9 DIY Wedding Desserts To Help You Cut Down on Costs

This post is all about helping you cut down costs by making your own DIY wedding desserts.

 

We all know how expensive weddings can get to be, and one of the best and simplest ways to cut costs are through making your own DIY wedding desserts.

Whether you are great at baking or not, these desserts are simple enough for anyone to make. Who doesn’t want to save money these days, especially during this pandemic, with rising inflation and everything else going on in the world?!

As a baker and dessert event caterer myself, I can tell you that these desserts don’t require high expertis or a hefty ingredient list which saves you time and money.

But don’t believe that means your desserts have to be any less elegant or professional than you want them to. So here are 9 DIY wedding desserts that you, family or friends can make for your upcoming wedding. You can create your own beautiful and delicious dessert table, while saving you lots of money!

Easy DIY Wedding Desserts

Cupcakes are the first of DIY wedding desserts that can be made more easily than you think. If you don’t have a homemade recipe that you would die by, then the next best thing is to pick up your favorite box mix. Choose from strawberry, confetti, vanilla, chocolate, red velvet and plenty of other flavors you can whip up quickly.

Choosing a box mix requires less ingredients, and you know these wedding cupcakes are already are going to taste good!

Now what you really want to focus on is the appearance of both the icing and garnish. Based on your wedding color palette make sure to choose garnish or icing colors that match. If you wanted to take it a step further, purchase some food dye and change the color of the actual cake mix too, if you are making yellow or vanilla wedding cupcakes.

To save time on making your own icing, I recommend premade buttercream icing, outside of the one that matches the box mix. It usually isn’t thick enough for a good piping consistency to create the design you would like.

As for garnishes, you can take inspiration from the first picture on the left. Add fruits on top that would fit your theme, strawberries or raspberries for red, blueberries for blue, lemon slices for yellow, and so on! Or you can take the picture on the right and keep these cupcakes elegant. Just white frosting piped from a fancy tip make these one of the simplest diy wedding desserts you can make.

Here is a quick list of all the things you would need to make these wedding cupcakes!

• Favorite Cake Mix Flavors + Required Ingredients
• Buttercream Icing – Recommend Wilton’s Buttercream
• Garnish of choice –  Fruits, sprinkles, edible gold/silver dust, chocolate drizzle, caramel
• Piping Tip & Bag (Wilton Round Tip #10, Wilton Start Tip #1M)
• White or Translucent Cupcake Baking Cups
• Wedding Platter of Choice

Chocolate covered strawberries are known as one of the most elegant and appealing desserts out there. So this is perfect for any event and also a quick and money saving diy wedding dessert.

This dessert can fit into any themed wedding since you can dye white chocolate any color you desire! If it is more of a rustic wedding, you can definitely keep it simple with plain chocolate dipped strawberries with a darker chocolate drizzle. Or choose your wedding color pallet and dip the strawberries in white chocolate then drizzle with your dyed chocolate to make these wedding chocolate covered strawberries.

The great thing about chocolate covered strawberries is they really only require 2 ingredients. I do recommend this specific diy wedding dessert for summer and early fall weddings, since that’s when strawberries are in season!

Here is a quick list of all the things you would need to make these wedding chocolate covered strawberries!

• Strawberries
• Melting Chocolate/White Chocolate – Melting Chips or Chocolate Blocks/Bars
• Food Dye
• Wax Paper – for letting strawberries harden

Cake pops are a rich and sometimes easy diy wedding desserts option. I chose the specific picture above because as a cake pop maker myself, it is much easier to get a pretty looking cake pop when you dip them and set them stick down instead of in a tray cake ball up.

These desserts take a little more time, but as you can see from the picture above can create a great ambience and look at your wedding.

Luckily for these wedding cake pops, it doesn’t matter how pretty the cake comes out when you bake it because you will be crumbling the cake and mixing it with frosting to create the cake balls. Just like I mentioned earlier, take your favorite cake box mix or cake recipe to make the initial cake and a frosting to match, the thickness does not matter as much here.

Once you incorporate the two, taking icing to the cake only one spoonful at a time and mixing in between, you will get a consistency that allows you to roll smooth balls without them crumbling in your hand.

From here freeze these bad boys for 15 minutes. Take your chocolate, dyed whichever color you like, and dip the cake pop sticks into the icing and then into the cake balls. Let that chocolate harden and then they are ready to dip fully into the chocolate until coated. Set these on parchment or wax paper, cake pop down, to have them set. 

For a sprinkled look like the one above, dip directly into a bowl of sprinkle after dipping in the chocolate for it to be fully coated. For less sprinkle set the cake pop down first and lightly sprinkle as much as you desire using your hands.

Here is a quick list of all the things you would need to make these wedding cake pops!

• Cake pop sticks
• Cake recipe/Cake Box Mix + Ingredients needed
• Icing to match cake flavor
• White Chocolate or Chocolate Melting Chips
• Sprinkles
• Food Dye
• Wax/Parchment Paper
• Mini Baking Cups
• Wedding Platter to Serve On

These chocolate covered pretzels are beloved by so many of my customers, which is why they are perfect for a wedding.

These diy wedding desserts are even simpler than chocolate covered strawberries because they will always be in season and don’t go bad nearly as fast, meaning you can save time, money, AND get it done ahead of time.

These pictured above I made for an engagement party and matched the colors to their wedding pallet.

Wedding chocolate covered pretzels are going to be a hit because everyone of all ages loves them and you only need pretzel rods (or large knot pretzels if you prefer) and white or milk chocolate. Melt the chocolate and dip the pretzels. Drizzle another dyed color of icing and add sprinkles…or don’t! Whichever gives you the look you are going for works.

Here is a quick list of all the things you would need to make these wedding chocolate covered pretzels!

