Reddit mentions of Four Medium White Birch Poles 8 ft

Thank you! I'll be honest, the birch/bitch frame was a bit of a bitch to put together. In retrospect, we'd probably have bought one of the kits because we spent about ~200 and 12 hours working on it with a fair amount of frustration. However, if you do need a specialty sized frame or want to do it, here are my thoughts/advice:

1. All the DIY instructions we saw online had bases; this one is freestanding which is why it was harder. If you don't mind having a base (usually a bucket filled with cement, or I've also seen adjustable outdoor umbrella stands), then DIY is much more feasible and can save you some $$.
   
2. Our chuppah was 6' X 6'. We ended up buying three packs of birch poles on Amazon, which cost $195 total. We started with two packs but needed three in the end to make it stand up properly. We had 4 vertical poles, 4 poles for the top square frame, 1 crossbeam across the top middle (we feel pretty strongly that you need this for stability), as well as 8 small diagonal pieces at the top of the frame which you can't see in the photo but provided a huge amount of the stability. The design without flowers looked like this: https://i.etsystatic.com/11004770/r/il/77307b/761204634/il_794xN.761204634_fj10.jpg
   
3. We also had to buy hardware (long screws and butterfly screws). The birch is fairly soft and the screws will loosen up each time you build and take apart the chuppah, so that's a caveat.
   
4. My husband is an engineer and had access to a workshop for cutting, measuring, etc., so even though he didn't have experience in building things/construction, he did have the background to know how to design it without the whole thing collapsing.
   
5. I would recommend against DIY in this manner (poles in buckets of cement is totally different and very possible though!) unless you have some relevant experience. It's not worth the hassle since it only saved us $50. In retrospect we'd have totally bought the birch kit on Etsy lol :) But if you want to use a unique wood or a specialty design you can't find online, hopefully this information is helpful!
   
   Lastly, if anyone lives in Virginia, we would give ours away to anyone who wants it!