In America, we have two extremes. We have the liberals and the conservatives. We have Democrats and Republicans. We have people who are for same sex marriage, and we have people who are against same sex marriage. So it’s only natural in this extremist society that a new type of Bridezilla emerges out of the woodwork that is to the left of the original.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: the DIYzilla.

The emergence of the DIYzilla comes at a time when conspicuous consumption is slowly being frowned upon, with the trend of living within ones means slowly moving back to the forefront. Due to the depressing economic climate, more and more couples are tightening their belts, and are putting a limit to their lavish wedding expenses. Where once it was popular to have name brand, head-to-toe bling, and red roses flown in specially from Ecuador, (paid happily for by a second mortgage), the DIYzilla goes out of her way to, well, do everything her damn self.

Of course, in many cases, the DIYzilla surrounds herself with people who can help her, (and who can help for cheap because she absolutely refuses to go into credit card debt for that One Special Day). She knows she can count on her talented friends for crafty advice and nimble fingers.

Besides, the DIYzilla reasons, she’s been to enough weddings, and have seen enough episodes of  My Fair Wedding and have seen how David Tutera does his magic. So she dutifully visits wedding related websites, constantly clipping out photos to create an inspiration board, and proceed to find every DIY article that’s wedding related and bookmark for her To Do List. The DIYzilla spends countless hours trolling through DIY forums and searches through hundreds of projects, painstakingly collecting a treasure trove of information. She also starts a wedding blog to document the process or how incredibly thrifty she is, and announces her bargain finds to the world.

The interesting thing about the DIYzilla is that, like the Bridezilla, the driving force behind the sentiment. Where the Bridezilla is all about steamrolling over the bridal party to get things done exactly how she wants, the DIYzilla is all about getting things done cheaply, usually steamrolling over herself in the process.

Absolutely horrified to be labeled a Bridezilla, the DIYzilla takes it upon herself to be her own Martha Stewart (even if she doesn’t have a crafty bone in her body). Favors for under $1? Check! Create your own bouquet? No problem! Design your own invitations? Of course! Why the hell would she pay some professional to do it if she can do it herself for cheap? Besides, she has friends who are great photographers, so she’ll invite them to the wedding and hope they bring their giant SLRs.

Given the cool factor of DIY, the DIYzilla will rarely make concessions about how incredibly challenging it is to create everything from the Save the Dates to the centerpieces. She won’t mention the countless hours she spend getting the text to line up on her card stock, or how much she wasted on printer ink. She won’t mention that the cost of shipping her $1 favors cost more than the favors itself. And she certainly won’t mention that she wished she would’ve had some professional help, because that’s just not cool to admit as a DIY bride.

Thankfully, most brides fall somewhere in between the two extremes. And given all the planning they’ve done, we give them a figurative pat on the back for doing it themselves. After all, just like the Bridezilla, the DIYzilla wants her hard work to be recognized and for her guests to appreciate how unique they made the wedding. In the end, whether the bride is a Bridezilla or a DIYzilla (or a scary combination of both!), it’s all about celebrating the commitment of love between two people.

Got any DIYzilla stories to share?

“I wanted to tell you how much we enjoyed the circle tags for our wedding favors! I just LOVE them! You did a beautiful job. I referred a friend to your site and we were both so thrilled to see you used our tags for your picture! My husband was even excited to see them there! Your tags are a happy memory for us! I have a few extra that I plan to attach to gifts and will be sure to order more from you!

I attached a picture of the honey jars in case you wanted to see what we ended up with. Thank you!”

Sabrina and Pete

As a person that has a shop on Etsy, I’m pretty appalled by the portrayal of this article of the handmade online marketplace as “a female ghetto.” The writer describes the women on the site as delusional by wanting to make a living off of their creations, and deduces that, the lack of a male presence directly correlates with the fact that men are smarter to engage in such “fantasies” of selling their creations.

While I harbor no delusions of getting rich off a part-time business, I will say that the author is off-base in thinking that women on Etsy are pursuing some feminist promise of the motherhood/workload balance, and that people just don’t make money there.

For me, (and for a lot of women I know personally), Etsy is not a “just a hobby.” It is a lucrative side business that augments the full-time careers we already have. Our success isn’t based on some allusion of handmade grandeur, but on our actual P&L statements when we file our taxes at the end of the fiscal year.

Had the author dug a little deeper rather than just perusing Etsy’s discussion forums and picking out statements to fit her generalizations, she will notice that most of the best sellers on the site don’t have time to talk about the notions of “doing Etsy full time.” They are already too busy “doing.”

Even worse, the author completely disregards the countless hours of hard work anyone needs to put in to make their business viable. The ones that are still plugging away are the ones that know that Etsy isn’t some sort of magic online Field of Dreams where if you build it, they will come.

Additionally, she downright dismisses the success of the featured sellers who have already quit their day job and are making a living on Etsy full-time, just because it doesn’t fit into her personal notion of what success is. Genuine financial success is rare, but isn’t that with any small business? And if the featured sellers are already “doing Etsy full-time,” doesn’t that by definition mean that it IS attainable and not some “fantasy” that they are harboring?

And to say that the site exploits its sellers, is false. Etsy does not “prey on the hopes and dreams” of people who want to own their own business. Rather it’s a electronic conduit for which to test out business models with relative safety and little upstart funding. The site merely provides a platform for the opportunistic ones who want to sell items they made with their own hands. After all, owning a business is a quintessential American Dream, and Etsy itself is a business.

What is interesting is that for someone who has graduated from Princeton, and is a Fulbright Scholar, who writes for a publication that supposedly “intellectual” and “not condescending,” the author is seemingly full of contempt for those who have capitalized on their own talents and skills. This leads me to believe that perhaps, somewhere within the 250,000+ shops is an abandoned, failed web shop owned by the author herself. (I mean, she does state, “…As someone who’s handy with a paintbrush, I’ve admittedly harbored the fantasy of starting my own storefront on Etsy.”) And if that’s the case, then all anyone has to do is take a good look at the “research” in her article to know why her shop has failed.

After all, due diligence is a wonderful thing.

Judging from other perspectives online, I’m not the only one that feels this way.

Damask Tags in Aqua and Black, originally uploaded by fubabee.

Damask Tags in Green and Brown, originally uploaded by fubabee.

These tags have quickly become the more popular of my designs, slowly overtaking the Sweet Branch sets.

Retro Burst Circular Numbers for Kelley & Joe, originally uploaded by fubabee.