one and only maid of honor.

The flower girls dress were also tailored by my mom.

                                   

and last but definitely not the least...
My Wedding Dress

This is a dream, every girls dream, to wear a beautiful white dress on one of the most special event in their life. This dress is not only special, but it signifies the bonding that we had in the process of making this dress. My sister design this for me, she also created the shoulder part, the beads were hand sewn and glued to create this output. My mom and aunt patiently beaded the flowers on the dress, they created the "ulan ulan" as we call it, where the beads were sewn one by one.

I am also thankful to my aunt and uncle to let me house this dress for 6 months on their home, since our condo is not big enough for us to create this.

We each had our own part in the beading, we were also having fun while listening to the radio and listening to each other stories. Uncle felipe, Aunty babes and Mamang took turn in making meriendas for us. 

Looking at it now, takes me back to the times we shared together and the laughters we shared in the process.

We really saved a lot. thanks to my Sister's creative mind and my Mom's creative hands. They made it work and we created a beautiful perfect dress on my wedding day, also with the help of my cousin and auntie during our beading bonding.

DYing your own wedding is not easy, it takes a lot of patience, creativity, research (google and pinterest will be your bestfriend) and help from your family (get all the help you can get) but it will save you a lot, I mean a lot of money. All in all this experience helped me realize a lot about myself, this also made a stronger bond between me, my mom, sister, cousin, aunt and uncle (who were also our primary sponsor during our wedding). Just enjoy each moment, enjoy the journey and in the end it will all be worth it.

I can and will help you in anyway I can, just send me a message or comment down below.

Thank you!

<3 Vergie