Planning a Wedding in the Pinterest Era

Planning a wedding in the Pinterest era is both a tremendous blessing and a curse. I vaguely remember the day I was introduced to Pinterest...it was the fall semester of my freshman year of college, hanging out with a group of girlfriends, probably painting our nails and catching each other up on the day's happenings. A friend asked me if I had joined Pinterest yet, and started to talk on and on about the site and everything she'd discovered since joining. Once I heard that I could search through thousands of pins (related to outfits, quotes, and weddings, of course) and add them to their own specific boards, I was hooked. I, too, had to have a Pinterest account.

image via someecards.com

The trend caught on like wildfire and soon I was seeing the same twenty or so pins added to every girl's boards...you know, the cute fall outfit (complete with Starbucks cup and Ugg boots), the perfect wedding dress, the must-try-at-home soup recipe. It was my go-to website when a class was lulling me to sleep, or when my girlfriends and I wanted some downtime after a stressful day of tests. Within a month or so, my imaginary wedding was all planned out. My wedding board (aptly named: "The day I marry my prince". so basic. not sorry) was full of decorations and dresses and flowers and wedding pictures that screamed romance and beauty and well, perfection. I quickly discovered that's exactly what Pinterest is for...pinning "perfection". Sure, my hair will never look that great curled with tinfoil, and no, brownies don't taste as good without eggs, but hey, at least I can try, and Pinterest will tell me how to achieve it in 5 or so easy DIY steps!

When I actually got engaged, I revisited my Pinterest wedding board and found that almost all of the things I pinned a couple years ago (with no ring on my finger, mind you) no longer matched the vision I currently had for my wedding day, and if it did, I couldn't afford it. As I started actually planning our wedding day, I started getting disheartened that many of the aspects I wanted to include from my dream Pinterest wedding just couldn't be done, and if they could be, they surely wouldn't look like the picture! I wanted my wedding to be Style Me Pretty-worthy, like the weddings featured on Pinterest. Oh, those picture-perfect weddings that seemed to have gone off without a hitch. The weddings where every.single.detail was planned and executed without a flaw. The wedding that I wanted to have, or so I thought. Little did I know that many, many of the "wedding photos" are from styled wedding shoots and not actual weddings. Huh. Who would have thought?

image via someecards.com

I also quickly realized that with the budget I was working with, the budget that seemed SO big when I first started planning, wouldn't get me very far when planning my dream Pinterest wedding. So, what was I to do? I started from scratch, rebuilding my Pinterest wedding from the venue/dress/cake up. I started pinning things that offered more inspiration than just ideas for sheer imitation. I actually did end up pinning the wedding dress that did turn out to be my wedding dress, but that was totally just a fluke. I do plan on trying to execute some of the DIYs I have pinned, but on a much smaller (and less expensive!) scale.

I am no longer trying to plan the perfect, Pinterest-worthy wedding that I once was just several months ago. Of course, I would love for SMP to feature my wedding (what girl wouldn't?), but that's not the end goal of planning my wedding. The end goal is to marry my very best friend and host a lovely, awesome, wonderful party for all our friends and relatives. Our wedding day will be perfect to us, because it is just that...ours. The day will be full of love and laughter and tears and straight-up beautiful memories, and the decorations and cake and favors will have absolutely nothing to do with that.

Living in the Pinterest era can have it's perks, but for real-life brides trying to plan their dream weddings on a budget, it can be a real source of disappointment when their pins don't always become reality. I firmly believe the quote, "Comparison is the thief of joy". When we start to compare our weddings to those around us/on Pinterest, it can cause us to lose sight of what the most important aspect of the day is...marrying the love of our lives. By all means, pin your little hearts out, but don't let the comparison of "perfect" weddings steal your joy when planning your own.

Have any of you bride-to-be's felt the pressure of planning a "perfect" Pinterest wedding?