The Pinterest Bride – How Not To Go Crazy

Décor & Flowers, Planning & Advice

Ladies and gents – hands up those of you who remember what life was like before Pinterest? It wasn’t that well organised, was it? Do you remember anyone planning a wedding back in those days, using a thick scrapbook with loads of printed-out images pasted into it? Well, Pinterest made that big book unnecessary. No more copying and pasting, printing and sticking. Now, all the great ideas from all over the world could be filed in one beautifully organised place.

What started with pictures of fashion, sunsets and kittens soon turned into a wedding extravaganza. Brides all over the world rejoiced. Now when you look for anything weddingy, Pinterest always shows up. Real weddings are all over it, and so are photographers. It’s a veritable sea of images you could probably happily drown in. But, like all good things in life, it should be used in moderation.

We speak from experience when we say that there are brides who have been feeling all kinds of blue due to a Pinterest overdose. There are those who can’t make up their minds on their wedding theme, because there’s just too much choice. There are those who have already picked a theme, then changed their mind and spent well over the budget to change it completely. Then, there are those whose wedding had already happened, yet they continued looking at Pinterest and feeling sad that they didn’t have a different kind of wedding. Décor regrets, my friends, are not what you want to feel after your wedding day.

So we kindly ask – and advise – do not let Pinterest drive you crazy! How? Here are a few ways:

1. Like all good things, it should be used in moderation. Social media literally steals hours of valuable time you could use to do all kinds of other things – working, learning something new, quality time with your other half, or even sleeping. Try to put some kind of a healthy limit on it – for example, look only for specific things on any given day (cake, favours, shoes), and stop once you’ve accumulated a good bunch of photos. Then, on another day, you can take a fresh look at what you’ve collected, and eliminate the ones you like the least.

2. Don’t go into copycat mode. Be inspired by your favourite pictures, but if you simply want the same things that someone else had, then you’ll end up with a copy of someone else’s wedding, not your own. It’s a sure way to have regrets later – get seduced by lovely pictures, and later feel like there wasn’t any of ‘you’ in the wedding.

3. It’s not actually possible to have everything you see on there – can you imagine what a wedding with EVERYTHING you like would look like? You couldn’t even call it ‘eclectic’ – it would just be a jumble of ideas and lots of details, made all the less memorable by the fact that there’s just too many of them. To make an impact, less is what you want, not more. And don’t forget, your budget wouldn’t look very healthy either.

4. Keep in mind that most photos on there are professional and edited to look their best – giving you a slightly too-perfect view of other people’s weddings. We love those flawless pictures too, but they’re not quite how things look in real life. So don’t feel disappointed that your wedding may not look the same way – it doesn’t really matter. What guests remember the most from a wedding is not what it looked like, but the atmosphere.

5. Thanks to Pinterest, you’ll see a lot of things you don’t actually need for your wedding, but you’ll think you do. It’s a good practice anyway – in love and in real life – to ask yourself whether you need the things you happen to be buying. And you already know where that leads to, don’t you? Budget problems. And we know you don’t need those – you don’t want to spend your wedding day with money worries on your mind.

6. Pinterest makes everything look really easy, especially DIY projects. Yes, someone successfully made them – but it’s likely they were a professional, or a seriously skilled hobby crafter who spends hours doing this stuff just for fun. Then, someone photographed it really nicely too. Be suitably impressed – but look at it with a cool eye and assess realistically how many accessories or ingredients you’ll need for that job, and how many hours and helping hands.

7. Think of the type of wedding you want first – then go on Pinterest to search for it, not the other way around. Sure, you can look all you want, even when you don’t have a clear idea for your day yet. But beware, you may get overwhelmed. It’s best to discuss with your beloved what kind of wedding you’d like to have first, before you fall in love with things your partner won’t like.

8. Your final food for thought: we know you want your wedding to be memorable. And the only way to make absolutely sure of this, is to make it your own. Put your own heart and personality into it, let it shine through all that you do – from the vows to the last dance. Very few guests actually remember the décor or the favours – but they all remember the love.