Regardless of whether you’re recently engaged or have been engaged for a while, chances are one of the first things you did post-engagement was set yourself up with a wedding Pinterest board. Maybe you even had one with a plethora of ideas before your engagement. That’s understandable. Pinterest is a hub of inspiration, especially for weddings. However, there are definitely pros and cons to using Pinterest for wedding ideas. A “pro” of Pinterest is that it serves up a lot of content to get ideas from for designing your wedding. A “con” of Pinterest is that it serves up a lot of content to get ideas from for designing your wedding. Pinterest offers a variety of ideas for color palettes that work together, seasonal florals, wedding cake design, reception options, even ways to style your bridesmaids; the list truly goes on. With too many choices, it is easy to get carried away with pinning all kinds of images which can confuse you, cloud your vision, or dilute your unique wedding style. After all, you’re looking at other people’s weddings that have already been done, rather than truly designing your own.
Using Pinterest for Wedding Ideas Produces Unrealistic Expectations
While Pinterest is full of creative and beautiful ideas for weddings, these can come at quite the price tag, and sometimes well out of budget range. At HauteFêtes, I have experienced brides sending me their Pinterest wedding boards telling me, “I want my wedding to look just like this!” as they show me an image of a 300-person wedding tent with solid wood floors, a 15-piece band, multiple chandeliers, two 12’ bars, a couple of lounges, floral from floor to ceiling, and upgraded table settings galore. It truly is breathtaking. Realistically, however, their budget can only accommodate a couple of these design elements. When using Pinterest for wedding ideas, it’s easy for brides to get their hearts set on recreating a “look” without understanding the time, money, and effort that goes into actually producing it. Even though Pinterest is a wonderful guide to help inspire your wedding vision, to effectively use Pinterest to design and plan your wedding, make sure you’re open to feedback and suggestions from your wedding planner. A full-service wedding planner, such as HauteFêtes, can help you achieve the look you want while using items that are more budget-friendly and unique to you.
Using Pinterest for Wedding Ideas Puts You in a Box
There are a variety of terms couples use to describe their wedding design–bohemian chic, modern, European vintage, garden, rustic, Napa farmhouse–but what do these terms and phrases mean, really? And do they encompass every aspect of your vision for your wedding? Oftentimes, these categories can mislead your wedding planner because each of these terms and phrases comes to life in different ways across multiple weddings. One person’s “rustic-chic” is another person’s “farmhouse.” There is no need to put yourself in a box when it comes to designing your wedding. As an expert wedding planner and designer, at HauteFêtes, we encourage you to resist the urge to come up with a label for everything. After working with hundreds of brides, I have come to realize that when a bride uses a category to describe her wedding style, she is truly only interested in one or two elements of that style – she loves fringe, or vintage flatware, or wood tables and cross back chairs. There are ways to incorporate these elements into a unique wedding design without boxing yourself into categories.
Using Pinterest for Wedding Ideas Causes Wedding Envy
Unless you’ve been dreaming of your wedding day since you were a child and know every single detail you want to be incorporated, designing your wedding can be overwhelming. You may think you know yourself–what you like, dislike, enjoy, your “style,” etc.–but with so many choices available, you may quickly find it hard to narrow down your selections. Most weddings take between six and 18 months to plan. That is plenty of time to change your mind! At HauteFêtes, this is what we call “wedding envy.” One minute you want a blue and white beach-inspired wedding, the next your dream is to have layers of chintz and oversized florals as you imagine yourself in an English garden. The endless ideas on Pinterest only accelerate the rate of wedding envy. While it is important that your wedding day is everything you’ve dreamt of, changing directions during planning and design will affect everything from the dress you’ve chosen to your florals to your tabletop and even color palette – and this can have budget consequences, too.
To effectively use Pinterest for wedding ideas, do so in the beginning, prior to solidifying your wedding vision with your planner. Once you have discussed the details and agreed on the direction for your wedding, it is important to trust your wedding planner has everything under control and will produce an elegant, timeless, one-of-a-kind wedding for you. If you find something mid-planning that you just have to incorporate into your wedding, talk to your planner about it! At HauteFêtes, we have established relationships with wedding vendors and do our best to incorporate every element that you desire for your wedding, down to the last detail.
Using Pinterest for Wedding Ideas Produces Copycat Weddings
You know that totally gorgeous, ridiculously unique escort card display you just pinned? Well, chances are that thousands of other brides have thought it’s totally gorgeous and ridiculously unique too, and it’s been done–the same crafty ideas, just in different colors. As a wedding planner with expertise in design, when a couple asks me to copy something from another wedding, I try to encourage them to do something truly unique to themselves. That way, each couple has their very own event that represents their style, rather than having a big copycat fest.
