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 25 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.
DIY Couples Costumes
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. 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.
24. 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.
25. Piñata and Candy Couples Costume
One of you goes as the piñata and the other brings the candy, and the whole pair runs on crepe paper and hot glue. The piñata shirt is rows of 5-inch crepe paper fringe glued over masking tape, worked from the bottom row up so each layer hides the glue line beneath it, and the tape lets the fringe peel off so the shirt survives. A fringed cardboard cone headband finishes the look. The candy half carries a giant swirl lollipop made from foam gap filler and felt, light enough to hold all night, plus an optional baseball bat for a comic swing at the piñata. Every step is in the full piñata and candy costume tutorial on DIY JOY.
