Custom Merch Toss at our Wedding Ceremony

Our wedding photos are in and we wanted to share some fun and unique details from our big day! We had tons of DIY projects that I’ll share more on later. The first one, and our favorite one, was making custom wedding merch. We surprised our guests at the ceremony with Merch Dudes… there weren’t flower girls or the flower men trend here. We had two of my best friends tapped in for this who traded flower petals for koozies and t-shirts. We all knew each other from college and I just knew their goofy and fun energy would be perfect for this stunt. I just can’t believe we were able to keep the secret!! Our family and wedding party didn’t even know; only our vendors were clued in on this!

We knew we wanted everyone to have a good time so this was our way to set the tone for what’s to come and also just a great way to get our guests involved and to participate in the ceremony.

Photos by Dewitt for Love Photography

For the koozies/can coolers, we went with a custom design on Etsy (CarolinaCanCoolers) and opted to use silly selfies. We didn’t add on our wedding date on it and instead went with the wedding bands emoji, that way it was a little less cheesy :P. Totally recommend that seller if you want to make custom koozies!

For the shirts, I designed it in Canva to make it look like something you’d get at a concert. After doing some math, it costs a bit less for me to order blank shirts and press them on myself than ordering shirts to be made since I already had a Cricut Heat Press. So I ordered custom DTF transfers from Etsy (LovesPrintsandDesign) and blank t-shirts (I went with a tri-blend, so soft!) and a few hours later, I made 40 shirts!

How to heat press DTF Transfers for t-shirts

DTF or Direct To Film, is the process of printing on a film and directly transferring to fabric. I went with this route because weeding vinyl wasn’t in the cards for me after doing it for my seating chart, but more on that later! It was super easy to do, but here are the steps to DIY t-shirts with DTF:

1. Pre Press the shirt for 10 seconds to remove moisture. This is an important step!
2. Place the transfer onto the shirt and cover it with parchment paper. Press at 330F for 15 seconds. Heavy Pressure.
3. Wait for transfer to cool about 60 seconds
4. Slowly peel the film
5. Cover the design with parchment paper and press again for 10 seconds
6. Done!

How to make fold t-shirt for a t-shirt toss

It’s just 4 steps to making a rolled t-shirt fold!

Looking at the back of the t-shirt, fold the bottom about 2 inches
Turn the shirt around to the front and fold in the arms. Make sure the folds at the bottom touch to ensure a tight fold.
Roll from the collar downward
Flip the bottom flap over and that will hold everything in place!