Ok, hands up if your “Dream Wedding” board on Pinterest has over 500 pins. Just about everyone reading this? Yup that’s what I thought.
Since we were 5, we have been dreaming of our wedding day, saving ideas in our heads, making lists on our computers. Then, Pinterest was invented, and ever since then, we ladies have been obsessively pinning to our wedding boards. Heaven forbid if anything ever got deleted from that board, I mean, we NEED that board, we NEED all those ideas!!
Herein lies the problem with Pinterest, because now, you’re finally engaged to the man of your dreams, you finally get to use that “Dream Wedding” board, but it’s filled with 500 pins that you’ve collected (and refused to delete) over the last 5 years!!! Yes, it’s gorgeous, but it’s also confusing and has no direction. This is real now. You, sweet bride, have to take that “dream wedding” you have in your head and turn it into a reality. And Pinterest makes that HARD. Today, I want to help you change your unhealthy Pinterest ways and show you how to effectively use Pinterest to plan your wedding.
Now, don’t worry, you don’t need to go delete your wedding board on Pinterest, but I’ve come up with 3 steps to help you use that overwhelming board to narrow down on a direction and feel for your wedding day.
1. START SMALLER
It is impossible to not feel overwhelmed looking at a board with over 500 pins. Narrowing things down will help a lot! Again, I’m not telling you to delete your original board, but try this: Create a completely new board – start fresh! Revisit your old board and repin things to your new board. Filter out all of those older ideas you don’t like as much anymore. Hopefully, now you’ll have a season picked out, so if you’re getting married in the summer, get rid of all the fall and winter pins! Try to get this new board down to under 50 pins.
2. NOW, GO EVEN SMALLER
I challenge you to have a final wedding Pinterest board with between 12-15 pins. I know, hard! When I plan a styled shoot, I force myself to stay within these limits. Your final wedding inspiration board should be the same! You don’t need to pin every single idea that you want to incorporate in your wedding. Instead, I recommend pinning images that create the overall feeling you want for your wedding day – some of them don’t even need to be wedding-related! Find similarities in your 50 pinboards and aim to collect the images that reflect those things.
Notice this board only has 14 pins (you can’t see all of them from this screenshot), yet just by looking at it, you can see the overall feel desired for the wedding. It’s light and airy – perfect for a beach wedding. The colors are soft blues and neutrals with a few pops of bright colors. There are even pins for guestbook, favor, and place card ideas. 14 pins can say a lot!
3. THE FINAL BOARD
When I’m helping my brides come up with a direction for their wedding day, I let them do those first 2 steps. Then, I step in and use that board of 15 pins to create a final inspiration board in Adobe Illustrator. This is where I really narrow in on the colors and pull in more specific elements. To further our Beach Inspiration example, I’ve used the Pinterest board shown in the previous step to create the final inspiration board shown below!
Now, even though we have fewer pins, we really see a direction in this board. We have a distinct color palette that I’ve created using the color blocks in the board – a richer pool blue, a light seafoam, and a sandy tan. I’ve left the pops of color very subtle in the other images, keeping them pastels. There is an emphasis on the blue ombre shown through the wedding dress, cake, and mason jars. We see beach accents like the driftwood and seashells that could be incorporated into many aspects of the wedding. And how fun is the taffy?! Off-topic, but I love that as a guest favor! Does this mean the bride needs to have a blue tulle wedding dress? No, absolutely not! In fact, I encourage you not to copy exactly what you find on Pinterest. Instead, think of other ways to incorporate blue ombre, driftwood, and seashells into your decor. This board should be your inspiration, not something to copy from. Having a board like this really gives a direction to the design of the wedding and can be used again and again throughout the planning process to ensure the design remains cohesive.
If you don’t know how to create a board as I’ve shown above, I highly recommend checking out this post on how to create a clean and cohesive inspiration board.
Having a cohesive inspiration board for your wedding is so beneficial when you’re planning and designing details for your big day. I hope these tips helped to convince you to take the time to create a final inspiration board for your wedding like I’ve shown above. It will really help you narrow in on your color palette and direction, and it will also keep you from feeling too overwhelmed! As always, I love to help, so feel free to leave any questions you have on this topic in the comments below!