Estate Sale Chic Wedding Full of Thrifted Treasures

Kat

Renegade Photo

October 9, 2025

Marissa actually began with a vision of 60s glam, Priscilla-and-Elvis style. But the more they leaned into that look, the less it felt like them. “The lack of colour felt sterile,” she said. "I then created mood boards with elements I liked and started calling the vibe 'Grandma Chic'. No one was a fan of that phrasing, so then we started using 'Estate Sale Chic'! The idea was your cool, well-travelled grandma’s house that hasn’t been renovated since the 60s. Super cosy, colourful and fun!"

Personal, Thrifted Wedding with Lots of Greenery & Vintage Charm

Kat

Finder Seeker

November 12, 2024

Cody and Liliana, who have been together since high school, wanted their wedding to be all about their family, friends and who they are. Held in May at Montsalvat Artists Colony and Botanicah, both in Melbourne, they thrifted EVERY SINGLE ITEM for their DIY reception dinner. Liliana wore a Selkie dress customised by a friend, while Cody was in a thrifted suit.

How To Sell Your Secondhand Wedding Dress

Guest Contributor

Ross Willsher

October 30, 2023

Selling your wedding dress on after your big day is a great idea – it’s better for the planet, you’re helping another bride-to-be find a bargain and you can make some money back. However, for all those reasons (and more) it can be a tricky thing to do.

Handmade DIY Bohemian Wedding with Plants and Tassels

Ellie Kime

Dear Honey

January 15, 2019

Desiree and Matthew's wedding was a craft-lover's dream with loads of beautiful cosy DIY and thrifted elements. They also included lots of greenery and plants. The bride looked like a total bad ass in her amazing specs (we love a bride or groom in glasses!) 

Colourful Woodland Wedding with Dominos and the Notorious B.I.G

Ellie Kime

Emma + Rich

October 18, 2018

Katy and Mark are my new best friends. No, but in all seriousness, their wedding looks like SO MUCH FUN and I think you're going to fall in love with them instantly. With a loose theme of colour and fun, a focus on it being a carbfest (we're talking fish and chips for and then Dominos later on) and eclectic and wonderful decor, it's a super beautiful and inspiring day by all accounts.

Lush Greenery & Vintage Inspired Winter Park Florida Wedding

Kat

Joshua Kane

August 27, 2018

If you're dreaming of pumpkin spice and snuggly knits then you are going to adore Kristen and Lloyd's wedding. Almost all of their reception decor was thrifted, bought online and/ or put together by the couple themselves. They hand-painted a globe to use as their guest book (LOVE THIS!) and made magnolia leaf place cards as well as gold spray-painted dinosaur toys for some added fun and a nod to the groom's love of Jurassic Park!

Intimate and Meaningful Wedding at Home

Kat

GabeMcClintock

January 12, 2016

Emily and Glenn were married at the bride's childhood home. She wore her grandmother's wedding dress and they wanted to make sure everything they did minimised waste. "Our wedding inspiration was to use second-hand, borrowed, vintage and thrift store finds", Emily explained, "We really focused on re-purposing things for the day. This meant incorporating vintage furniture as seating and using items my father had collected over the last 30 years as décor. Everything was DIY but since we did not want to buy anything new we stayed away from crafting and mostly decorated with old lanterns and vintage furniture. We also borrowed a lot of stuff from friends and family so that we didn't have to buy brand new things."

Recycled and Thrifty Farm Wedding: Angie & Lionel

Kat

Carolien and Ben

June 17, 2014

A wedding dress made of a recycled crochet tablecloth, custom buttons for every member of the wedding party and flowers grown by the couple themselves... there's just so much to love about Angie and Lionel's thrifty, farm wedding! Married in Chrissiesmeer, South Africa on 28th April this year, this couple really did plan the wedding they truly wanted.

