Ah, Pinterest! I have such a love/hate relationship with you!
The non-photographer in me has spent countless hours looking at dream vacation destination, planning parties I’ll never throw and pinning desserts I will never be able to re-create.
BUT….
The photographer in me has a slightly different relationship with Pinterest.
While it can be a great tool to help brides plan their perfect wedding day, it can also set some pretty unrealistic standards that will rarely be lived up to.
In this article, I am going to break down some of the PROS and CONS for using Pinterest to plan your wedding.
PRO: There are tons of amazing ideas! If you are looking for something unique, creative or just plain fun…then Pinterest is the place for you. If someone has thought it….it probably exists somewhere on Pinterest.
CON: There are TONS of amazing ideas! Sometimes too many ideas can lead to overwhelm. I can’t tell you how many brides I have talked to early in their wedding planning process that feel completely confused on what they want because of all the options they have seen on Pinterest.
PRO: It’s great for brides on a budget. If you are looking to save money and do some of your wedding projects on your own, Pinterest is a great resource for tips and tutorials.
CON: It creates un-realistic expectations! There is a reason that #pinterestfail is a popular hashtag 🙂 All the beautiful photos and ‘easy to follow’ tutorials will make even the least crafty person think they can take on DIY tasks for their wedding day.
PRO: Get organized! For those of you that are visual people, like me, it’s helpful to see the full vision you have in images. With Pinterest boards you can easily accumulate all the details of your wedding day in one easy to see place.
CON: It can be mis-leading! Truth time…. A LOT of those gorgeous wedding photos you see on Pinterest aren’t from real weddings. They are usually from styled shoots or editorial sessions where everything has been perfectly styled and timelines are not realistic. They don’t accurately show what a real wedding day is like.
Overall, Pinterest can be a very helpful tool for planning your dream wedding. Not only can it give you some unique and creative idea, but it can help you to visualize how all the individual parts come together to make your wedding day! However, it does tend to create some unrealistic expectations about what your wedding should look like.
As a wedding photographer I have had my share of Pinterest-user brides and some have used Pinterest in a healthy way to help plan their wedding, while a few others have not.
Let me share two examples with you:
Bride A: We will call her Amy….
Amy knew she wanted her wedding to be creative, fun and something that her guest would remember. She used Pinterest to help her find budget-friendly decor and favor ideas along with a few photos ideas that she shared with me prior to her wedding day as examples of the type of photos she wanted to try and capture on her wedding day.
Bride B: We will call her Brittani….
Brittani wanted her wedding to be absolutely perfect. Every detail had to be exactly the way she envisioned it and she spent hours on Pinterest looking at other weddings and trying to re-create the ideas she found. On her wedding day she kept her phone close by so she could refer to her Pinterest photos through out the day to make sure she was getting the exact images she had on her Pinterest board.
While both brides are using Pinterest to help create their dream wedding day, Amy had a healthy relationship while Brittani was a little too obsessed with everything being ‘just perfect’.
Do you want to know what your wedding photographer prefers….
Amy had the right idea. She shared her Pinterest photos with me ahead of her wedding day, letting me know WHY she liked each photo. She didn’t expect me to re-create each image, but instead she wanted me to know the emotions and feelings that she wanted to make sure were captured. Trusting me to use that information to create images unique to HER wedding day.
There is nothing wrong with having a few photos to share with your photographer….we want to know what you like and expect from your big day. BUT, please do not ask your photographer to re-create an image…you will only end up disappointed.
You wouldn’t walk into a restaurant and ask the chef to re-create a recipe you found on Pinterest. You trust that the chef is an expert….so do the same with your wedding team. They are the experts, so let them do what they do and who knows…..
Another bride-to-be might be pinning YOUR wedding day images to their ‘Dream Wedding’ board on Pinterest!
Want more wedding planning tips….Check out these other helpful articles
10 Common Mistakes Brides Make
5 Things That Will Makes Your Guests Say “That Was The Best Wedding Ever!”
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