Would you love a Halloween costume that only works when the two of you are standing next to each other? That is the whole charm of a couples costume, and these 36 DIY Halloween costumes for couples run from a five minute pun made out of duct tape to a tornado built on a pop up laundry hamper. Some are two thrift store outfits and a prop. Some are a real evening of cutting and gluing, and I have flagged which is which, because nothing ruins a party like starting a papier mache sandworm mask at four in the afternoon. My favorites here are the ones where neither half makes sense alone: the cat and the laser pointer, the tornado and the house it just dropped, the butterfly and the butterfly catcher. Perfect for a costume contest, a last minute panic, a work party, trick or treating in cold weather or a photo you will still be showing people in ten years!
DIY Halloween Costumes for Couples
1. DIY Nintendo Switch Couples Costume
Grab two big sheets of posterboard and you’ve basically got the shape of this costume already, one curved side for a Joy-Con controller. Paint one red and one blue, then glue on foam circles and a half dome for the joystick so the buttons actually read as buttons instead of random shapes. Holly cut slits at the top of each board and threaded rope through so the whole thing hangs sandwich board style and doesn’t need any strapping or sewing. It’s an easy win if you or your partner are still holding onto a soft spot for game night, and kids can wear a scaled down version too.
Get the full tutorial at Club Crafted.
2. Mimes At The Circus
Here is the underrated thing about mimes: you are fully covered and wearing flat shoes, which matters more than anyone admits when you are outside for four hours in October. Striped shirts, black pants, suspenders and white face paint with a matching red lip on both of you. The makeup is minimal and forgiving. Fair warning, people will expect a performance all night.
Get the full tutorial at Rock n Roll Bride.
DIY Couples Costumes
3. Popeye and Olive Oyl
Two cartoon silhouettes anybody recognizes from across a dark yard, built almost entirely from clothes you own. Olive is a black skirt, a red top and hair pulled into a low bun, and Popeye is a white tee with felt anchors glued on, rolled sleeves and a sailor cap. The can of spinach is the prop that lands the joke, so do not leave it at home.
Get the full tutorial at Maskerix.
4. Butterfly and Butterfly Catcher Costume
One of you wears the wings, the other carries the net, and that’s the whole idea behind this butterfly and butterfly catcher costume. It’s a genuinely easy couples costume too, just a black crop top and an orange sarong for her, a khaki safari shirt and a bucket hat for him, no sewing anywhere in it. The butterflies are cut from organza, which melts clean at the edge instead of fraying, so a quick pass near a candle flame seals every cut. I keep a bowl of water on the table when I do this step, which I’ve never actually needed but it makes me feel better. Fold a pipe cleaner in half around the fabric and twist the ends out for antennae and you’re basically done.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
5. Bob Ross and Happy Little Tree
One of you gets the perm wig, the denim shirt and a palette, the other becomes a happy little tree in green felt and fake leaves. The palette is cardboard with blobs of acrylic squeezed onto it and it costs nothing. Total spend is a wig and a bag of craft leaves. It is warm, it is gentle and it is the rare costume nobody at the party could dislike.
Get the full tutorial at Creating Really Awesome Fun Things.
6. Back To The Future Costume
Doc Brown is a white wig teased straight up, a lab coat and goggles pushed onto the forehead. Marty is a red puffer vest, a denim jacket and a skateboard under one arm. Nothing here has to be made, which puts this squarely in the thrift store and closet category, and yet it gets recognized faster than costumes that took a week. Be ready to quote the movie all night.
Get the full tutorial at Friday We're In Love.
7. Forrest Gump And Jenny
A blue checked shirt, khakis, white running shoes and a box of chocolates on one side. A flowing seventies dress, long straight hair and a guitar on the other. Both halves are pure closet and thrift store, no making at all, and the props are what carry the recognition. Take the chocolates. People will eat them and it starts every conversation for you.
Get the full tutorial at Mary Costa Photography.
8. Lumberjack and a Tree Couples Costume
Two dollar store runs and one plaid shirt is basically the whole build here. The lumberjack half is a red and black plaid flannel, a red beanie, brown pants and a fake mustache, with an axe made from a black foam sheet folded in half and cut into a blade that tapers out at the edges, then wrapped and hot glued around a wooden handle about two feet long. The tree is a rust brown dress and a leaf crown: snip about 15 faux leaves off their stems, hold a plain headband the way it will sit in your hair and glue the leaves along the front, layering them so the messy glue hides behind. The axe is the piece I’d never skip, because without it he’s just a guy in a flannel. It’s also the rare Halloween couples costume you can sit down in.
Get the full tutorial at Fish and Bull.
