Our beautiful budget backyard DIY wedding

We got married only five weeks ago, we had plans for an amazing waterside wedding reception following a big city church wedding unfortunately sometimes life gets in the way. Instead we decided to hold our wedding in the backyard of our home. We invited only 35 of our closest family and friends to be there with us, it was a truly beautiful day.
 We only had two months to plan the wedding so we were really had to make sure we knew exactly what we wanted. I started searching up blogs and pintrest for ideas and inspiration and then looked around our house to incorporate our decor and our likes into the whole wedding. Once I had settled on a decorating scheme I liked and had a list of D.I.Y projects I thought I could get done in the time frame I set to work.
 Here are a few photos of the table decorations, I purchased some new items but a lot we already had in our own collection.
 It is a fun idea to go through your own decorator items that surround you every day. Look at your decor and really get a feel for what your true style is. Trust me it is easy to get caught up in all the beautiful images of other peoples weddings and before you know it your wedding look is mirroring theirs, rather than reflecting your own personal style. Before heading out and buying a whole lot of new decorator items just for one day really look around your house and see what you already own that can be incorporated into your wedding day design.

This gorgeous camera was my Nanna's and I have had it for many years

The books I have been collecting for years, the key was the front door key to my very first house.

The alarm clock sits on my lounge side table and the little hope frame I have had for 5 years, it was used at a friends wedding

 A big expense for D.I.Y weddings is the chair and table hire. We dreamed of Tiffany chairs and gorgeous wooden vineyard tables, reality is that these items can set you back at least $1000. By the time you add, dinnerware, table cloths, glassware and serving ware you may as well have a reception centre wedding. Ok I know that you really don't want to have plastic dinnerware and glasses so you need to look a cutting back costs. We found  a hire company that charged us only $1.80 per chair for these lovely plastic chairs and only $10 per table. It cost us under $200 for all our chair and table needs. I bought cheap table cloths from Kmart- $10 and added lace from Ikea ($2.99/m) to the ends of each table cloth to cover the legs of the tables. Added some left over lace to the backs of each chair. People commented on how lovely they looked and that the chairs were really comfortable.

Not a great quality photo I do apologise but you can see the tables and chairs.

When it came to our dinnerware we actually decided to buy it all, we found most of the chain stores stock dinner plates and bread and butter plates in boxes of 10 plain white for around $10, we bought 50 of each. Yes it was a big out lay but to hire you are looking at the same price almost and this way every time we have a party or BBQ we now have plenty of crockery. Ikea has fantastic prices on their glassware, all up for 50 people we spent around $100 for wine glasses, champagne flutes and water glasses. I think in total we spent $300 on all the dinnerware, serving ware, glassware, cutlery, salt and pepper shakers & glass water bottles.

Dinner plates.

I think I will leave it there for today and do my next wedding blog at a later date, I still have plenty of ideas on saving you money for your next party/ wedding ;-)