DIY Wedding in Victoria Baths: Fiona & Jonny

Kat

Emma Case

February 19, 2013

Unique wedding venues can be hard to come across in the UK, but Fiona & Jonny weren't going to take that lying down. They knew they wanted a memorable space for their union and so selected Victoria Baths in Manchester. "Victoria Baths is an Edwardian swimming baths (which is no longer used as baths, now a restoration project and arts/community venue)", wrote Fiona. "It was originally three big pools. Two of them remain and are empty – we got married in the deep end of the biggest one and had our reception on top of the other! It was boarded over with a sprung dance floor in the fifties (my granddad used to teach ballroom dancing in that room). The remaining smaller pool and the rest of building, which is pretty vast, was left for people to wander around and explore."

Reclaimed & Revisited DIY Wedding: Josh & Scott

Kat

Adam Lowe

February 5, 2013

Before I even saw these photographs I knew I wanted to blog this wedding. Wedding photographer, Adam Lowe, described the event to me as 'a mega super awesome gay punk dude wedding' and I instantly knew it would be amazing... and oh boy how right I was! Josh & Scott were married in October at 400 West Rich, a 100,000 sq foot warehouse in Columbus, Ohio. They did pretty much everything themselves and spent just $3000 making their wedding perfect. "We met through a gay social networking and just got to talking", they began. "About three months later we were taking turns visiting each other and three months after that Josh moved to Columbus. Josh is a huge Disney fan and we planned a trip to Disney and Scotty ordered an engagement ring. He proposed to Josh in front of Cinderella's Castle."

Handmade Huntington Beach Wedding: Mandie & Mike

Kat

December 21, 2012

Flea Market Wedding: Cassidi & Rob

Kat

December 12, 2012

Cassidi & Rob were married at Moorestown Community House, New Jersey. They wanted the wedding to have a flea market vibe with touches of Rock n Roll. "Our colors were charcoal, dusty rose, powered pink, mixed shades of ivory and creams", the bride explained. "We had a ton of blue mason jars, old bottles, and milk glass. A million doilies in all shades of whites, creams, and ivory. Each table has random little props, some tables had small vintage white dogs, or old skeleton keys, or buttons."

A DIY Wedding at Crystal Falls: Dano & Holly

Kat

September 24, 2012

Throwing out as many wedding traditions as they could, Dano & Holly planned their wedding with one golden rule - to have nothing cookie cutter. "I have strong aversion to anything cookie cutter, so we threw out a lot of wedding traditions," the bride began. "We wanted our wedding to be a party that we would never forget. Our theme was something along the lines of 'vintage, woodsy & DIY'. I wore green. We cut the pie (no cake) with a machete. Our friends built the biggest bonfire that any of us had ever seen and we danced in the rain under the stars."

A DIY Country Wedding: Jacob & Sarah

Kat

February 22, 2012

Jacob & Sarah had a DIY country wedding at Harmony Museum, PA. "Together with our community of friends, we pretty much made everything on our own because we wanted our wedding day to represent who we are," Sarah told me. "Having the wedding ceremony and reception take place in a non traditional atmosphere also helped to sort of describe where we were coming from, a subculture scene of punk music and tattoos. One of the most important things that we wanted to come from our wedding day was to have a celebration with the people who we love the most. We have a very close group of friends that we respect and hold close and we wanted them to feel like it wasn't just 'Jake and Sarah's Day' but rather a party for all of us. Immediately after the ceremony, which was fairly short, there was just a big party."

Roo’s Favourite Finds: Fabulous Favours

Kat

February 20, 2012

As the rest of you Rock n Roll Brides will be aware, there are certain age-old wedding traditions that we love and want to uphold, whereas others leave us looking a bit glassy-eyed. The beauty of the contemporary wedding is that we’re free to do away with the stuff that doesn’t make sense to us pretty much without question – for us, I naturally just assumed that we’d be forsaking the wedding favour. Now, I’ve only been to three weddings in my time and I received a wedding favour at just one of them – so you’ll forgive me for thinking that there was no real “meaning” or general substance to the idea. In fact, the tradition apparently dates back to as early as the 16th century, when wedding guests were given what is known as a bonbonniere – a small trinket box that held sugar cubes/confectionary. Sugar was then somewhat of a luxury, and to give it as a gift was indicatory of the bride and groom’s wealthy standing. As time went on and sugar became more of an affordable commodity, the tradition became popular with lower classes of bridal parties – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Roo’s Favourite Finds: The Tattered, The Broken & The Not So Shiny…Plus How to Haggle

