Planning a DIY Lakeside Wedding | Pt. 1
Congratulations! You’ve found the love of your life and have decided to commit yourselves to one another publicly! This is an incredibly exciting time, and you want to make the ceremony as welcoming, warm, and full of love as you two are. But you don’t have the budget to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the event, so you’ve decided to Do It Yourself and have a DIY lakeside wedding. Don’t get overwhelmed–we’re here to help!
Planning Your Ideal DIY Lakeside Wedding
You’ve found the perfect lakeside wedding venue for your homey rustic wedding vibes! But… now what? There’s the dresses, the tuxes, wedding invitations, the food, the decor, the altar space, flowers––oy, it all just gets to be too much! Never fear, my darling, we’re here to help! A DIY lakeside wedding is what you want, and a DIY lakeside wedding is what you shall have!
Details of the decorations for the chuppah at the Schwab-Sams wedding.
Before You Start Planning Your DIY Wedding
Now, before we start the actual DIY side of things, we need to plan. Of course we need to decide what we will DIY and what we won’t, but we still have things to consider before even getting there. Especially for a lakeside ceremony. I want to start with the most important: your mindset. Then we’ll talk about support, organization, the theme/vibe of your ceremony, cultures and traditions, and last, the size of your wedding party.
The DIY Mindset
You’re willingly taking on a great load — wonderful! I did it for my wedding, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But your desire to be hands-on in the design and execution doesn’t automatically erase the complications, the redos, and the sheer amount of things you have to do. Thus, your mindset is so important. Acknowledge the stress you’re willingly accepting, and allow yourself a moment to step back and breathe when you need to. Consider incorporating mindfulness into your day-to-day, or schedule self care appointments now and then. Your wedding is a wonderful, important day––you want the planning to go smoothly, and trust me when I say everything will be better if you allow yourself space to think and exist without the pressure of it all, even if it’s just for a day.
The lakeside, early morning before the Schwab-Sams wedding.
Wedding Support System
On top of your own mindset, make sure you have a support system! Maybe you’re not hiring a wedding planner (in fact, if it’s a DIY wedding, I’m assuming you’re not), but you have a mother, a sister, grandmothers, cousins, aunts, and friends to support you. They can give opinions, and if the need arises, they can take over certain aspects once things are how you want them! A DIY wedding is a lot more in line with traditional communities, where everyone connected to the couple pitches in. Lean into the love!
Sometimes, support systems are literal! Like with Elijah and his groomsmen.
Getting Organized
Do your best to stay organized; it’ll ease your mind and your calendar! Make as many lists, mood boards, Pinterest boards, and sketches as you need to list all your ideas. Find a notebook you like with a good amount of pages and keep everything in there; from the guest list with addresses and phone numbers, to sticky notes of what cakes you do and don’t like, to doodles of the altar, color swatches, and so on!
A collage of henna concepts I showed to my artist.
A Wedding Theme is Key
Theme plays in to everything at a wedding. Not only is it important for dresses and suits, so all your bridesmaids and/or groomsmen are coordinated, as is the gown and tux for the actual couple, Decor, flowers, and signage at both the ceremony space and the reception space need to all feel cohesive. Whatever your style is––modern, rustic, cultural, a mix, or something entirely new––the first thing to do is decide on what the theme is.
One way to do this is by finding descriptive keywords. These could be things like “Boho,” “Rustic,” “Nordic,” or anything that fits your imagined aesthetic. For my wedding, the keywords I chose were “Jewish,” “Natural,” and “Cottagecore.” Find a few that you think you might like, and hop over to our bestie, Pinterest. Make a board full of anything and everything you might want that encompasses your theme. Then, once that stews together for a while, go through and narrow it down to a cohesive theme. It doesn’t have to ALL be boho, or ALL be cottagecore so long as the elements you choose work together. Find a color palette from the chosen aesthetics and images and bam! There’s your theme. Step one, done!
An example of my Wedding Aesthetics board.
Tradition….Tradition!
