It’s the beginning of December, and I’ve barely posted anything about our wedding, both here on the blog or social media. I think I just spent so many months working on wedding projects, that when it was over, I felt like I could finally breathe and not work on anything for a while, including the blog.

One of the main things I’ve been wanting to talk about is ALL of the DIY projects we did leading up to our elopement and reception. When we started planning our elopement, we wanted something small. A fun hotel elopement here in Fredericton, and dinner with our families after. We booked the Crowne Plaza for the elopement, and decided to do a fun photoshoot at the hotel and surrounding area.

Last year when we started planning, my Nan mentioned wanting a reception to attend, so we could celebrate with everyone in a bigger way. We decided to book Connell House in Woodstock, NB as a reception space, but still planned on keeping things small.

Sadly, she became sick last Fall and passed away in November. I considered cancelling the reception, but she enjoyed hearing about our plans when we visited her at the hospital. I was able to show her some of the items I was buying, and share some of the things I was working on. We decided to keep planning, as something for us to look forward to. Throughout the wedding planning process, she sent me several signs that she was with us (like when I found the perfect vintage veil on Poshmark, from a seller with her same name.)

All of this to say, our plans for a small elopement snowballed into a hundred DIY projects, months of work, and everything I’m about to show you in this post.

All professional photos in this post are by Ashley Marie Creative Studios

Starting with:

The Invitations

Most of what you’ll see in this post was designed by me on Canva, and printed at home. I bought a new printer specifically for wedding projects, and it worked out great. I bought the Canon Pixma TR7020a, and we love it. I’ve used it for several other projects since the wedding, and would definitely recommend it as a home printer.

I bought 5x7 cardstock on Amazon, and 5x7 envelopes. I did the invitation and details card as double sided to save on cardstock.

The photo below is of our invitation and details card (since it was double sided, I brought 2 for the photo). I also included little RSVP cards. I used a corner cutter to round the corners for a more professional look.

BONUS DIY in the photo - my shoes! I bought the shoes online, but added my own tulle bows. I bought a roll of tulle from Michaels, cut and glued the bows, and added them to the shoes myself.

The photos below are directly from Canva. I designed the invitation using elements from both Canva and Etsy. You’ll notice throughout this post that I tried to keep a very cohesive theme, using a lot of elements in a similar hand-drawn style.

Custom Matchbooks

This was one of the first DIYs I did for the reception. I actually have a TikTok video detailing how I made them HERE.

They were extremely easy to make, and it was a really fun DIY. I think this would be a really fun project to do as a housewarming gift for someone (custom matchbooks for their house), to include with a birthday cake and candles, etc.

I will definitely be making these again.

You can watch the TikTok to find out how, but basically I designed them on Canva, printed them onto cardstock, cut them out using a paper slicer, scored them using a Score-It tool, stapled matches in from matchbooks I bought at the grocery store, then added adhesive striker paper from amazon to the back.

It was a really fun project, and everyone loved them.

Our Welcome Sign

I love how our welcome sign turned out. My only regret is not decorating the clothing rack its hanging on more.

I designed our sign on Canva, and had it printed at Vista Print. We bought this Ikea clothing rack, and Kris put it together and hung up the sign.

It ended up raining the day of our reception, so we didn’t get to do lawn games outside, but I had also made and laminated signs for each lawn game as well.

The swan planter next to the sign was a thrift find, and I planted the flowers the day before the reception.

Our Just Married Sign

The JUST MARRIED sign was a DIY I was really proud of, because every aspect was a true DIY.

I found white fabric at the thrift store, ironed it, and cut it into triangles. Then, I pulled up a font on Canva that I liked, held the fabric triangles up to the computer to trace each letter with pencil, then I painted the letters with green craft paint, and attached them to the white ribbon.

I also made an identical banner for the drink cooler that said “COLD DRINKS.”

Completely unrelated, but I also need to brag about our Marshall speaker in this photo. We bought it specifically for the reception (and to use at home after with our record player), and spent MONTHS curating 3 playlists - one for cocktail hour, one for dinner, and one for dessert. I honestly don’t even think anyone noticed the music, which makes me sad because the playlists were SO good. I should have turned it up a bit louder.

