We believe the best events have intentional, custom elements. We love seeing our couples take traditional wedding designs and infuse them with decor specific to them, their interests, or even their theme. To make this type of look happen, it requires either vendors who are willing to create custom items or for you to create them yourself.

DIY is something a lot of people consider when they have a very specific vision for custom decor and may even want to be budget conscious, but everything in the wedding world always comes with a cost — if it isn’t money, it’s time and labor.

Choosing to design and provide decor elements of your wedding yourself involves some extra logistics, and it can only work if you have a strong support system and/or a lot of time available to you, plus a planning team to help pull your vision all together!

With Bella and Cole using her family owned golf course as a venue, they were able to create a design unique to them. Plus they could bring and store decor early on site with no setup or cleanup time restraints (just a full room dedicated to all wedding items!!). 

VENDOR TEAM:

Ceremony: Cerro Gordo Baptist Church
Reception: Venue: Land-O-Lakes Golf Course
Caterer/Bar: Middle of the Island
Rentals: Party Suppliers 
Rentals & Tent: L&L
Lighting: High Performance
Florals: I Do Florals by Amanda and Michelle
Bride Hair: Ambiance Salon
Bride Makeup: Tara Moss
Wedding Party Hair and Makeup: Lash & Mane Salon
Cocktail Hour Music: Tyreck Hearon
Reception Music: Active DJ
Videographer: Caroline Elizabeth Films
Photographer: Ashley Clark Photography 
Content Creator: Maid of Social
Bathrooms: Royal Restrooms
Transportation: VIP Limo

While she and her family worked in advance to get everything together, they brought on Roxanne and the BRE team for partial planning to help with bringing the design together with outside rentals and logistics to make it all happen on the day-of. 

The BRE team is here to help make your day a reality, but always keep in mind a wedding is a production with multiple teams focused on their specific roles and responsibilities. 

A lot of personal items being used means a lot of moving parts, a lot of communication, and a solid amount of team work that typically your rental vendors would be handling. If you’re not renting, then you (or your support system) will have to step into the vendor role!

Let’s talk about how we helped Bella and Cole D.I.Y. without wanting to D.I.E.

The Decor (a.k.a The Fine Details)

Golf is a huge part of Bella and her family’s history, so they decided to really lean into the golf theme. From the seating chart and table settings, to the cake and bar signage, everything was pink, green, and “golf” — whether that be the flags, the clubs, or the sayings (“Fore”-ever). So cute!

When you are crafting and curating a ton of custom elements, things can quickly get chaotic organizationally. Since you are relying on your event team to set up and stage your vision, there will be extra organization required. 

Reminder: A lot of the cost of rentals and decor comes less from the actual item itself and more from the storage, transportation, setup, and breakdown! 

For instance, we typically work off an invoiced inventory sheet for rentals and decor and direct the delivery team where to set up. For anything you are providing yourself, we will need a list of what we’re supposed to have, where it’s stored, and where it’s supposed to go. This way we can check behind you and notice if anything is missing – and we can also make sure things are returned at the end of the night. 

When it comes to the storage and prep, there is no limit to how organized you can be. The more details and direction you give, the easier it will be to match your exact expectations. We’re talking boxes with lists of what’s inside, even including photos or drawings of what it’s supposed to look like all assembled.

We love the idea of creating your own design elements to have a very custom look (we do this a lot for our own parties!), but like we said before…any money saved will be spent on time providing the labor and responsibilities of the vendor that would have done that for you. 

It’s important to discuss with us beforehand what the needs of certain design elements are so we can decide if our team can handle it or if you will need to provide extra support. 

For example, it’s within our role to arrange placecards on seating charts but not to transport the seating chart to its actual location (typically the rental vendor does this).

Assigning roles and responsibilities and working through these logistics is all part of our pre-wedding prep with you!

(We know that logistics isn’t fun or glamorous, but it’s necessary to enjoy all of the hard work that goes into designing the finer details.)

It is so important to enlist the help of reliable people you trust, and in order to make sure that everything runs smoothly on the day-of, we collect all the names and numbers of anyone whose help you’ve enlisted. That way we know everything is accounted for and we know the people who will be expecting the call — like we said, we help you compile this list in the pre-wedding prep. 

DIY’ing multiple elements of an event takes a village, and it can be more work than you expected, but when all those custom elements come together, your event feels like a world of its own — completely custom and totally unique.  

But as always, before you get into the planning, make sure you’re honest with yourself about your bandwidth and the bandwidth of your support system. 

We all know how it feels to have big ideas and not have the manpower to get it there — and that’s the last thing you should be worrying about on your wedding day. 

BRE is here at any time to help pick up the slack (and there’s no one who loves custom more than us). 

Wanna make your day iconic? Schedule a call with us here!!!