Next, we need to address if there are any specific religious or cultural affiliations with your ceremony. Different religions and cultures have different traditions, and a wedding is always full of some of the most beautiful and meaningful ones. Aside from deciding if you’ll have a Rabbi or a Priest officiate, make sure that you and your partner discuss what elements of your religions/cultures you’d like to involve, especially if you come from different backgrounds! This wedding should equally represent both of you.
Make a list of traditions you know of, then go through it together and discuss which traditions you want to keep, which traditions you want to simplify, and which traditions you don’t need. Some may be a part of the ceremony (like lighting a unity candle in some American Christian traditions), and some may be outside the ceremony (like henna for the bride in Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian cultures).
Decide the traditions you want to include, and then mark the ones that require specific elements. Then––here’s your first bit of DIY––see what elements you can make or provide yourself. Maybe you can weave your own handfasting cord from fabric scraps, or you know your mother has the haldi under control. Maybe the cups you drink from are currently housed in your grandmother’s 400 year old hutch, and maybe the candle you light is the beautiful multi-colored wax pillar your aunt gifted you for Christmas last year.
Traditions are how people bring meaning and divinity down to earth and into the present; they’re meant to be accessible! Keep in mind that traditions hold deep cultural and religious significance! Be sure that your traditions represent you, not just a culture you think is cool. A wedding is no place for cultural appropriation.
The table beside a Chuppah holding ritual elements–two cups of wine, and a breakable glass in a velvet case.
Size Matters
The last thing to check before we move into actual DIY territory is the wedding party. Why, you ask? It’s very simple: the amount of people you have standing up there with you and your beloved may influence what you choose to DIY. You may be a seamstress, but do you really think you’ll be able to make dresses from scratch for all your eight bridesmaids? With all the other things you have going on? That may be something you choose to go the more common route on, with buying from Azazie or David’s.
Maybe you have too many girls to arrange all their bouquets yourself, or maybe you can make it a group DIY and arrange each of your own in a flower party a night or three before! It’s all open for DIY, but size of the group does affect what is feasible.
Olivia’s bridesmaids and their bouquets.
Deciding What to DIY
The easiest way to decide what to DIY is to first decide what you absolutely, under no circumstances, will not be doing yourself. You don’t want to make your cake or all the food? Great! Decide if you have family who would take up that role, or if you should cater.
Once you have a list of things you recoil at the thought of having to do yourself, it’s a lot easier to see what you want to do. Make a list of things you’ll delegate––either by hiring out or having family do them––and a list of things you will not delegate. Keep in mind, though, the list of things you “won’t delegate” doesn’t mean you can’t delegate them later! This is just the first pass.
Remember: Just because you aren’t getting your hands dirty on a specific project doesn’t mean it’s not DIY.
After you have those lists, go through them with your partner and decide what you each want the most say on. My husband wanted a specific cake, where I could have cared less, so that was his realm. I wanted specific flowers because I’m incredibly into flower meanings and he just wanted ones that matched our colors, so I took care of the arrangements.
Once you know what you and your partner care about the most in the planning and design process, then you can move forward into the next part: Seeing if you or any willing family/friends have skills that could be useful in those fields. Figure out where your strengths lie and assign tasks.
Maybe your cousin is a baker and could make your cake perfect! Maybe your partner has a background in design and wants to organize and decorate the ceremony space! Or perhaps your future-spouse has a parent really skilled in carpentry or building, and you have a perfect image in your head of how you want your chuppah to look. Reach out and see if that’s doable!
The initial sketch I did of what I wanted the Chuppah to look like.
At the End of the Day…
This may seem all very overwhelming, but remember that you’re ensuring your artistic vision and control over your own day. And when it all comes down to it, remember that you aren’t alone. With the right mindset, a proper support system, the perfect theme with the perfect mesh of traditions, and those you love the most standing with you, it will be perfect. Mishaps may happen, and that’s life, but it’s perfect because it’s all yours. And at the end of the day, having a perfect, spotless, lakeside wedding isn’t as important as the love and care you will bring into it by Doing It Yourself.