9. Sunflower and Gardener Costume
This sunflower and gardener costume might be my favorite budget couple costume on this whole list, since almost everything comes straight from your closet or a thrift store run. She gets a yellow dress with fake sunflowers glued along the neckline and a flower headband, he gets denim overalls, a straw hat and a watering can, and neither side needs a single stitch of sewing. If your fake flowers show up squished flat in the package, don’t toss them, clip them to hangers and steam them for a few seconds, then flatten the warm petals with your hands. It’s a trick I use on every faux flower project now and it works every time.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
10. American Gothic
A real frame that size costs a fortune, and you wouldn’t want to drag one to a party anyway. So they built one out of surplus baseboard. Theirs finished at 29 by 37 inches, sized to show as much of you as the painting shows of the farmer and his daughter, with a 45 degree cut on both ends of all four pieces so the corners close up clean. Carpenter’s glue and a corner clamp hold it together, braces and staples on the back keep it there and glossy gold spray paint finishes it. Jennifer’s black dress with the lace collar came from a thrift shop, and it is actually a maid uniform. A DIY couples costume that is two thrifted outfits and one good prop is my favorite kind.
Get the full tutorial at Seakettle.
11. Princess Bride
Buttercup’s dress started life as a matronly 1980s red dress four sizes too big, which is the part worth stealing. Laura kept the bodice and the neckline, built new sleeves and a longer skirt out of matching red fabric, then belted it with gold trim. She says those were only the second set of sleeves she’d ever sewn and that she still couldn’t lift her arms very high, which is the most honest sentence I’ve read about sleeves. Westley is the easy half: a black shirt, tall boots and a black mask. Todd shaved a mustache for it. If the red dress you want doesn’t exist in your size, buy it too big on purpose, because taking a dress in is a beginner job and letting one out is not. Treat this as the plan rather than the pattern, because it’s a photo post.
Get the full tutorial at A Beautiful Mess.
12. Pinata and Fiesta Couple Costume
Jodi didn’t start from scratch on this one, she just grabbed an old dress and a stack of crepe paper streamers in bright colors. She folded and fringed the streamers before hot gluing them on in overlapping rows, working from the top of the skirt down so the stripes line up cleanly. A pair of styrofoam cones glued to an old headband finish it off as the pinata’s signature paper ears. Her husband went with a poncho and sombrero to round out the fiesta theme for the two of them. It’s a cheap costume since it only took about half a roll of each streamer color, and you’ve likely already got a plain dress that would work.
Get the full tutorial at Meaningful Mama.
13. Alice And Mr. Rabbit
Everything in this one came out of a closet except the pocket watch, and they made that too. Keiko had a completely different costume planned until it fell through on Halloween morning, so she went digging through what she already owned and came out with Alice and the White Rabbit: a pale blue dress, a white lace pinafore, white tights and a black bow headband she sewed herself. The rabbit half is a red jacket, a gold bow tie and a pair of white ears. The watch is my favorite kind of DIY shortcut, a wall clock with the back popped out and replaced, hung on a vintage chain. Go bigger than feels sensible on a prop like that. An oversized watch reads from across a dark yard and a correct little one reads as nothing at all.
Get the full tutorial at Keiko Lynn.
14. Campfire and S'mores Couples Costume
Foam tubes do a shockingly good impression of firewood once they’re painted, and a sloppy paint job is the point. Cut them to a few different lengths, brush on two shades of brown acrylic and let some foam show through, because the gaps are what read as bark. The flames are teardrops cut from orange and yellow foam sheets, hot glued together at the bottom so they stand up instead of lying flat, then glued into the log pile and tied around the waist on a length of cotton ribbon. The s’more half of this couples costume is foam board and cardboard, a dark brown chocolate bar sandwiched between two 23 inch graham crackers, the top one resting on the shoulders of a plain white shirt. The marshmallow on a stick costs nothing and gets the biggest laugh, which is my favorite kind of costume math.
Get the full tutorial at Aww Sam.
15. DIY Tornado and Witch's House Costume
This one might be the most creative couples costume on the whole list, a tornado paired with the house it just dropped on the witch. The tornado starts from a pop-up fabric hamper with the bottom cut out and armholes cut in the sides, then two halves of a wire coat hanger get taped in for shape before you wrap grey batting around it in a spiral. The fun part is gluing in the debris, tiny plastic farm animals, dollhouse picket fence pieces and faux leaves tucked into the batting like they got swept up along the way. Her half is a cardboard house front with cracked windows and a blue door, finished off with the witch’s own striped stockings and ruby shoes peeking out underneath. It’s the kind of costume that photographs great side by side, which is really the whole point of a couples costume.
