I love pinterest. Maybe not as much as some of my friends or brides but on a Thursday night when The Office has a rerun, you’ll find me pinning wedding photos and recipes. Now that I’m pregnant I’ve kinda taken a break because it sorta makes me hungry, hungry for food I don’t have in my house. Anywho, I tend to over share. So today I really wanted to talk about how pinterest and benefit your wedding day and how maybe it can leave you a little bit disappointed. As a professional in the wedding industry, I never want to leave my brides disappointed but unfortunately I worry that pinterest can lead to this.

I first want to tell you a little story about my engagement. I didn’t have pinterest or a lot of the blogs you see today but I had wedding magazines that I had been storing up for years. Some outdated some were recent. I also had my little notebook that I cut photos out and stuck them into, all categorized by flowers, cake, dresses, etc. I lived and breathed weddings, before and after I got married, which brings me to my point. Obsession. Oh it can get you and bite you in the butt. I somehow walked away from my wedding in awe of how beautiful and amazing it was but it went by so fast. I have things I wished I would have done but its hard to talk about. Since I shoot weddings every weekend for almost 6 to 7 months, I literally have had to bury away the “I wish I would have done this” stuff. Because again, I was obsessed. I’ll tell you one personal story and then I’m done talk about myself 🙂 I went down to Cincinnati, you know, bridal row! We first went to European Bridal where I tried on several beautiful yet expensive dresses. There was a dress I tried on in Indiana that I thought I liked and we found ourselves upstairs instead of downstairs accidentally where the dresses were much more expensive. So here I was, the dreamer of all brides trying on a Lea Ann Belter dress named Haylee. I remember walking out of the dressing room thinking, I found the one. My mom, grandma and sister were all amazed, it was gorgeous. The price tag on the other hand, was not. Its hard for an obsessed wedding dreamer like myself to wrap my head around the whole picture, the big picture like a budget. Its just a dress, its the shoes, veil, moms dress, sisters dress, tuxes fro my dad and brother, venue, food, beverages, flowers, linens… need I go on? So we walked away with my little 4×6 card of the picture of the dress and walked right across the street to Bridal and Formal. I was in a state of shock that for the first time I thought I found the one but in reality couldn’t be the one, made me dizzy. I was in a sea of WHITE and I couldn’t really breathe. As if things couldn’t get worse, you have to change in this huge room so with my southern grandma that talks above a normal level, my opinionated mom and blunt sister, here I was trying on all these dresses. Right before the show started here comes my mom with this dress in a bag… “It has a bow, some sparkle like you said the other one was missing, pleads and its a great price.” Since I was still in this dizzy state of shock, I was like okay! I don’t think I pulled one dress from the rack. I kept going towards Vera Wang and Amsale which we already established that those were not in the budget. So as the show began we took the one my mom found out of the bag and I slipped it on… it was everything I wanted. Since the Lea Ann Belter was missing that little sparkle I wanted it was just perfect. How could I have found the dress of my dreams for just $700? So here is my point to this story. In all my days of dreaming I had this idea that my dress would be the most expensive thing and it wasn’t. So what got me into trouble? Say yes to the dress! That stupid little tlc show, okay so not that stupid but it did get me very confused. So months later here I was trying on dresses at stores in Columbus making myself think, there is no way the ONE is this cheap, I must go look on. So I call Bridal and Formal and tell them I have second thoughts and to my surprise my dress was coming in that weekend. So we go on down to Cincy with my dad this time and I slip on the dress with the biggest crinoline slip they had {because it needed to be bigger} and I walked out and my dad just lit up. He couldn’t stop taking pictures, said I was beautiful. How did I ever doubt that this was the one? It fit me perfectly, no alterations were needed. I had to stuff my bra a little but no one touched the dress, it was made for me. So what got me into trouble? Obsession. I couldn’t stop looking, I couldn’t stop second guessing myself.

If I was getting married today I’d have a hard time not looking at photos on pinterest. So I am putting myself in my brides shoes and thinking, how can pinterest help me not hurt me. Here are some of my tips for Pinning in a positive way!

1. Pin with Purpose! This is hard for even me, I feel like pinterest is a way to be creative yet drown out whatever is going on around you. So when getting on pinterest, pick a category and stick to it. Say “Today I’m going to be some ides for bouquets.” Getting on and pinning everything you see makes your head go a little crazy and you’ll find that your boards are a little scatter brained so having direction helps. If your colors are Navy blue and White, pin photos with that same style. Style Me Pretty has a great section on their site that shares photos of those color boards!

2. Get organized! Get those boards organized girl! Don’t just have a board that says wedding, make a boquet board, centerpiece board, wedding party board, dress board {only if you don’t have a dress}, shoes, Photo Ideas, and Vendor board {I’ll explain this one} Being organized will help when you pin with purpose, and when you meet with a vendor you’ll be able to show them what you’re talking about.

3. Vendor Board! I love this one because it involves me haha 🙂 Get on those vendors blogs and pin them. You chose them for a reason so embrace their photos, ideas and creativity and share with friends who you chose. As a photographer I love seeing people pin our photos, especially my own brides. So follow your vendors and get to know them, you won’t regret it.

4. Be Realistic! Oh this is the hard one… because lets face it… we all have a dream house board! So I’ll be honest, when I see Ohio brides pinning beach weddings I think to myself… seriously? You getting hitched on Alum Creek beach? Unless you’re getting hitched up in Lake Erie lets be realistic, there will be no beach pictures taken. So you can have a pretty picture board but be realistic and look at photos that may relate to your wedding. Look at your own photographers photos and pin their photos. You’ll most likely have photos similar to those since they are taking your pictures and not Jasmine Star. I love seeing photos that inspire my brides, gives me a taste for what their style is so posing and lighting I love to see but for your own good, be realistic. When you see photos with that yummy lighting, right before the sun kisses the earth… remember that if you’re taking your photos at 12 in the afternoon, it’ll be slightly difficult to get that look. So do your research, ask your photographer how you can get that look achieved in your wedding photos. If they are anything like me… they’ll jump on the chance to get you outside at sunset!

5. Delete! When you buy that dress, you delete that wedding dress board! 🙂

6. Follow the Pros! Check out pros on pinterest like myself and other vendors in your area. You can also follow some bloggers like Style Me Pretty  Martha Stewart Weddings   Ruffled   You’ll benefit so much from following pinners like them!

7. Look up those Ryan Gosling “Hey Girl” photos… you will die they are so funny.

 

Okay so I hope I didn’t talk too much and someone gets something out of this! I tend to overshare and talk a little more then usual when just typing away. With that said, happy pinning! 🙂

{Ashley}