💍 From Second-Hand to Stunning – How Our Budget Wedding Became a Beautiful Reality

By: Rutendo & Simbarashe
📍 Location: Chegutu, Zimbabwe
Budget: Just under $900 for decor

When Simbarashe and I got engaged, we were over the moon—but also slightly overwhelmed. Weddings are beautiful, yes, but they’re also expensive. And we were planning ours while juggling student loans, a fixer-upper home, and supporting extended family.

We made a pact: we would focus on what mattered most—our love, our families, and our community. Everything else? We'd get creative.

What followed was a wedding so filled with soul, beauty, and second-hand charm that people still ask if we had a planner. Spoiler alert: we didn’t.

🎨 Our Theme: “Vintage Garden with a Zimbabwean Twist”

My parents’ home in Chegutu has the most gorgeous jacaranda trees that bloom in October. We decided to use their backyard for both the ceremony and reception. With nature as our canvas, we chose soft neutrals, lilac, gold, and touches of wood and white as our palette.

Everything else? We thrifted, borrowed, bartered, or made ourselves.

🛍️ Sourcing Our Decor – One Treasure at a Time

We spent every Sunday afternoon browsing Harare’s Avondale Flea Market, the Facebook group “Zimbabwe Weddings Buy & Sell,” and chatting with recently married friends. Here’s what we found and how we used it:

Old wine bottles (from a restaurant closure) → spray-painted them gold and used them as centrepieces.

Second-hand lace curtains → used as table runners and draping for the arch.

Tin buckets from a farm supply shop → turned into floral stands with eucalyptus from my aunt’s garden.

Fairy lights borrowed from my cousin’s 21st birthday.

Assorted candles from multiple clearance sales → scattered across the tables and aisle.

We even found a gorgeous wooden welcome sign in someone’s storeroom. A bit of sanding and some white paint later—it looked like it had come straight from Pinterest.

🪑 Chairs & Tables? Community Came Through

Instead of renting chairs, we borrowed 50 white plastic ones from our church and decorated the backs with offcuts of fabric we found at a textile shop in town.

Tables came from a local school (yes, really) after we asked nicely and promised to return them cleaner than we found them.

👗 Personal Touches & Meaningful Moments

My veil? Worn by my older sister in 2015.
Our guestbook table? My late grandfather’s writing desk.
The ring box? A carved wooden jewellery box I’ve had since I was a child.

We even used a hand-me-down tea set from my grandmother for our sweetheart table and served traditional snacks—maputi, roasted peanuts, and homemade mazhanje jam on crackers.

💬 The Best Compliment We Received?

“Your wedding felt like home.”

We cried when we heard that. That’s exactly what we wanted. It didn’t matter that nothing was new. In fact, that made it even better—it was real, rooted, and rich in memory.

📝 What We Spent (Rough Breakdown):

💡 Our Advice?

Start early. Second-hand treasures take time to collect.

Ask around. Your aunt might have 20 glass jars she’s been “keeping for something.”

Don’t aim for perfection. Aim for personality.

Prioritise people. The love around you is what guests will remember—not whether your table runners matched your bouquet.

❤️ Final Word:

Our wedding wasn’t lavish, but it was magical. Every candle, every thrifted vase, every DIY touch told a story. It was a celebration not just of our love—but of community, creativity, and choosing intention over Instagram trends.