The average wedding now costs about $35,000 a pop, so naturally you might be looking at creative ways to cut costs. Luckily, DIY projects are still a huge trend in weddings and are a great way to save you some major cash and keep you well below max budget. However, just because you can DIY a project doesn?t mean that you should. Don?t go overboard on DIY projects and stay up until 3 a.m. the eve before your wedding to bake your own wedding cake. Keep it simple with these six items to DIY instead of buy, and leave the rest of the wedding up to the experts.

1. Wedding Favors

You could buy some cute personalized wedding favors online, but after the shipping costs and price markups, this is definitely a project that is easy and cheap enough to justify its own DIY.

For a whimsical and bohemian wedding, make up a few batches of jam over the stove and put them in cute little jars with a personalized tag to give to your guests as they leave. Or, for a wedding reception that will be a huge party, pack a cute and kitschy little hangover kit for your guests?complete with ibuprofen, Gatorade, and a power bar (which will come in handy for those who are traveling home the next day). A kid-friendly wedding calls for the old standby of a make-your-own goody bag with candies that are in your wedding?s colors. Stock an area of the reception hall with pretty vases, some scoops, and plastic candy bags with twisty ties so that your guests can have a sweet treat on the way home.

2. Desserts that Accompany the Cake

making a background with ribbons or paper streamers in your wedding colors. Make or buy props at a thrift store for your guests to wear in the photographs as well.

As for the actual camera, you could either have your guests take their own photos on their phones, or you could provide a simple point and shoot camera on a tripod for them to use. Upload all of the photos to social media after the wedding is over or print them out and mail to your guests along with your thank you note.

4. Decorations

have a specific seating arrangement in mind for your guests, creating table numbers and place cards is a cinch. All you need to do is have a word processing program on your computer, a design idea, and some cardstock. If you?d really like to step it up a notch, you can get more creative than paper and use anything from books to small DIY flags to let guests know where they?ll spend the evening celebrating.

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