Nashville weddings

The Pinterest Affect: Don’t Let Pinterest Ruin Your Wedding!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

While Pinterest is super handy and widely used, there is a growing chorus cautioning birdes against relying solely on Pinterest for their wedding. I spoke with a seasoned wedding photographer a few weeks ago and he loves Pinterest but cautioned against brides using it to dictate specific shots for their photographer. He mentioned that some brides depend heavily on Pinterest, thereby removing the creativity of their team. Other pros have seen brides completely copy Pinterest images and become disappointed when they can't achieve the exact look or go broke trying to do so.    

So what's a girl to do? You can't ignore Pinterest. It's a great tool. How can you use Pinterest to help you plan without creating a "Pinterest wedding"? Nashville wedding planner, Emily of Simply Yours Weddings, has many years of experience and has just the advice for Pinterest-using brides.

Guest Contributor: Emily of Simply Yours Weddings

So, you're engaged... Congratulations!!! Welcome to the world of wedding planning. Now whether you're on Pinterest just for the recipes, the DIY home projects, the fashion, the funny sayings, or whatever else, at some point on your feed, there has probably been something wedding related that has popped up as a repin from one of your friends. And maybe, just maybe, you've had a board (even a SECRET board - best move ever, Pinterest) where you have every so often pinned a little something, just to store it away for “some day.” OR maybe you've never even thought about it at all and Pinterest is a blip in a sporadic conversation! Either way, now that wedding planning is on your radar, let's talk about Pinterest and the role it can/does/already plays in the process ahead of you.

Pinterest is big deal. Why do I say that? When was the last time you attended a wedding and heard someone say “Oh I saw that on Pinterest!” Or when was the last time you received a gift and the gift giver said “I got the idea on Pinterest” OR what about the meal your friend wanted you to try and you say “Where did you get this recipe?” and her reply was “Pinterest.” Since it launched three years ago, Pinterest has grown into a social media phenomenon in our culture with its popularity only trailing a bit behind Twitter and Facebook. In such a short period of time, it's all ready a part of our culture's vocabulary.

Does that mean you can't plan a wedding without Pinterest? NO! You absolutely can! We were doing it this side of three years ago! What Pinterest has done is open up the communicative and creative options for vendors and brides alike as well as connect us better to the creatives who are out there selling décor or displaying ideas. However, with all of this information in one place... it's really easy to get carried away, especially if you have been one of those gals we talked about before who have been pinning with “some day” in mind for some time now. Styles change. Colors change. YOU change. Maybe the wedding of your dreams that you've pinned for so long isn't a true reflection of who you are now, or more importantly, what you can AFFORD now. SO, let's talk through some ways to use Pinterest to our advantage shall we? Whether you're a first time pinner or a veteran, these words of advice are for you:

1) Pin what you like; weed out to only what you love.

There is wishful pinning and useful pinning. If you really want to use Pinterest to the best of its ability in your wedding planning, be a useful pinner. This is probably the number one piece of advice I can give to you. Pinterest can be an incredible tool in your wedding planning, but it also can quickly become your budget and your ever-so-valuable time and sanity's worst enemy.

It's OK if you have been dreaming and scheming on Pinterest before now and even in your excitement of those first few days after you've gotten the ring! But now that you're trying to really be serious about planning your wedding, let's reel it in. Make sure you're pinning things now that actually reflect who you are now (and your fiance! Don't forget about him!). Then, how often do you pull up your Pinterest board for your wedding and look at it as a whole? You've got to look at it as a big picture. Does it all match? Do you care if it matches? Take the time to go through and weed out what you just happened to think was cute and creative and what is something you ACTUALLY like. Go through and make sure the pictures you've pinned are REALLY what you want, and think about WHY they're what you want!

Wedding planned by Simply Yours. Read more here.

2) Let your planner turn dreams into reality.  

Now that you've cleaned up your wedding board... hire a planner. (You knew there was going to be a shameless plug in here, right?) But seriously, this is where I would start looking for a planner. Once you've found the right one, with the planner being involved from the beginning, they can help you think through how to stay on track with your budget.

One of the biggest problems that Pinterest-driven wedding planning can present is doing things out of order. For example, do you build a house by starting with how you're going to decorate the walls? Of course not. You can dream and have a vision in mind for the finished product, but ultimately, you have to start with the foundation and the framework of what will make a sturdy home. Same in wedding planning. If you spend $1000 on personalized mason jars for your guests to take home at the end of the night but you don't even have a venue booked, you may have just set yourself up for budgetary failure. By having someone with experience helping guide you from the beginning, they can keep your ideas, dreams, and pins on their minds, but also lay a solid foundation before you move forward. Because of their experience, the planner can also spot what kind of bride you are based on what you're pinning.