• Pretzel Rods or Large Knot Pretzels
• Melted Chocolate – Melting Chips or Chocolate Bars/Blocks
• Sprinkles (Optional)
• Food Dye
• Wax/Parchment Paper
• Wedding Platter

Wedding design sugar cookies have become increasingly popular as a dessert option. 

Whether you are a bit more artistic or need an easy frosting cookie with sprinkles you can make these delicious and beautiful diy wedding desserts for your upcoming day.

Find a good sugar cut out cookie recipe or cake mix at the store. Cut out your desired shapes. To keep it simple, I would recommend hearts or circles, perfect for weddings. You WILL NEED piping bags to get a clean look when frosting your cookies. When making your royal icing you will want a glue like consistency. Outline the cookie first, let it set for about 1 minute and fill in the rest of the cookie

While these diy wedding desserts do take a bit more of your time, the good thing is you can prep these up to a week ahead if packaged afterwards or a couple weeks ahead, if put in the freezer and thawed the night before. AND the price to make these compared to many other desserts on this list is low.

I made these sugar cookies on the left for a wedding with colors gold and white as their theme. It was as simple as covering them with frosting using royal icing and topping with gold flake sprinkles, then allowing them to dry overnight. It is very important for royal icing to have at least 24 hours before being either packaged or set on top of each other.

Here is a quick list of all the things you would need to make these wedding design sugar cookies!

• Cut-out sugar cookie recipe/box mix + Ingredients
• Cookie Cutter of Choice – Heart, Circles, etc.
• Toothpicks – for evening out the icing on the cookies
• Royal Icing
• Piping Bags
• Parchment Paper
• Food Dye
• Sprinkles (Optional)
• Wedding Platter

Layered dessert parfaits for a wedding can give you a nice pop of color with the different layers you make.

These wedding dessert parfaits can be as simple or detailed as you like. Have only 2 layers altering between a whipped cream and fruit or have 3 to 4 layers with Oreo crumbles, chocolate mousse, whipped cream and fudge.

The possibilities are endless with this dessert and that’s why its perfect for this diy wedding desserts list because you can alter the amount of ingredients based on your budget and choose a variety of dessert layers to fit the style of your wedding.

Here is a quick list of all the things you would need to make these wedding dessert parfaits!

• Parfait layers of your choice – fruits, fudge, whipped cream, oreos, cake crumbles, mousse
• Clear but Thick Plastic Parfait Cups (glass ones if your budget allows)
• Small Spoons for serving
• Wedding Platter/Table to Set These on

Meringue cookies are such a beautiful and light dessert, perfect for a more health conscious crowd.

I love these diy wedding desserts because you can use any icing tip you like to create shape of the cookies you like, make them as large or small as you’d like since these don’t change size in the oven. For ones like the above picture, use Wilton’s Star Tip #1M.

Keep these sweet cookies white, giving a clean fresh look at your wedding or dye them any color, mixing and matching your whole wedding pallet if you’d like. You can even add sprinkles on them before you thrown them in the oven too!

Here is a quick list of all the things you would need to make these wedding cupcakes!

• Meringue Cookie Recipe
• Piping Tip + Bags
• Food Dye
• Parchment Paper
• Wedding Platter

Wedding brownie bites can be a decadent dessert for any wedding and are very versatile in what you can do with them. Based on my own experience, I would choose a box brownie mix for these diy wedding desserts.

You can find a more cakey one or more fudgy all in the baking aisle. If you are a more experienced baker or have a really good brownie recipe, or would like to use my fudgy brownie recipe then by all means go for it! I just know getting brownies just right can be more difficult than other dessert recipes.

I love these diy wedding desserts because after they are done, it’s the garnish that can be decorated for any wedding style. From the three pictures above, you can have a plain brownie on the left for something simple, but delectable – especially when paired with other wedding desserts too – a chocolate drizzled brownie in the middle for a more luxurious look, or garnish with mint leaves and fruit for a nature vintage wedding vibe.

Here is a quick list of all the things you would need to make these wedding brownie bites!

• Favorite Brownie Recipe/Box Mix + Ingredients
• Garnish of Choice (Optional) – Sea salt, caramel, chocolate drizzle, fruit, mint powdered sugar
• Parchment Paper (So brownies don’t stick to the pan)
• Wedding Platter

Cheesecake bites are such a beautiful and elegant dessert that I couldn’t neglect from adding them to my diy wedding desserts list.

I have to admit these wedding cheesecake bites are a bit harder to do because they require more time and precision compared to the other desserts, which can use a simple box mix. Jell-O No Bake box can be used for the filling, but you would still be required to make your own crust and if you want a fruit top like this inspiration picture above that would also require separate work.

But to keep it simple, you would need a a nice graham cracker crust, cheesecake filling and garnish to make these diy wedding desserts pop at your wedding. Instead of a layer of fruit jell-o you can take fruit pieces such as raspberries and top the cheesecake bites as well. For the top you can put a dollop of meringue. Make sure to let this set in a rectangular or square pan so you can cut square pieces

Here is a quick list of all the things you would need to make these wedding cheesecake bites!

• Cheesecake Recipe/No Bake Jell-O Cheesecake Mix + Ingredients
• Graham Cracker Crust – Melted Butter + Crushed Graham Crackers
• Garnish – Fruit, Jell-O topping (layered over cheesecake after set), nuts and chocolate chips, caramel drizzle, fruit sauce drizzle, dollop of meringue
• Wedding Platter

If you read this post and you decided.. F* it I don’t want to do the work and I would rather spend the money…AND you are in the Milwaukee, WI or Atlanta, GA area then check out my page because I do cater desserts for weddings!

This post was all about 9 different diy wedding desserts to help you cut down costs for your upcoming special day!