DIY & DIT

Nov 2009

On DIY Opression

Did you guys see that Jessica Valenti of Feministing was the subject of 'Questions' in the New York Times Magazine yesterday? She wasssss, and it might or might not be on our fridge now. And we're just going to ignore the stupidity of the title of the article: Fourth-Wave Feminism. But. Anyway. I needed to quote her here, for all of you who are feeling oppressed by the DIY aspect of non-mainstream weddings, and lets face it, *any* kind of wife-dom:

I'm not a D.I.Y. feminist. I once tried knitting a scarf but threw it away after 15 minutes.

Right? So stop making yourself feel bad about all the DIY you're not doing, and have a cocktail while you read the interview, and make yourself wiser. Done.

Posted in: DIY & DIT, Gender & Feminism | 14 Comments »

Oct 2009

How To Do Your Own Wedding Flowers

First of all, let me be clear. As far as I'm concerned there are two ways to do your own wedding flowers. The first option is to do your own bouquets, and skip the rest. The second is to do your own bouquets and all your own arrangements. These are two totally different projects. While flower arranging is never scary, bouquets are a pretty easy project. Heck, you can pick up the flowers at Trader Joe's and be done with it. If you're taking this option, please don't listen to all the, "You can't, you can't, bouquets are HARD you'll be too STRESSED" nonsense. They are not hard and you will not be stressed.

If, like me, you are taking on the whole kit-and-caboodle, that is another thing all together. Not a scary thing, but a big thing. For our wedding we made 5 bouquets, 50ish small centerpieces, 6 bigger square centerpieces, 6 tall centerpieces, and an ENORMOUS arrangement in a bucket. So if you're counting at home, we did about 70 pieces. And it was fine. In fact, most of the time it was pretty fun. But if you are taking this on, it should be one of your *few* big wedding projects. There are some who are stronger than me who can do their own flowers and self cater at the same time without breaking a sweat, but I wouldn't recommend that to us mere mortals.

Continue reading How To Do Your Own Wedding Flowers

Posted in: DIY & DIT, How To | 53 Comments »

Sep 2009

How To DJ Your Wedding With An Ipod

From day one we knew we were going to DJ our own wedding, mostly because we *could.* As far as we were concerned, ipod's were a small gift from the wedding gods. Halfway through the planning process though, I started to get nervous about our ipod DJ plan. You see, David and I like to dance, or more precisely we like to daaaaaaaaaaaaannnncccceeee. If you're playing dancing music, you will not be able to get me off the dance floor. The hora? Hip-hop? The electric slide? I'm there. Heck, I'll do country line dances, and I'll lead a dance floor full of people in a funky Macarana if I'm forced into it. So I started to get very concerned, because people said, without a DJ there is no flow, without a DJ there is no energy, without a DJ people will take over your play list, without a DJ you have to work at your own wedding.

In sum: without a DJ, no one will dance. And I believe the technical term for that story is Bullsh*t. Continue reading How To DJ Your Wedding With An Ipod

Posted in: DIY & DIT, How To | 86 Comments »

Sep 2009

DIY, or DIT, Week

This week I wanted to talk a bit of some of the projects we took on for our wedding - in particular doing our own flowers and DJing our wedding with an ipod playlist. David said I should also talk about our wine, but I can tell you how to DIY your wine in two seconds: figure out some good affordable wine that you like, figure out about how much you think people will drink, buy wine. And NO, I don't know what kind of wine you like, so don't even ask. So *that's* covered.

But before we talk about DIY, or my favorite made-up acronym DIT (do-it-together), I wanted to parse what we mean when we say DIY. Over the lifetime of this blog, I've gotten a lot of emails saying something along the lines of, "Oh my god! You're wedding is so DIY! I could never do that..." which always left me with a bit of a feeling of, "Whhhhaaaaa???" Because here is the thing: I've never considered myself to be terrifically DIY. I have something of a creative personality, but I'm not crafty. To me a DIY wedding conjures up images of hand made bunting flags, handmade glassine envelopes with homemade confetti, and handmade stickers to affix on handmade favors. And for better or worse, our wedding had none of those things.
Continue reading DIY, or DIT, Week

Posted in: DIY & DIT | 27 Comments »

Nov 2008

Why I DIY

This was Project Wedding Weekend. We shopped for wedding dress fabric, we put together our Save The Dates, we finished our wedding website. At one point, late on Saturday night, I looked around the living room and there were scraps of silk, stamps, card stock, and inspiration pictures all around us. It was such a happy feeling. It was my first moment of wedding planning where I thought - ah, this is what I've always dreamed of.

Some moments from the weekend:

I had lots of time as I sat hand addressing Save The Dates to think about our discussion about WIC vs DIY. Why do I DIY (or 'make stuff" as I call it in my head)? I realized sitting there that I make stuff because I want it to be mine, to be ours. I want something that's not a product someone marketing to us, but something we thought through and put together with our own hands. It was particularly nice to feel like we were sending something we'd thoughtfully created out to guests. It felt like sending them a little bit of us.
Each time I walked into a fabric store someone would ask me "What project are you working on?" and I would flinch. I'm used to trying not to tell people that we're getting married in stores, because I hate that moment when it seems like dollar signs flash across their eyes. So, I sighed and said guardedly "we're shopping for fabric for my wedding dress." Each time there was a pause, and then shear un-guarded delight beamed from their face. "That's so wonderful!" they'd squeal, "Thats so exciting!" That reaction was reason enough to DIY. And if you ever go to Britex, look for Douglas on the silk and lace floor. He's my guy now. He told me, "When you find a fabric that speaks to you, that's your fabric. Just no point in looking after that." And he was right.

Continue reading Why I DIY

Posted in: DIY & DIT, Life, Meg's Thoughts, Planning, Weddings | 27 Comments »

Nov 2008

DIY versus the WIC

A commenter wrote this on my recent post on economic uncertainty:

I definitely have made sure not to buy into the WIC, but at the same time I don't think I can do the DIY route either. My new career is more travel intensive (and 8 weeks before our wedding it will be at its most intense period). I don't craft. I'm not a designer (I can barely sketch!) and I don't have friends or family who are designers or seamstresses. While I really like this post, I feel like the opposite of the WIC is the DIY movement. I guess I don't really feel part of either.
Continue reading DIY versus the WIC

Posted in: Budget, DIY & DIT, Manifestos, Meg's Thoughts, Weddings | 34 Comments »

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