Get the full tutorial at Aubree Originals.
16. Black-Eyed Peas Pun Costume
This one is a play on words more than a real build, and that’s exactly why it works so well for a last minute night out. Cut a big letter P out of black duct tape sheets and stick one onto a plain black shirt for each of you, then smudge a little black eyeshadow around one eye apiece. Together you’re the Black Eyed Ps, which takes a second to land but gets a laugh every time once it does. Lauren came up with it when she and her husband waited too long to plan an actual costume, so keep it in your back pocket for the year your own plans don’t come together.
Get the full tutorial at The Thinking Closet.
17. Colonel Sanders And Chicken
A white suit, a black string tie, wire rimmed glasses and a white goatee, standing next to a chicken in a feathered vest. The contrast is the joke and it lands immediately. Colonel Sanders is nearly all thrift store, and the chicken half can be a feather boa stitched to a yellow top with a felt beak on a headband if you would rather not buy a full suit.
Get the full tutorial at Classy Clutter.
18. Bob's Burgers Costume
Two plain white aprons will get you most of the way to the Belchers. This is a Linda Belcher cosplay worn to Anime Boston, so the details are tight: a black bob wig, red cat eye glasses, a long sleeve red top, blue leggings and a plain white apron. Bob is a grey tee, the same white apron and a fake mustache big enough to see from the back of the room. Buy two matching aprons instead of raiding your own kitchen for whatever’s clean, because the matching is the visual joke and a stained one from under your sink reads as an accident. Their whole group stayed in character and could do the Belcher voices, which costs nothing and does more for a homemade costume than another twenty dollars of supplies. There’s no tutorial behind this one, just the photo, and I don’t think you need one.
Get the full tutorial at Sparrow's Song Cosplay.
19. Fantastic Mr. Fox
The masks come off and you’re still dressed for dinner, which is the part I like. Kinsey and Josh built the fox heads from poster board and watercolor, streaking the paint on purpose so it reads as fur instead of a flat orange shape. Underneath, he wore a striped tie, khakis, brown dress shoes and a vintage suit jacket, and the jacket was the only piece he had to go find, while she went with a cream vintage dress and brown tights. The streaks are the whole illusion and a smooth solid fill kills it. Let each pass dry before you add the next or the orange goes muddy. As DIY Halloween costumes for couples go, this one is barely any work, since the only thing you make is a mask.
Get the full tutorial at A Beautiful Mess.
20. Inspector Gadget and Penny Costume
The gadget arms are the whole trick to this one, and they’re just a hula hoop cut into pieces and wired onto a headband. Persia stuffed a pair of gloves with polyester fiberfill and shaped the fingers with a bent wire coat hanger before gluing them onto the hoop pieces so they read as Inspector Gadget’s extending hands. For Penny’s side, she sculpted a little communicator watch face out of air dry clay and decoupaged a tiny photo of Brain the dog right onto it. A blonde wig pinned up into pigtails finishes her look, and it doesn’t take any sewing at all.
Get the full tutorial at Persia Lou.
21. Waffle and Mrs. Buttersworth
Breakfast is a criminally underused Halloween theme. One honest warning: this comes from a party photo, not a tutorial, so what follows is how I’d build it. The syrup bottle is a floor length brown satin gown with a full skirt, a printed Mrs. Butterworth’s label fixed to a red plaid apron and a yellow bucket worn as the cap, which is the piece that makes people say the name out loud. The waffle is a circle of foam board scored into a grid with the back of a craft knife, painted in two shades of tan so the wells read as shadow, with a pat of butter cut from a sponge and ribbon straps over the shoulders.
Get the full tutorial at Erin Isabel.
22. Last-Minute Cat and Laser Pointer Couple Costume
The cat is good. The laser pointer is the part that made me laugh. Heather and Mikael got one hour of warning for a party and put two DIY costumes together from what they already had. Last year’s lion ears got safety pinned near the top to make them pointy, then wrapped in small black socks. The tail is one leg cut off an old pair of leggings, stuffed with pillow batting and hidden at the waistband under a black sweater. Nose, whiskers and cat eyes went on with black eyeliner. His half is all black with a printed Danger, Laser Radiation sign colored in with red marker and a camping headlamp switched to red mode, which is the detail that sells it. Costumes that only work when the two of you stand together are the ones people remember, and this pair landed on Reddit the next day.
Get the full tutorial at Coolest Homemade Costumes.
