is DIYing more cost effective?
Question Asked: 20/11/2025
Wedding Date: 9/08/2018
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Answered by: 2 Experts
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It can be more cost-effective to DIY, but there’s a lot more to consider than just the price of décor or furniture.
The real costs often sit in the labour — the preparation, delivery, set-up, pack-down, and clean-up. The logistics involved can be huge, especially for larger weddings.
If you’re able to source a package through a professional team, it can actually end up being more cost-effective because you’re paying for experience, efficiency, and manpower. Organising your own team of helpers can be tricky — I’ve seen many weddings where family and friends promised to assist, only for the set-up to fall behind schedule. More than once I’ve had to call in emergency staff to get everything completed in time simply because there weren’t enough hands on deck.
So yes, DIY can work — but whether it truly saves money depends on the size of your wedding, the complexity of what you want, and whether you realistically have the labour and support to make it happen smoothly.
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DIY isn’t always better or more cost-effective.
When it comes to styling, what you’re really paying for is the labour, the quality of materials, the expertise, and the peace of mind that everything will be executed beautifully and on time. With DIY, people often underestimate how much work goes into planning, sourcing, transporting, assembling, and packing down. The stress, the storage, the back-and-forth logistics, and the cost of buying materials usually end up outweighing what it would have cost to have a professional take care of it from the start. Not to mention, professionals already have the tools, the stock, and the industry knowledge to get it right the first time.
With DIY venues, the same idea applies. Yes, they may be cheaper upfront, but they come as a completely blank canvas. That means you’ll need to bring in absolutely everything: toilets, kitchens or food trucks, furniture, marquees, drinks, bar staff, lighting, sound, and sometimes even a generator or additional power. All these individual hires add up quickly, and coordinating multiple suppliers can create its own level of stress. By the time everything is organised, it almost always equals or sometimes even exceeds the cost of booking a fully serviced, fully equipped venue that already has these essentials in place.
DIY can be great for small projects or personal touches, but for full event styling and venue logistics, investing in professionals often saves time, money, and a whole lot of stress.