Here's an example, I had a couple last year that had two different wedding looks in mind. We looked at two very different venues and they could honestly have seen themselves having their wedding at either place. One was a very modern and elegant location in downtown Nashville, one was a Southern Antebellum home in Franklin. However, the further the bride did research into who she really was and what she was really drawn to via images on Pinterest, she realized she was more and more at home in the environment of the Antebellum home. Would the wedding have been lovely at the other venue? Sure! But by having someone help her think through alllllll of the things she liked, she was able to narrow her vision into a more personal reflection of her and her fiance. And all of that was just in finding a venue.

3) Hire the right Nashville pros.

Once you've narrowed your vision, hired a planner and laid your foundation, your planner can now help you take your ideas from Pinterest and connect you with vendors that complement your style and start trying to help you make some of those great ideas you've found become a reality. Interested in a massive and modern crystal chandelier? Or how about whiskey barrels instead of the regular bistro tables? What if you don't want flowers but are more of a candlelight kind of girl? A planner can help connect you with vendors that carry the kind of things you're looking for.

4) Determine what's realistic.

Here's the other part where Pinterest-driven planning can hurt you: not everything on Pinterest can be replicated. Oh it's not about ability or creativity level, there are so many people that are realizing their ability to do things themselves because of Pinterest and the rise of DIY (do it yourself) instructive television shows and blogs. Ninety percent of the time it comes down to one of two things: time and/or money. Sometimes it's a matter of saying to yourself, “Self, do I want a band that's $3,500 or do I want the draping and lighting set up I found for my tent on Pinterest?” Now neither one of those are bad things! But do you have the money for both? Other times, it's a matter of saying to yourself “Self, I know that I can hand make all of our table numbers out sheet music and numbers I have cut out by hand, but its two weeks before my wedding and I haven't slept more than 5 hours in a month.” Can you do it? Probably. But should you? These are the questions, you have GOT to ask yourself when you take on Pinterest projects and when you make requests of your vendors during your planning.

Wedding planned by DIY bride with the help of Simply Yours. Read more here.

5) Practice your DIY projects.

Lastly, you've planned out your projects well in advance. You've balanced your budget to a T. You've wrapped twine and lace around hundreds of mason jars with your mom and your bridesmaids. Now its time to turn all the set up stuff over to that planner you've hired to set up all of your décor for you and you are in total getting married mode. The planner says to you “do you have candles for all of your jars?” And you say “Oh yes! My friend who got married last year gave me all her leftover candles and we bought boxes of what else we needed from (insert notable craft store here)!” Now, the planner looks at your candles and your mason jars and goes to put the candle into the jar... and it doesn't fit. I cannot tell you how many times things like this have happened to me. If you're going to have these projects, if you're going to spend all this money on these great ideas, TEST. THEM. And I mean test them BEFORE your wedding day. Test them as you go! Make sure that your executed plan is as great as your idea.

Like I said, Pinterest can be an incredible tool! It can help planners, florists, cake bakers, caterers, photographers, hair and make up stylists, and countless other vendors get to know you better as a bride and be more effective in how they help bring your vision to life, but not if your Pinterest doesn't look like you. Not if your Pinterest looks like a wedding you cannot afford. And not if your Pinterest is full of so many little projects that there is no room for the foundational things that help a wedding day run smoothly and distract you from the real part of the wedding: you and your fiance becoming husband and wife. So take my advice, train yourself to be a useful pinner and not a wishful pinner. If you just can't help the wishful wedding pinning though... make a secret board. That way you get your wishful pinning on but keep your real ideas in a place where you and your vendors can see them. ;)

Happy Pinning!... I mean, Planning!

Emily

Wedding planned by Simply Yours. Read here.

Emily provides great advice above. I will go one step forward, all of the advice above that applies to Pinterest also applies to wedding blogs, bridal shows, and wedding magazines. The truth is, there are beautiful things all around so you can easily replace Pinterest with blogs, magazines, bridal shows. Be savvy and try not to get overwhelmed.

About the Author:

Ashley King

Hey - I'm Ashley! I started AshleysBrideGuide.com to give Nashville brides, or folks planning a Nashville wedding, a local resource for inspiration and resources. Hope to see you at a bridal show soon! Until then, Find me on Google+.

See more posts by Ashley King »

send   Posted on January 24, 2013 | Filed under: Advice & Planning, Wedding Planners & Coordinators,