In the spirit of my 2 years Wedding Reception anniversary, I’m finally sharing with you guys what I DIYed for my reception, and how to do it with minimal stress!
A little background on the reception, it was held 4 months after our solemnization and it was held on me and hubs birthday (we share the same birthday) at my family home. We had planned for 400 guests for a Malay-buffet-come-and-go style since the house did not have room for a sit-down for that many people. And bare in mind, I was studying in the first 8 months of planning and had a part time job in the last 4 months.
I treated it as the biggest birthday party we’d ever have! LOL. The whole theme was a mix of contemporary and traditional. Having done some DIY stuff for my sisters’ weddings, I had had some sense of what to DIY and what to leave to the pros.
Here’s my DIY list for the reception:
- Door gift
- Fresh flower wall for pelamin
- Reupholster kerusi pelamin
- Pergola décor
- Ice pops aka ice cream Malaysia area
- Pie bar setup
What I had rented/hired people to do:
- Tents, tables and chairs (inclusive of scallop, table cloths, and chair covers).
- Pelamin décor (not including the fresh flower wall that I did)
- Catering
- Pies for the pie bar
- AV equipment (including a bubble machine)
- Ice cream Malaysia
I don’t recommend for anyone to DIY EVERYTHING for their wedding day. There really is A LOT to do especially in the 72 hours before the event itself. And remember, you’re the bride too (that means you’re off-limits and should be hands off 3 hours before the event starts). Even if you’ve hired people to do most of it for you, you also have to remember that you still have to manage those people too!
The amount of things you can DIY depends on.. The amount of people that’s in your DIY batallion (family and friends that’s volunteering) and how many of them can be your right-hand peeps. And I can’t stress enough on this, it will only be minimal stress and manageable if you have people that you can really count on especially for the 24-48 hours before the event.
If you’re a DIY bride, my biggest advice is, choose one or two things to work on within the 24-48 hours before the actual event and choose other DIY stuff to do that you can do WAY ahead of time.
For me, my two projects were, the fresh floral wall for my pelamin, and to fill the glass door gifts with kurma and wajik. These two projects took 12 hours and 18 people to do (!!!) and it was only for the final touches on the day before the BIG day. This 2 things were basically the things that had to be done at the very last minute since I was dealing with food and fresh flowers. The only reason why it ever got done was that, everything that could’ve been done before, had been done and everything was ready for final assembly on that day itself.
The days, weeks and months leading to that day..
For the door gifts: The glassware were bought 6-8 months before, we hand made all the ribbons and thank you tags once we decided on what the door gift was going to be. The most time spent was in making 300 handmade ribbons, people say that this part can be such a waste of time for the effort that had to be put in them. But with the time that I had and considering what else was in the ready made market, if there were nicer cheaper things in the market, I would’ve bought it! But since we’re so used to making these (even for my sisters weddings), it seemed like a no-brainer. The ribbons and thank you tags were tied onto all of the glassware 3 months before. So, these doorgifts were ready to be filled up with the kurma and wajik 3 months before!
Fresh flower wall for pelamin backdrop: The structure for the wet foam and actual flowers were made 2 weeks before event. The structure was made out of plywood as was pre-cut by a friend who had a jigsaw. It took me and hubs 2 days to build it (after work). We secured the structure to the wall 5 days before to address any issues (if any), that we had to deal with to make sure that we had time to deal with any structural issues. 2 days before, the flowers got delivered and we pre-soaked the wet foam and individually wrapped them in aluminium foil (4 hours and 3 people to do this). We stacked and secured the foam on the structure that night. 1 day before, the flowers got prepped and the actual construction of the fresh flowers wall began (12 hours and an average of 2 people working on this on a single time). After that, the pelamin people came in and finished the rest of the pelamin for me. I’ll have a dedicated post about this next week.
Reupholster kerusi pelamin: I had bought an reupholstered a second hand chair 3 months before the reception.
Pergola décor: Since my family home has an outdoor eating area via the pergola, to tie it in with the tents, I had ordered white sheer curtains months before. We hung it up 5 days before (3 people and 4 hours) and left it there with minimal issues till the day we had to use it for.
Ice cream Malaysia area: I set this up in half an hour right after I finished the fresh flowers wall. I had already pre-planned the whole setup 4 weeks before, so I knew where everything had to go in that half an hour.
Pie Bar: The table (including table cloth) were supplied by the tent people, I didn’t physically set up the pie bar, but I had pre-planned it with a friend before hand. I had done a mock up with her 4 weeks before and taken pictures, so she knew where everything had to go and she had set this up on the morning of the event (1 person and half an hour).
If you can see a trend, 4 weeks before the actual event, I had done mock ups to make sure that I required minimal ‘figure-it-out’ time when the actual time came to set most of those things out. And that, was how I kept it down to minimal stress! Everything was thought of way ahead of time and in the last 24-48 hours, it all just came down to ‘doing’ and no more decision making!
To me, the physical part of the DIY was perfectly manageable and it turned out even better than I imagined. The stress of the day was in managing everyone else that I hired! And the fact that it was during the time that the water line got cut (we had gotten water back exactly 5 minutes into the event!!).
DIY isn’t for everyone, especially if you’re a perfectionist. My whole mantra for DIY is to have nice things at affordable prices (if time permits). I was okay for things to not turn out ‘exactly’ how I wanted it but I’m pretty lucky that everyone I had leaned on had similar (if not better) aesthetics as me.
So my DIY wedding experience wasn’t a disaster, but it ended up being the highlight of the whole weekend! I didn’t actually have the time to spend with anyone at my actual reception, so the things I end up remembering about my reception is those moments leading up to it. I have amazing family members and friends that were resourceful, helpful, and most importantly, THE best people to be stuck with for hours doing stuff. Haha!