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DIY wedding projects often get a bad name, whether you’re looking at standard-fare wedding magazines or the indie wedding blogs.  It’s too much work or too much pressure, the story goes.  But there are very real reasons to incorporate at least one or two (or more) DIY projects into a wedding, and those reasons should not be rejected out of hand.

When I was pregnant with Bean, I needed to know if she was a girl or a boy.  I didn’t simply  “want to know,” I needed to know.  Once she was a girl, she had a name.  I could imagine who should would be, what she would look like.  I was able to spend those months not waiting and wondering, but preparing.  When I ended up on bed rest following early active labor  at 28 weeks, my mind was restless and scared.  But I knew my little girl already.  I knew her name.  I talked to her and read to her every day.  I could picture her at age 3, at age 6, at age 12.  I gave myself projects.  I painted storybook characters to decorate her room.  I chose furniture, toys, books, bedding, clothing and supplies.  I was not stuck laying in bed staring at nothing.  I had work to do, and having work to do kept my mind occupied during those many tormenting weeks of waiting and wondering:  was she okay in there?

DIY wedding projects work the same way for me.  Did we need quirky escort cards or place cards?  Did we need crane mobiles?  Did we need any of the projects we took on?  The answer is both no and yes.

No, we did not have to hand craft any particular item for our wedding (or most of it, as we did).  We could have ordered invitations, skipped place cards, bought a standard guest book, and ordered flowers from Costco.  We could have done all of that, or any of it and put a perfectly nice wedding together in a couple of weeks.  For some people, this is what they want.  I get that, I really do.

But that would not have worked for me — or us.  I needed the DIY projects to give me work to do.  I am a worker-bee.  The busier I am, the happier.  When I am idle, my mind goes to dark, sad places.  I feel useless.  Wedding crafts helped me through the waiting period.  I could not do anything about the hard stuff — the money, the adjustments to living together and coparenting (both coparenting with my ex and coparenting with Tony), getting through the difficult times after my divorce and simply waiting out the engagement until the wedding.

I kept my mind focused on creative endeavors and my hands busy, and this helped me reduce anxieties.  Whatever else was troublesome — beit money, job, children, or depression — I had projects to design and implement, and when one project was done, I had another project to design and implement.  I gave myself project parameters, deadlines, budgets and a theme.  And having work to do meant that things were moving forward.  The wedding train was chugging along at a decent clip.  There were milestones that could be checked off and marked done.  Having wedding projects that resulted in tangible goods meant that I could actually see progress being made.  I wasn’t stuck just staring at a spreadsheet; I have actual stuffs piling up in my garage to show me how far we have come.   I have a house full of art that we made, which I have been able to enjoy for these past several months, which means that these weren’t just wedding projects; they are part of our decor and the home we have made together.

Crafts also helped me give my children tangible, creative ways to get involved in the wedding.  It gave them ownership of the wedding.  Our wedding is not just about me and Tony, it’s truly “our wedding.”

When Tony and I met up again, I was a mess.  My marriage of many years had finally limped to its finish line, and I was depressed.  Deeply depressed.  I can’t really explain the depression that sets in when a marriage ends.  It’s something that is simply not understandable unless you’ve been through it.  Even today, I can’t look back and say, “I felt this” or “I felt that.”  For much of it, I was numb; for parts, I was unaware.  There were times when I felt relieved and times when I wished I could rush back in and F-I-X everything that my ex and I (together) had broken.

I often read comments and posts from people who tell me that divorce does not mean your marriage is a failure, but when you are in the thick of separating, it certainly feels like a failure.  I felt like a failure.  And that feeling spilled into everything that I was and everything that I did: ex-wife, mother, girlfriend, friend, employee.  It didn’t matter which hat I was wearing, for several years, I was overwhelmed by it all.  I could not keep appointments straight.  I could barely read (I still have yet to read a novel from start to finish since my divorce, which is a really long time away from books for someone who reads for a living).

When Tony asked me to marry him, I knew I wanted to marry him, but honestly, I was not in the best mental space yet.  I still had more down days than up.  But I said yes because I wasn’t about to say no.  My heart knew the answer was yes, and I decided to work with that.  We set a date that was 18 months out, and we started planning.

Along the way, I came up with wedding-related craft projects.  In part, the projects were meant to keep costs down.  Some of the projects were kid-friendly so that Bean and Bug would have some ownership of the wedding, too.  But, mostly, the projects helped me.  You see, I feel happiest and most productive when I am engaged in a creative project.  Just like I need to write, I need to create.

I’m not particularly good at creative pursuits.  My craft projects bear the unmistakable marks of being “homemade” and not always in a good way.  I need them, nonetheless.