I joined Formspring, a niche social network site of sorts where people can ask you anything and you reply at your discretion, last week. One of my favorite questions to come in so far was this:

Question: How do you feel about DIY taking away business from wedding pro’s?

My Answer: Saying that DIY is “taking away” something implies ownership. No vendor/service provider owns a place in any wedding until a couple deems it so. Even then it’s a by-invitation position, one of privelege, and not an entitlement.

In fact the only “required” vendor for a wedding to legally take place is an officiant. Everything else is purely optional.

I, and the DIY movement, can’t take away anything that wasn’t theirs to begin with.

The question caught me a bit off guard.  At a time when every web site, community, and blog is scrambling to offer more DIY content to their audience it’s hard for me to imagine that most vendors aren’t fully on board and trying to accommodate do-it-yourselfers.

In The Knot’s most recent user survey, 55% of their respondents said they were going to DIY some aspect of their wedding. DIY is, in fact, everywhere and it has gone beyond the “budget” bride.

DIY is no longer just a lower-end budget option. It is not at all uncommon for couples with $50,000, $60,000, $75,000+ budgets to incorporate DIY into their weddings now. For some it’s a status symbol, a way to show off their creativity. For others it’s a deeply personal way for couples to become active participants in the execution of their wedding. For many DIY is a way to save money so they can upgrade other parts of their budgeted items and, for others, it’s the only way they can afford to have the wedding they want – and deserve.

The DIY movement is a great democratizer in our industry. It empowers couples, creatively and financially, so don’t expect them to relinquish that kind of control anytime soon.

This isn’t the death knell of the wedding industry; it’s a shift.  Nothing’s being “taken away” from the industry. There’s still demand for stationers, cake designers, jewelers, photographers, caterers, musicians, etc. But now there’s a lot of new opportunity in the industry because of DIY. How each business adapts to the shift and looks for innovative ways to serve the new DIY mindset will decide their fate.