Everything We DIY’ed for our Modern Beach Wedding

I’m imaging both of us in the above photo thinking ‘What? All the wedding DIYs are finally up??”. Yes indeed party people. This is everything we DIY’ed for our modern beach wedding. Because a lot of our DIYs were done the week of, we don’t have process pics and more than a handful didn’t have any true step-by-step process. So I’m throwing them all into one, big, master roundup. Hope you enjoy these as much as I did making them!

Starting off with the first DIY any guest would have seen, the invitations! I designed the invites with a subtly embossed frond border at the bottom and had them printed through Minted. Looking back, I wished we paid extra to have the fronds filled in with light gray ink to make them pop more for photos, but in person, they are just so delicately pretty. #notsponsored but can I just say the Minted team was nothing but a delight to work with. I’m completely in love with their packaging, attention to detail, and customer service.

Ah yes, the Artifact Uprising guestbook. If you’ve ever searched for anything wedding related on Pinterest I’m sure you’ve seen ads. I won’t go into a full review, but essentially we went with this option because we could customize the cover to match our typography and they had a flat lay option. Color-wise, we found that the prints for our Save the Dates and the guestbook had a slight pink/red tint.

Pens for signing guestbooks! I researched for hours to find pen options that had archival ink so that years down the line we could still read everyone’s messages without them running, fading, or ruining the images. The two best options are the Slick Writer and Sakura Identi Pen. Order one of each to see which one you prefer.

Exciting stuff, I know, but if it helps another DIY bride out there I’m here for it. Our venue needed meal choices on each person’s place card, so using the same fonts from our wedding invites & signage, I just printed them on a wedding tent card sheet. The wedding ones have embossed borders (which you can’t really tell from the photo) and you can grab them from the wedding section at the craft store and download the corresponding print template.

Pro Tip: When printing, make sure to check ‘print actual size’ in the print dialog box! A lot of the low reviews stated problems with getting the prints to center in the cards. You’ll need to select ‘print actual size’ to override any smart sizing your printer will try to do.

Also on the tables were these modern table numbers! Full DIY here. I love these so much and now use them as little decor pieces/bookends in the living room.

Can someone please explain why bridesmaid robes are so dang short? My crew ranges from 5’2 to 5’9, so those ‘one-size’ fits all booty shorts or robes were not going to cut it. And I couldn’t find a modern print, so I landed on these.

I hunted forever to find a soft button down option before finding these beauties. I bought an XL button down t-shirt dress from Forever 21 for each girl and had them embroidered with their names. All in all, they each got a custom, practical robe that cost ~$35 each. Maybe my biggest shopping win! (It doesn’t look like they list it anymore online, but I have seen several F21’s carry them in-store.)

And a close up of the embroidery. These robes are now our go-to lounge wear. And sometimes running around, getting groceries-wear ;).

Vow books were another thing I was not thrilled with. The closest I could find were these from BHLDN but when I saw them in person they were little more than a few pages stapled together for $ 28. Not impressed.

So I went to my favorite sketchbook company, Baron Fig, and ordered two of their Confidant notebooks in pocket sized, light grey and applied custom vinyl to the covers. Baron Fig notebooks have archival paper, which again, so important to us so we could actually treat our vows like treasured pieces. (sidenote, finding archival quality notebooks is shockingly difficult, not even the fan favorite Moleskin is!) The vinyl sticks decently well to the textured cover and they won’t have be in a high use scenario.

You guys already knew this was coming, but here they are again! The DIY wood and vinyl signs. I was inspired by almost makes perfect’s wedding signs but couldn’t dedicate time to hand painting. And we had access to a vinyl cutter so….

Another wood and vinyl sign was a small directions board for our photobooth. We had a mix of these clear and pink acrylic frames from Urban Outfitters organized on a table with 2 Polaroid cameras with a backdrop nearby. Guests could take the frames as their thank you gift and have fun with the cameras! A big shoutout to the groomsmen who spent the morning of lining up a 100 tiny frames.

Speaking of the backdrop…. Tada! I bought a 9’x12′ canvas drop cloth, sketched out a design with sewing chalk, and then roped my mom into 2 hours of painting. Hanging the canvas was less intensive than building and transporting a whole frame. And the white fronds popped so well in the Polaroid pics! This one was the guest favorite.

I hope this post inspires or helps any other DIY brides out there! Did you do any DIYs for your wedding? Would you do it again or change anything?