Since it rained that day, everyone was inside the whole time, and I think the voices drowned out the music a bit. Anyway, the speaker is amazing, and we use it at home with our record player now. I just wish people could have enjoyed it more at the reception.

the taco bar!

The taco bar was completely DIY in every way. From the sign I designed on Canva and had printed at Vista Print, to the food itself, we did it all.

I don’t know if our guests realized this, but we did not have a catered reception, we made ALL of the food ourselves. We thought a taco bar would be easy. It was not. We should have just ordered pizza.

Before dinner, we had a cocktail hour with charcuterie, which we also did ourselves. Actually, my mom and two of her staff from work spent two hours before the reception, and most of the time during it to cut up food, get things to the cocktail hour room. During dinner they heated things up, chopped up toppings, carried heavy chafing dishes to the buffet room, and restocked things when they got low.

My dad and Kris ran around getting ice and filling drink coolers. (We also had a bar on site, but provided non-alcoholic drinks in the drink coolers)

Kris and I made the taco beef, chicken and pulled pork. We brought a bunch of different toppings, a ton of sauces, three different kinds of tortillas and taco shells, and taco holders.

It was a lot of work, but everyone seemed to like it, and we were able to send the girls who helped us, home with some food after the reception.

Dinner & Dessert place cards

It’s hard to tell in this photo, but I also designed and printed at home, place cards for EVERYTHING.

We had place cards identifying every item at the buffet, along with these cute ones I made for the dessert table. We also made the cupcakes ourselves, and the girls my mom hired iced and decorated them.

I don’t have a photo of it, but I even made a place card for the taco holders, so people would know what they were. It said “Taco Holders. If you need a little help keeping it all together)

The place cards were designed on Canva, and printed on already scored tented cardstock from Amazon.

Our cake topper

I bought a vintage cake topper while thrifting, and gave it a complete makeover for our reception. I can’t find a photo of it before, but it had pink lace and rosettes all along the heart, and base. I peeled everything off, and glued on my own lace that I bought at Michaels. I also painted the hair of the bride and groom darker, as it was faded from age.

Originally, I had planned on us having a small cutting cake for the reception, but we ran out of time and energy to make it.

We had a gorgous heart shaped cake on our actual elopement day, so that was really all we needed. I still wanted to use this cake topped though, so we displayed it on the dessert table.

Custom Colouring Placemats

I’ve said this a few times, but THIS is probably my favourite project.

On (yes, you guessed it) Canva, I designed custom placemats for the kids at the reception to colour. I created two different versions, and printed them at home on my trusty printer, using legal paper so they would be long, like a placemat.

The first version I created was the “Kid Crew” one that you see below. I found a graphic on Canva that reminded me of each kid, and (after stalking their parent’s social medias), added little graphics for topics they were interested in.

For example, I saw that my cousin’s kids like hockey and lego, so their little characters were playing hockey with lego pieces as the puck. My other cousin’s son just started guitar lessons, so his little character had a guitar. My son loves sports, so his had both a soccer ball, and a tennis racquet.

I also added each child’s name to their little character, and it was SO fun seeing their expressions when they found themselves on it.

The second placemat I created was wedding themed, and curated to us as a family. I included our pets, a little heart shaped cake (like our elopement cake), our names, and little games for the kids to do.

Every child got BOTH placemats, and I also brought extra in case there were any accidental spills at the table. I also provided crayons at each table for the kids to colour with, and they could take the crayons home at the end if they wanted.

Our Seating Chart

Our seating chart had SEVERAL little easter eggs in it (you can tell I’m a Swiftie by the first card on the chart). I don’t think any of our guests even noticed the easter eggs, but they made me happy.

For example, on the little table graphics, I added tacos to the plates, because we had a taco bar. On the second card, I included a heart shaped cake with cherries, just like our elopement cake. The fifth card had candlesticks with bows, identical to the ones we had on our tables, AND it also had little orange slices, because our nickname for each other is “orange slice.”