How to Use Pinterest for Wedding Ideas Unique to You
With all that said, there is nothing wrong with Pinterest itself as a platform. The ability to easily save and categorize ideas and refer to them at a later date is beneficial when planning your wedding. Using Pinterest to help plan and design your wedding comes down to what you are pinning. At HauteFêtes, we suggest following these pinning tips to really make the most of Pinterest for your wedding.
1. Consider the Way You Live Now
One of the biggest mistakes a couple can make for their wedding is designing something completely different from their go-to style. It’s not uncommon to hear that the brides who drastically change their hair color for their wedding day or opt for an elaborate wedding when they traditionally host intimate gatherings tend to be less satisfied with their wedding choices than those who use their everyday life as inspiration for their wedding. Therefore, it’s important to let the way you live daily inspire your wedding vision. To do this, consider the following:
- What colors do you surround yourself with, such as for your home decor?
- How do you dress? Do you love wearing flowy sundresses or do prefer clean lines, crisp white tees, jeans, and leather slides?
- Do you prefer name brands or could you care-less?
- How do you and your fiancé entertain? Are large, formal parties or more casual and intimate gatherings the norm? This could make the difference between a bash for 200 versus a fête for 20.
There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. The more “you” your wedding day is the more enjoyable and one-of-a-kind it will be. At HauteFêtes, we look forward to incorporating unique elements into every wedding we plan and design. For example, one of our brides loved french fries, so instead of bread at the table when guests sat down for their meal, they were served baskets of crispy fries with homemade tomato jam.
2. Don’t Pin Other Couples’ Weddings
Rather than pinning pictures of other couples’ weddings, consider creating a board of things you love that inspire you for your wedding day. This will ensure you don’t simply recreate someone else’s special day but design a completely new wedding for yourself. Consider pinning interior designs, color combos, floral and foliage types, textures, patterns, fabric and hardscapes, moods, types of metals, even architecture, such as windows and doors. Really, anything you find aesthetically-pleasing, beautiful, and inspiring can be pinned for future use for your wedding. As you pin these elements, rather than other couples’ weddings as a whole, you will begin to notice cohesive themes. With the help of a full-service wedding planner, such as HauteFêtes, all of these individual elements can come together to create your unique wedding vision, one that could never be found under “boho-chic wedding.”
3. Pin Your Hobbies
To design a wedding that is true to you and your fiancé, consider how you met, what you enjoy doing together, and special elements of the life you are building. By pinning your hobbies and interests, you can find even more inspiration for your wedding experience. Are you and your significant other well-traveled? Consider incorporating elements of culture, travel, and adventure into your wedding design such as your escort card station. Do you enjoy reading books or watching movies? What are your favorites and why? There is much inspiration to be gained from the settings of movies or the context of books.
Do you enjoy cooking together or tasting unique or fine foods? Maybe you love tequila tasting which could be the source of inspiration for your Signature Sips cocktail. What are your favorite childhood memories? One of our brides inherited an heirloom set of teaspoons from her grandmother which we used for sorbets that were served to guests prior to the start of the wedding ceremony. Do you have something similar? When you seek wedding design inspiration from more than trending Pinterest weddings, what will emerge will be a much more accurate and true representation of your tastes. Even more, you will begin to develop a pictorial roadmap that will enable your wedding planner to design and produce a wedding that is curated to and inspired by you and your fiancé.
4. Pay Attention to the Details
Details are what make your celebration unique to you and your significant other, and investing in those details to let your guests know they are special is now more important than ever. Beautiful linens, personalized menus, specialty lighting, and upgraded rentals can all take your day to the next level, creating an intimate ambiance for your guests to enjoy and making your day even more unique. At HauteFêtes, we believe the details are in the design and the design is in the details.
Design Your Wedding Vision with HauteFêtes!
Using Pinterest in unique ways to inspire your wedding design will help you avoid creating a copycat of all the other wedding designs you see trending. A one-of-a-kind, curated wedding experience is only made possible by incorporating the unique elements of your lifestyle into your special day. While it takes finesse to marry Pinterest boards of hobbies and interior designs and food choices, an experienced wedding planner and design professional can do the seemingly impossible. Every detail matters and should be strategically planned and incorporated into your wedding vision so the finished product is a breathtaking, elegant, high-end wedding. At HauteFêtes, we want to partner with you from the beginning to ensure your wedding is tailored to you and your significant other. Please reach out to us today to start planning your not-just-another-Pinterest-wedding.
