Some time ago, I remember hearing someone joke about a bride, “Yeah, in the last couple months leading up to her wedding, we had to keep her off Pinterest because she would keep finding more and more new projects for the wedding!”

That’s the whole point of Pinterest — to find and pin things that catch your interest and spark inspiration somewhere inside you, probably in that same part of your brain that makes so many brides, even the non-crafty ones, itch to pick up a glue gun and start playing with fonts and Photoshop. And it’s great for that. Unfortunately, I missed the Pinterest boat, since it was (literally) invented the month after my marriage took place. I would have been over the moon at how easy it is to build your dream wedding inside Pinterest’s beautiful boards.But there are also some drawbacks to Pinterest — some things a lot of brides don’t understand.

What you see on Pinterest is the highlight reel.

A wise woman (her name is Dawn Davis, in case you were wondering) once told a room full of photographers that we should never compare our behind the scenes to someone else’s highlights reel — as in, don’t look at our businesses and our lives, about which we know every unflattering detail, and compare it to the brave, perfectly made-up face someone else has presented to the world. The same really goes for weddings, and Pinterest is the perfect place to illustrate that. What you’ll find on Pinterest are photographs that dozens if not hundreds or thousands of people have pinned and re-pinned because they find them inspiring. But you don’t get to see the backstory. You don’t know what kind of work or sacrifice went into putting these details you’re drooling over together. Maybe these brides are naturally incredibly craft people and had a great time. Maybe they had wedding planners who took care of all the details. Maybe some of these brides cried into their rainbow of ribbons for two weeks straight as they wove the bunting for their ceremony or tied together cute welcome packets for their guests.

My whole point is that Pinterest is the ultimate hightlight reel. If every aspect of your wedding can’t be snazzy enough to garnish hundreds of repins, don’t worry about it. You’ll still love your wedding.

Pinterest invites brides to bite off more than they can chew.

Now, I succeeded at biting off more than I could chew without the aid of Pinterest, but I think Pinterest makes it even easier. See cute idea, pin it to “Wedding Plans” board. Go through “Wedding Plans” board during your engagement and frantically try to recreate everything you pinned. Don’t. Don’t give yourself too much to stress over. Guard your time so you don’t feel as if wedding planning is your double-overtime job and the rest of your life is just what you squeeze in between trips to the craft store.

Pinterest can inspire recreations rather than real, personal ideas.

Some brides hop on Pinterest and immediately begin cooking up great new plans for their wedding, details that are meaningful to the couple and their families, and find ideas that will enhance their pre-existing plans. But there are also some brides who get on Pinterest and simply want to recreate cute DIY projects simply for the sake of having cute things at the wedding. That can be fine and good, but it isn’t the point of the wedding, and it’s a shame when brides get more caught up in making their weddings pin-ready instead of making their weddings truly personalized. I’m a sucker for deeply personal details at weddings. Danny and I, and our family and friends, worked hard to make sure our wedding overflowed with things that were personal — things that were meaningful to us. Everything had a reason. Years down the road, those reasons are what you’ll remember and hold onto; if you simply recreate ideas that were personal to other people but are only decorative for you, they aren’t things you’ll look back on fondly. They’re things you probably won’t really even recall except when you look at your photographs.

The same goes for portraits. Perusing Pinterest for wedding photography ideas can help you figure out the style of photography you’d like to have, but something I always encourage my couples to remember is that if we spend time recreating other people’s photographs, we’re cutting into the time you have to create photographs that genuinely reflect you and your wedding day. My suggestion is always to limit the number of recreated photographs to three or fewer.

In summary:

Pinterest is an amazing tool, for brides and for anyone search for ideas and inspiration. But like any tool, it has specific uses. Use it for wonderful inspiration, but don’t use it as a measuring stick or a to-do list.

Happy planning!

~ Laura