The final card featured our 3 pets, in their best wedding attire.

The seating chart was really fun to create, and I love how it turned out.

The wavy board that the seating chart is on, was also kind of a DIY. I bought the board at Homesense on clearance for $5. It had several broken clothespins with broken wooden hearts, and there was damage at the top of the board.

Kris painted and installed brand new clothespins, and I made and glued a bow to the top of the board to cover the damage. The wavy lines of the board match the wavy ribbon graphic we used for the cards.

The Place cards

I made the place cards the same way I made the cards for our buffet table - designed on Canva and printed at home. I used THESE folding tent cards from Amazon, and set my printer to the correct size. The back of the place cards had little graphics that matched our invitations, and the corners of the place cards had different little graphics for the men, women, and kids (you can see one of the kid’s ones in the placemat photo.)

The Table Numbers

I made the table numbers on Canva, and printed them at home using the same cardstock and corner cutter as the invitations. I used the same little heart cake with cherries graphic as some of the other projects, but instead of our initials inside, I put the table numbers.

In the photo below, you can also see the little “happily ever after” pencils I bought for the word searches, and our DIY centerpices that we made using thrifted candle holders and vases, satin bows that I made, and costco flowers.

Sip & Search and welcome cards

Since we decided not to have a dance, I wanted to give the guests something to do during cocktail hour and after dinner. I made a sip & search, AND a sip & solve. The sip & search was a word search, and if you flipped it over, there was a crossword puzzle. I custom made the word search using a word search generator site, then pasted it into my design on Canva.

I made the crossword using questions about our life that only some of the guests would know. It was fun seeing the guests asking each other for the answers, or searching our social media accounts to try and find the clues.

I also made welcome cards using standard letter size cardstock, and cutting them into strips using my paper slices. I used my corner cutter to round the corners. Like everything else, they were printed at home on my new printer.

Nan’s Memorial plants, and Pup’s Coca Cola Bar

As another favour, I also gave our guests houseplants, in memory of Nan. You can read the story in the photo below.

I spent the last couple of months leading up to the wedding propagating Zeldas for our guests. My home office was literally a greenhouse during this time, there were Zeldas and Zelda clippings everywhere.

We also had a memorial sign for my grandfather, and I completely forgot to get a photo of it at the reception. Kris built a Coca Cola van, and I created this sign for our pop coolers. Kris also painted the scalopped tray they sat in, and we used a Coca Cola stencil to paint the logo.

Also, YES I am aware I spelled Peterborough wrong. It haunts me.

The Flowers

The flowers for my elopement bouquet, and all of the reception decor, was put together by us, using fresh flowers from Costco and multiple grocery stores.

For my bouquet, I totally winged it, with very little plans of what we were going to do. The day before, Kris and I ran around town finding flowers, which I compiled into something that resembled a bouquet the morning of the elopement (while watching Father of the Bride.) It ended up being huge and extremely heavy, so I added a pearl handle to help carry it. It wasn’t a professional job by any means, but I loved it, and we had a lot of fun running around trying to find flowers.

For the reception, I placed a bulk order for hydrangeas (my favourite flower), and they were delivered the day before we left for our wedding weekend. We went to the store and bought some snapdragons to go with it, and put them all into buckets of water with plant food. They were fairly easy to travel with, and once at the venue, our families helped us create centerpieces using vases we thrifted together.

The hydrangeas came boxed like this photo below. Once you open the box, you need to process them by cutting off the ends, removing any dead blooms, and putting them in water with plant food. They are squished at first, but after being in water overnight, they fluffed up and looked a lot fuller.

The bouquet flowers, which we also kept in buckets with plant food, and water.

That’s pretty much a wrap on our DIY projects. I’m sure I could think of more, but these are the main ones we did. It was a lot of work, but I’d do it all over again.

Let me know if you have any questions!

D

DIY Wedding | A Recap Of Everything We Made For Our June 2025 Elopement & Reception