"Creativity is making marvelous out of the discarded!"
Weddings are super expensive! Hence one of the best ways to decorate an intimate wedding setting is upcycling, which enables you to save money and create customized and personalized décor for your wedding day. Upcycling wedding items are not only eco-friendly as they give life to old things in a great way by making them reusable, but they also let you create wonders and transform your reception setting on a budget by making it feel more personalized. Making your wedding feel more like you, upcycling wedding décor can include a wide variety of items like tin cans, glass jars, wine bottles, frappuccino bottles, and coffee cans, which you generally toss into the trash bins without a second thought.
From packing your wedding day essentials to planning your grand wedding exit, your bridal checklist might have a lot of items to take care of. If 2020 taught us something, it is how sustainability is the need of the hour and should become more prevalent in our lives. According to The Green Bride Guide, the average wedding produces around 400lbs of garbage and about 63 tons of carbon emissions. One of the most trending wedding trends among eco-friendly couple communities across the globe, upcycled wedding décor is a great way to ensure that your wedding’s ecological footprint stays at a reasonable size. Whether you are a couple on a budget or you are just looking to get creative, upcycling everyday items can make a whole lot of difference in your wedding reception and is bound to make it more romantic, personal, and fun for everybody attending the big day.
Upscale wedding papers
As part of your eco-friendly wedding planning, going paperless would be a great start as escort cards, wedding signs, party favors, save-the-dates, and wedding invites involve a lot of paper which goes to your wedding's carbon footprint. You can forego the traditional paper invites and wedding cards and wish to go paperless or choose paper products from recycled materials for seed papers. Since most of the party favor items end up in the trash bin anyway, and hence, if you haven't really planned anything you can also skip this tradition altogether. Alternatively, you can send your guests away with little potted plants and encourage everyone to go green from your wedding. You can also turn newspapers into origami, after painting them in vibrant colors and hang them around in the venue to add a flair of color burst for your day reception if you love funky wedding details.
Upscale wedding flowers
Wedding floral arrangements are the real superheroes as they can make or break the deal of your wedding reception décor. Floral arrangements for wedding parties and table settings also sadly have a large ecological footprint as the wedding flowers and greens end up in the trash mostly. Most flowers are flown in from exotic locales, so they burn up plenty of oil in their path to the florist’s shop. To upcycle your wedding flowers, you can go for a native of seasonal flower from your florist vendor for avoiding the footprint or you can also plan to preserve and reuse them after your wedding as wedding favors for your guests. Pressed flowers or dried flowers which are framed can also be used as ceremony table décor or as centerpieces for reception tables. You can also choose to buy second-hand wedding flowers from thrift stores to encourage the recycling of wedding flowers.
Upscaling jars and bottles into vases
There are so many upcycled bits and bobs you can put together for your wedding décor. You can transform old glass bottles and jam jars into vintage vases that can be used as reception table centerpieces. Instead of throwing away old jam jars, tin cans, and glass bottles you can use paints, stencils, and markers to turn these old containers into a new piece of art. Giving this trash new lives is cheap and easy and can be decorated with colorful ribbons, laces, or strings that you have lying around for a complete vintage makeover. Upcycling old wine bottles into table numbers or painting them in striking jewel tones for wedding reception décor can elevate your entire wedding look into a delightful country-style soiree. You can also tuck in a bunch of dainty flowers and hang them as pretty aisle decorations or even use them to display bunches of flowers on your big day to bring in striking colorful details to the entire wedding aesthetic. Again, just like glass bottles, tin cans generally end up in the trashcan once the contents inside are used up. Distressed tin can centerpieces can also act as timeless and beautiful piece of art as they can reverberate vintage and rustic in every way. Collect cans with pretty vintage labels and reuse them as vessels for your centerpieces! Find them in flea markets, garage sales, or even grandma's attic. This DIY wedding décor idea uses old tin cans as reception table centerpieces as they make an eye-catching receptacle for a collection of hand-gathered wildflowers, that can turn each guest’s table into a truly unique affair. It can also be your special 'something old' for the wedding. To match with your garden-themed wedding you can also give away live plants and baby food jars and brightly painted tin cans as vintage-inspired wedding favors.
Vinyl records as upcycled wedding décor
A perfect testament to your love for good music, you can use old and vinyl records by upcycling them as cute table number ideas for your wedding reception. If you do not have any old records at your disposal, you can head to a local thrift store and pick them up at very cheap and throwaway prices without stealing away from the vintage aesthetic of your wedding.
Reusing crockeries and crates
Recycled wood and “house parts” are hugely popular for a rustic wedding theme. Recycling vintage trophies, antique teacups, jute baskets, and wooden crates along with mismatched crockeries, terracotta pots, and broken plates can find their right place in your eco-friendly wedding planning. Rummage through your old garage, basement, and attic for anything broken and unused such as a rusted wheelbarrow or an overused and abused wooden ladder, and whitewash or varnish them to produce gorgeous statement pieces for your reception décor. You can also take things from your mom's wedding cake details and use them as heirloom toppers for your wedding cake. Wooden planks can easily be shaped into heart-shaped welcome signs and similarly old window frames can display your reception menu written on its glass pane. Louvered shutters can hold your table seating plan or escort cards, or a photo board can be created with some of your fondest photographs from life by stringing them up on a board and making a makeshift photo stand to put it out on display.