23. Beetlejuice Couple Costume
Both of these masks start with a helmet or a sun visor and a sheet of poster paper taped into a rough cone shape over it. Heather covered each one in a few layers of papier mache, then sculpted stretch marks and eye ridges out of air dry clay once it dried so the sandworm skin texture actually shows up. The teeth are what really sell it, close to 75 of them made from square wooden beads and air dry clay, hot glued in rows along the mouth. Styrofoam balls painted and sealed with mod podge become the bulging eyeballs. Pair it with a plaid shirt and tan pants for him and a floral dress and curly wig for her, and you’ve got a couple people will recognize even if they haven’t seen the movie.
Get the full tutorial at Homemade Heather.
24. Matching DIY Lego Brick Costumes
A cardboard box, a can of spray paint and a hole punch is the entire supply list. Cut the flaps off first, then cut the leg, arm and head holes. Keep those flaps, because they turn into the studs: trace circles on them with a marker, cut them out and glue them to the front once the paint is completely dry. Punch two holes in the back and tie ribbon into loops so the brick rides on your shoulders instead of sliding down all night. The photo is two kids, since that’s who Kids Activities Blog built these for, but the site says the same box works for adults, so two grown-ups in matching bricks in different colors is a genuinely funny couples costume.
Get the full tutorial at Kids Activities Blog.
25. Arrested Development
There’s always money in the banana stand, and there’s almost nothing to this costume. Camille and her husband went as George Michael and Maeby working the family’s frozen banana stand, so the whole look is a pale yellow polo, khakis and a blue apron carrying the Bluth’s logo, plus a name tag each. His reads Mr. Manager. They made duplicates of the uniforms, and since the logo patch and the tags are the only parts you have to produce, a printout glued onto a plain apron gets you there in an evening. Then they carried a tray of frozen chocolate covered bananas into the potluck and it was empty in five minutes, so bring the food from the show and make two trays. That’s the part I’d copy before I copied the aprons.
Get the full tutorial at Friday We're In Love.
26. Wednesday and Pugsley Addams Family Costume
Pugsley’s whole look comes down to one striped tee, and Allison found hers ready made instead of spray painting stripes onto a plain shirt. Pair it with black shorts, black socks and black shoes and that half of the costume’s basically done. Wednesday’s collar is the real project, cut from white felt using Allison’s free pattern or SVG file if you’ve got a cutting machine, then tacked into a loop and closed with a safety pin. A black wig braided into pigtails and a simple black dress with opaque tights round out the rest, no makeup needed since Wednesday’s supposed to look pale.
Get the full tutorial at Dream a Little Bigger.
27. DIY Couples Scarecrow Costumes
These scarecrow costumes are proof you don’t need to sew a single stitch to pull off a good couples costume, safety pins do basically all the work here. Her look starts with a chambray dress and a plaid collar, a rope belt and a sunflower pinned at the waist, then burlap and raffia patches pinned on for that classic straw texture. His side is a plaid flannel over distressed jeans with the same burlap patches and suspenders, plus a straw hat to match hers. A little rosy blush, a stitched-smile line drawn with eyeliner and an orange triangle nose finish the scarecrow makeup without needing any real face paint skills. Almost everything comes from a closet or a thrift store run, which makes this an easy one to pull together fast.
Get the full tutorial at Simple Made Pretty.
28. Mary Poppins
Nobody recognizes Mary Poppins from the blouse. The silhouette and the props are what sell her: a white high-neck top with puffed sleeves, a red bow at the throat, a black midi skirt with a red belt and white gloves. Then the pieces doing the actual work, a black straw hat trimmed in flowers, a checked carpet bag and a black umbrella hooked over one arm. Bert is a gray flat cap, a gray vest over a gray shirt, a red plaid scarf knotted at the neck, suspenders and dark pants, plus a chimney sweep brush that turns him from a guy in a vest into Bert. Keiko Lynn says she and Bobby threw these together at the last possible moment and took a few liberties, which is my kind of Halloween couples costume, recognizable from across a room and forgiving up close.
Get the full tutorial at Keiko Lynn.
29. Gomez and Morticia Addams
Everything here is hair, posture and one thin mustache. Gomez is a dark suit, a white shirt and a patterned tie with his hair slicked flat, and Morticia is a floor-length black dress with long sleeves and a wide neckline, hair parted down the middle and hanging straight. That’s a no-sew DIY couples costume built entirely from clothes people already own, which is rarer on this list than you’d think. Jodie photographed her whole family as the Addams clan back in 2010, Wednesday and Pugsley and Cousin It included, and she staged it against a peeling old house a couple of blocks from her own that her kids were convinced was haunted. That’s the real tip here. This one lives or dies on the picture, so find a porch, an old door or a bare tree, and do the arm kiss.
Get the full tutorial at Just Jodie.
