How I personalized my wedding with D.I.Y

Since I was a kid, I have been a big time fan of all things D.I.Y (do it yourself), long before I knew what it meant. As a small girl, I liked to make my own toys and dolls, make their houses, their clothes, cover my books by myself when schools started, braid my hair by myself and the list goes on and on..... So when it came to getting married, I wanted to make it as much D.I.Y as possible. I feel it makes everything so special and gives a personalized touch to the whole wedding.

Right from planning the whole wedding, to the selection of all the vendors, venue, photographer, makeup artist, dresses for me and my whole family, designing my looks for all the functions, I was as involved as I could and tried to make everything seem personalized for us.

Throughout the whole wedding, there were a lot of small things that i made myself, although it didn't take a lot of time and effort, but ended up giving the wedding a special  "this is so ME" feel, if you know what I mean ;).

This is our engagement ring tray, it photographed so beautifully and made for some pretty candid pictures.

These are the saree gift packs that were given to all the ladies from my inlaws side. I wanted to do something unusual and eye catchy.

 This is the special gift box, I made for my groom :), looks much prettier in real.

There is this tradition in Maharashtrian weddings, where after the rituals are done with, the boy's family is seated for lunch and their plates are decorated with rangoli, so I'd made this peacock wooden rangoli, which
unfortunately could not be used at that time due to some eleventh hour goof ups :( .

Then there is this nariyal (coconut), that is given to the groom at the time of Baraat, before he sits on the ghori. So we got this handmade Ganesha made out of a nariyal from Bangalore. Although its not made by me, I find it magnificent.

Now the last one and my favorite D.I.Y part was this e-wedding invite, as I invited most of my friends over facebook, whatsapp and email, this card was so easy to post. My friends absolutely loved the idea and on top of that, its so easy to make... i made it on my phone :P

There's so much more I wanted to add to this post, maybe i'll write a second part to it. Right now I am in the middle of designing my wedding album, also FYI I did my own makeup for the reception.... more on these in coming posts..... keep following and do leave your comments!!!!