DIY Budget Planning

Planning Tips

DIY Budget Planning

Addie Harrington and Mike Daley kept details creative, personalized and, ultimately, inexpensive for their August 22, 2009, wedding at Addie’s mother’s home on Bainbridge Island. Friends and family helped set the table by loaning out several sets of antique silver and scouring Goodwill for English and French gold-rimmed china and 1950s champagne flutes, the latter of which were adorned with Addie’s homemade Shrinky-Dink wineglass charms that doubled as take-home favors. Addie’s sister secretly crafted an old-fashioned wedding quilt, to which about 25 family members contributed hand-sewn squares, and friends gifted 10 cases of special-label Jones Soda. Addie estimates the event, including food, a tent and other rentals (“but not my dress!”), cost less than $10,000. “Doing it ourselves started out as a way to pinch pennies,” she says, “and became a labor of love for everyone.”