Upscale with gold details
There is nothing in this world that will not turn into magic with a little touch of gold! Gold wedding details have been a long tradition among many styles of weddings and even ordinary elements look expensive and chic with the Midas touch. Even ordinary glass jars can become sophisticated candle holders when dipped with a little gold glitter and old and discarded plastic toy animals can be painted in gold to use as cardholders or cake toppers. You can also color block old wine glasses with gold and spiff up with gold-dipped stems and bases. Golden paint or spray has the capacity to bring new life to old items and you can use this color to create several things from ornately carved frames and simple picture frames gilded with golden spray-paint to golden painted tin cans posing as reception table centerpieces and dry flowers dipped in sparkling gold details.
Upscaling old books
For a bride with a conscience to make a difference with her wedding planning, the key lies in seeing the potential in discarded or overlooked pieces, and knowing what touches to add to turn them into wedding decorations. You can transform ordinary household, kitchen, or garden items into amazingly charming and clever decorations for your ceremony and reception. Now, it's obvious that all book lovers have a few old books lying around from their childhood days that they aren't going to read again. If you have old books stacked away in the basement or attic, convert them into a beautiful and sophisticated reception table décor by wrapping them in soft laces and ornate pearls that will cascade down the table for a completely vintage wedding look as using old books for reception décor is not only a fascinating take but sophisticated and unique as well.
Dixie cup garland
Who would have thought that dixie cups can upscale normal string lights into something that looks straight out of a dream? Instead of throwing your dixie cups or styrofoam cups straight into the bin, pull them out to create gorgeous garlands by tying them together by adding a touch of intertwined fairy lights to your special night. Bringing the best of both worlds, dixie cup garlands that are strung with fairy lights can jazz up your wedding lighting and definitely put the enchantment in your event. You can also paint them in pretty patterns or in pastel colors and use them as bistro lights for a fancy city wedding. Use scraps of styrofoam and fabric to create custom fabric letters for wedding décor or make oversized letters for a monogram or initials out of cardboard.
Recycled paper ideas
The use of papers in weddings is one of the biggest factors of wedding carbon footprints. Using all the papers for your wedding invites as well as tassel cards, escort cards, wedding menus, and paper cones adds more and more to the landfill, especially when you can create custom-made pieces that look better than the store-bought items. By using old wrapping paper or paper scraps to create custom wedding envelope liners, you can take your DIY wedding invites up a notch with a wow factor. All you need to do is bring in recyclable papers, add a little lace and some handwritten calligraphy, and you will have a paper invite that is truly one-of-a-kind. Dried flowers used as confetti petals are a great way of adding a fresh twist to a vintage-themed wedding.
Mixing glassware, silverware, and flowers
Old silver teapots can use a little paint and be displayed as your center table pieces for a fun vintage-themed wedding. Rummage through your grandmother's closet as it might have vintage crystal glassware and silverware that can be used for your wedding ceremony and reception décor. Give any old glass bottles or old teapots a new lease on life with a coat of paint in your wedding colors and use them for the flowers on your table.
Upcycle wedding fabrics to use as bunting
If you are a crafty person then it is normal to have old fabric scraps in your drawers. Collect fabric scraps and old clothes from your basement, friends, and family to create a pretty textured bunting banner décor for your reception. Bunting banner ideas can even use pieces of your old clothes as all you have to do is- cut these fabric scraps into certain symmetrical shapes and attach them to a long thread to create buntings that can be hung all over walls, or even tied around trees and lamp posts. Repurposing old fabrics can be a great way to add striking color details to your wedding décor in a very inexpensive way. Use vintage fabrics to create some romantic bunting banners or create a vintage bathtub bar, and a vintage luggage card table, as there’s no end to the kind of knick-knacks you can upcycle into some wedding delights!
Upcycling wedding inspirations and ideas can be the perfect resolution for brides-to-be as they venture into their new life, because it is probably one of the best ways of saving money while creating pretty elements to amplify the wedding's entire look. From being rustically charming and modern to looking chic and classically elegant, upcycled wedding décor ideas can ramp up your wedding day in whatever way you have always envisioned it to be. Apart from being a budget-friendly wedding decision, these minimalist wedding inspirations can come from unuseful stuff like scrap papers and fabrics which can be found in our homes.
Special wedding décor experts from all over the world have shared a few ways in which you can use upcycling to transform your wedding into a vintage fantasy. The effect of upcycled wedding decoration can be just as lovely as any professionally designed décor you have seen. These little elements can turn your intimate wedding setting into something incredibly dreamy, laid-back, relaxing, customized, and unique. Speaking for your personality at every angle, upcycling wedding décor inspirations can style your reception on a budget without compromising on the basic aesthetics that you have planned for your big day. Having an eco-friendly wedding is not that difficult as upcycling your wedding is a great way to be less wasteful, both money-wise and environmentally, and is all about just being creative without compromising on the look that you have planned originally.
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