When Jennifer Lopez played wedding planner and created those dreamy nuptial settings that included white silk tents and Waringin trees imported from Bali, way back in her 2001 hit movie, the concept was still at a nascent stage in India. Back then we would only read of industrialists and affluent politicians whose children grew up abroad, hire wedding planners for their child’s big fat Indian wedding. Some years later, when professional expertise became slightly more affordable, hiring a wedding planner to take care of everything from the ensembles and the invites to the decor and the cake, became the new cool. Cut to the present day and you’d find an increasing number of brides taking charge of their D-Day the D-I-Y (Do it Yourself) way, with or without a wedding planner at hand.
The need to have a unique wedding is probably what drives the new age bride to add her personal touch to her big day. The internet has been fuelling the quest for novelty with a barrage of wedding blogs, websites, online stores and apps at one’s disposal! Pinterest, a visual discovery tool that people use to collect and share pictorial ideas for their different projects and interests is a sure stop.
According to Sowmya Shenoy Crasta, co-owner, Purplerings Wedding Planners, “DIY has a simplistic feel to it at weddings. It’s exciting for guests to see the outcome of something so carefully thought out and put together. In fact, they click pictures and take the idea back with them! A lot of creativity and hunting around for relevant materials goes into DIY decor.”
“DIY weddings are not necessarily budget weddings. I had a decent budget at my disposal but I was very particular about the affair being customised so I took the DIY route,” says Charmaine Alexander, a blogger, who had a friend hand-paint her wedding invitations and who ordered her vintage jewellery from an artiste on Etsy, an e-commerce website where one can buy mostly handcrafted items from clothing and jewellery to beauty products and knick knacks.
With the wedding season upon us already, if you’re planning one and are looking for ideas that are trending, Sowmya says: “A few DIY wedding decorations popular this summer are slate boards with wordings written in chalk for a rustic or vintage feel. Mason jars wrapped in lace and entwined with straw at the neck and with a cute little button giving it character, are also pretty. Just add a little tea light candle in there and the glow through the lace is gorgeous. Initials of the couple cut out in wood or acrylic with an ampersand symbol between them goes daintily well on a cake or next to a guestbook. ”
Summer weddings are about happy colours. One of the trends this year is adding food colouring to the water inside your wedding vases for floral centrepieces. Mason jars rolled in glitter are stunning. Floating candles have their fans. Votive candles with the silhouette of the bride’s gown and the groom’s tuxedo make for perfect giveaways. For a garden wedding, birdcage lanterns are an interesting accent.
Divya Chauhan, co-owner of Divya-Vithika Wedding Planners, says: “Some of the DIY trends this season involve creating interesting taglines or captions which are mostly personalised by the couple on the entrance arch, at the bar counters, photo-booths, and on wedding cakes or cupcakes which are passed around. Creating wish trees and advice box for newlyweds at the reception are big this season. ”
If you’re wondering where to source ideas from, apart from Pinterest and Etsy, brides are scouring theknot.com, perfectweddingguide.com, bridesmagazine.co.uk, rusticweddingchic.com, and stylemepretty.com, among a whole lot of other online forums.
While it’s usually the bride who looks into the nitty-gritties of planning the wedding, it sure looks like the DIY trend is here to benefit the men too. With IM services like Whatsapp and Skype, getting an approval from the better half has never been easier!
So if you’re the kind of person who is explicit about minute details and who is keen on making your wedding nothing like anything seen before, we suggest you go D-I-Y!