30. Johnny and Moira Rose Costume
If you and your partner already own mostly black clothes, this Schitt’s Creek costume is basically sitting in your closet right now. Moira’s whole look is built on a black shirtdress, or a white button-up under black bottoms if that’s what you’ve got, then a statement layer on top, a fur vest, a leather jacket or a boxy blazer all read as her over-the-top style. Add a chunky necklace, dark sunglasses and a wig if you want to commit further, and black tights or fishnets depending on the weather. Johnny’s side is even simpler, just a sharp black suit. Lora pulled her whole costume together the day before a party from pieces already in her closet, which is exactly the kind of last-minute win this list is for.
Get the full tutorial at Craftivity Designs.
31. Salt And Pepper
The blogger this photo is credited to would like you to stop making this costume. Darlene called salt and pepper overdone back in 2012 and asked everyone to please end the madness, and she isn’t wrong, exactly. Here’s my counterpoint. It’s 6pm on Halloween and you’ve got nothing. This is one of you dressed head to toe in white and the other head to toe in black with a big S and a big P on the chest. Then you both put on a gray knit beanie, and that beanie is the entire reason it reads as a salt and pepper set instead of two people wearing letters. Cut the letters from felt or an old shirt in the opposite color, whichever you already have. Overdone isn’t the same as bad, and nobody at the party is going to be mad at you.
Get the full tutorial at My Burning Kitchen.
32. Spartan Cheerleaders from "SNL"
Two matching sweaters in school colors, pleated skirts, knee socks and a pair of pom poms, and the joke is the enthusiasm rather than the outfit. Iron on letters spell the school across the chest. It is a no sew, all thrift store build, and it is one of the few costumes on this list that gets funnier the longer you stay in character. Amy Allender gathered the unique grown up costumes.
Get the full tutorial at Amy Allender.
33. Jon Snow And Ygritte
Fair warning before you plan around this one. It’s a photograph, not a tutorial. The Verge walked San Diego Comic-Con in 2014 shooting its favorite cosplayers and ran 14 of them, this Jon Snow and Ygritte included, so treat it as a reference shot rather than a project plan. What’s worth stealing is how each half is layered. Hers is a hooded coat buried in shaggy cream fur and mottled hide panels, with a leather strap across the body and a wooden bow in hand. His is all black with an enormous fur mantle over the shoulders and a harness of straps and buckles. Buy both coats and build the fur, straps and buckles onto them instead. Start in the men’s outerwear rack at a thrift store, and let the beard grow now.
Get the full tutorial at The Verge.
34. The Tourists
10 minutes and zero craft supplies, assuming you can borrow a fanny pack. Two wide-brim hats with chin cords, two white polo shirts, cargo shorts on one of you and cargo capris on the other, white socks under sandals. Then pile on everything a tourist hauls around: a camera on a neck strap, the fanny pack worn at the front, a cross-body bag, a bandana at the collar and an enormous backpack. Hazel and Justin wore this in 2010 in the middle of a year-long trip around the world, and her whole caption was a hope that dressing as obnoxious tourists meant they knew what not to do out there. The peace signs are free. So is looking mildly lost, which is the part most people forget to commit to on a DIY Halloween costume for couples.
Get the full tutorial at Justin and Hazel.
35. Edward Cullen + Jane
A mom made that coat so her daughter could enter a costume contest at a Twilight convention in Dallas. The character is Jane of the Volturi and the coat is the whole build: mid-grade suit fabric, a flannel lining, a deep hood lined in red, three oversized gold buttons and a crest pendant on a long chain. Edward next to her is a gray button-up with the sleeves pushed up, dark jeans, pale makeup and hair pushed straight off the forehead, which is about as low-effort as a named character gets. Miss Jena said she felt like she just threw the costume together. A lined hooded coat is a real sewing project no matter how casually anyone describes it. Shoot the photo in black and white with only the red left in.
Get the full tutorial at The Pin Junkie.
36. Rapunzel and Flynn Rider Costume
This Tangled costume is a great pick if you want a couples costume that still works for a daytime Halloween event or even a Disney trip, like the one it was actually photographed at. Her look is a lavender dress with ruffled sleeves, a red wig and a plush Pascal pinned to one shoulder, easy pieces to track down without a custom build. His side is just a chambray shirt, a vest and a satchel slung across the body, which is honestly a costume you could half-assemble from a closet. Together they read instantly as Rapunzel and Flynn without needing face paint, prosthetics or anything complicated. It’s proof a couples costume can be recognizable from a Disney movie without turning into a full cosplay project.
Get the full tutorial at Polka Dot Chair.