Kat

January 16, 2012

Now, even after seeing what treasures can be found if you look hard enough in the right places, you would be forgiven for presuming the following formula: Charity shops = tat … Because, quite frankly, quite a lot of the time it’s proven to be true. Whether you’re a tried & true charity shop scavenger or a recent disciple following this series, you’re sure to have had a “dud” run, and that can be disheartening. When you’re perusing for the fun of it it’s not so bad, but if you’re committed to the cause for the sake of your wedding it’s easy to get blindsided by the dud run and head home feeling dejected. This month I’d like to focus on spotting the potential in otherwise “useless” items: the tattered, the broken, and the not so shiny.

Roo’s Favourite Finds: Finding Clothing Bargains in Charity Shops/Thrift Stores

Kat

December 12, 2011

The last time we spoke, I was floating on the high of a relatively warm autumn down here in Brighton (I’m not kidding; I went swimming in the sea at the end of October). I’m sad to report that the temperature tables have now rightfully turned, and as a result I’ve been honing my beady eye in on stocking up my winter wardrobe to accommodate for these chillier months. Now, apart from being a little bit skint a lot of the time, it’s also worth considering that I have a Mother who is a dab hand with a needle and thread. This has meant that I've grown up understanding the value of clothes – I won’t breach onto designer territory just now, because that’s a whole different kettle of fish – but I will say that nine times out of ten I’ll step into a popular high street store and be blown away by the lack of quality for the relatively extortionate price tag. On more than one occasion I have been the victim of inexplicably frayed edges, missing buttons, and ripped seams, and altogether I find it quite disheartening. That said, I do like to buy my key pieces – jeans, plain t-shirts, jumpers, etc – from high street stores, because we can all wear these things differently. If I am ever conscious of looking like a clone, I would much rather go for second-hand.

A DIY Thrift Store Explosion: James & Renee

Kat

December 5, 2011

James & Renee's eclectic thrift store explosion of a wedding was a real DIY effort from the couple and their friends & family. The bride, who couldn't stand the thought of a "boring, traditional wedding" explained her vision to me, "I could not stand the idea of a boring traditional wedding and reception with only two colors & every table was the same so I did everything my way. No one understood my vision until we set up the morning of the wedding & it all came together."

Roo’s Favourite Finds: Terrariums

Kat

November 12, 2011

Roo is pretty awesome you know. So she called me last week with an idea for a blog post which I loved so much I asked if she'd like to make it a monthly addition to the blog. Which I'm pleased to report she did. As a bit of a charity shop/thrifting fiend, Roo's idea was so share some of her favourite charity shop finds as well as showing you how she is using said finds in her wedding. These posts are going to be the perfect antidote to a wedding industry that tries to convince you that you have to spend a bomb to have a beautiful wedding. All you really need is a little imagination and not a lot of cash. Hurrah!

A Hippy, Eco & Vintage Styled Shoot

Kat

August 3, 2011

This beautiful shoot with an eco hippy vibe tugs at my heart strings. Isn't it just beautiful!? I die over the summery details - the coloured glass, the cute props (owls for the win!), the yummy confectionery and the stunning florals. Photographer Nikita Gross used digital, Holga and Polaroid photography to capture the whimsical and retro vibe of these shoot...and I'd say she's done that perfectly! "We used tons of yellows and greens to keep with the natural vibe," she explains. "All of the decor was found at local thrift stores. Earlier this year myself and Jen Pritchard of Your Wedding by Jen created Cincinnati's first Alternative wedding Expo, Love+Bash. This is one of the table concepts from the show."