If you are suffering from Pinterest and inspiration overwhelm, then this episode of The Bridechilla podcast might help you find clarity and ways to focus on using Pinterest to your advantage. Honing in on colors, textures and aesthetic details are can help you develop your own vision for your wedding. I am joined by designer Michelle Edgemont who shares her easy to follow technique to pin like crazy and then really focus on what you actually want, not just pinning thousands of images that confuse you. Check out Michelle’s blog below and listen to the episode!
Listen to episode 307 of Bridechilla
Using Pinterest Effectively to Design Your Wedding
When I got married, Pinterest didn’t exist. Can you even imagine?!? I had a folder on my desktop of all of my inspiration images, then I’d print them out, and put them in a binder. So old school! Now, you have this glorious site full of millions of images to organize and get inspired by. It can get overwhelming, especially if you are the one designing your own wedding. These 5 tips below are the same ones I give to my clients that hire me as their event designer. Before anything actually gets designed, we need a starting point of inspiration. All art has roots in inspiration from somewhere. Whether from fashion, sculpture, editorial shoots, or even other weddings, the design concept for your wedding will need a starting point. This is where pinterest comes in.
Photo by Brandon Rodkewtiz Photography
Photo by Brandon Rodkewtiz Photography
Step 1: Pin All The Things
Open up your pinterest account. Start a board called My Wedding Design. It can be secret if you don’t want anyone knowing about it, that’s fine. Now, start pinning. Pin everything that calls out to you. If you love the colors, pin it. If it’s a DIY idea, pin it. If it has your favorite flowers in it, pin it. Put everything and anything that you love for your decor on this board. You’ll pin color inspiration, flowers, table scapes, invitations, signage, lighting, linens, tents, etc. Anything that has to do with the look and feel of your wedding, pin it to this big My Wedding Design board. Now that you have everything pinned, we are going to edit. Open your My Wedding Design board. Scroll through the board. You should start to see some themes pop out right away. Maybe there is a lot of images that are pink? Or you see that you really love wild flower arrangements? Is everything sparkly and covered in glitter? Those themes that you see emerging, that’s your wedding aesthetic. Pick a few adjectives and make a new board with those adjectives. For example, Wild Flower Glitter Wedding or Vintage Travel Inspired Wedding or Black and White Modern NYC Wedding.
Photo by Levi Stolove Photography
Get Organized and cull, cull, cull!
Click on the button that says “organize” at the top right of your My Wedding Design board. Select everything that you absolutely love and CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT that fits into your wedding theme. Do not select images that you aren’t totally, head over heels, infatuated with. Copy your favorite images over to the My Favorite Wedding Designs board. The goal is to have no more than 30 pins on this favorites board. Yep, 30. That’s it. You might need to do a few rounds of edits to get to 30 pins. Try your hardest to only have a limited amount of inspiration images on your new board. You’ll still have all of the original images you love, but now you’ll have a second board that is more edited and ready to send to your wedding vendors.
Photo by Levi Stolove Photography
Step 2: Search globally, locally, and unconventionally
You’ll start finding pins using the search function on pinterest. More on this later. But for right now, search for whatever you think you love. Pink bouquets. Hanging lights. Barn tables. Whatever. Pin what you find that you love.Next, check out the big wedding brands’ pinterest accounts. Wedding Chicks, Brooklyn Bride, Style Me Pretty, The Knot, Martha Stewart Weddings, A Practical Wedding, etc. All the big wedding media companies will have robust pinterest accounts with thousands of pins for you to chose from organized into easy to navigate boards. This is a good place to get lost in for hours.
Photo by Sarah Tew Photography
Think local, using vendors in your area for inspiration
Then, search for decor vendors in the area you are getting married in and pin from their boards. Since these are the vendors you will hire anyways, might as well get inspired by their past work now. Google NYC Florist or Denver Professional Lighting or San Francisco Invitation design. Go to the vendor’s websites and find their pinterest boards. Look around and pin what you love. You will most likely be working with these local companies for your wedding and pinning their work will help you research which ones you love.
Look for wedding inspiration in unconventional places
Finally, look for inspiration in unconventional places. Your favorite museum’s pinterest page, fine art boards, corporate event boards are all good spots to start. Lifestyle bloggers and retail shops who’s styles resonate with you are a best bet too: SFgirlbybay, DesignLoveFest, OhHappyday, Madewell, Kate Spade, and Ban.do are some of my favorites. Pin anything to your big My Wedding Design board that speaks to you. Maybe it’s the color of a leather bag, or the way a store used signage, or the font on a t-shirt. Using elements that aren’t from someone else’s wedding are how you design a completely unique event.
Photo by Amber Gress Photography
Step 3: Collaborate with friends and family
Ok, take this piece of advice with a grain of salt. And know your audience. Meaning, you are only going to let your inner most circle of people access to your wedding pinterest. If your mom is being totally annoying, do not give her access. This opens the door for opinions. When opinions are disagreed with, feelings get hurt, and everything turns into a big mess. Your best friend, your sister, your mom (if she’s cool), are the people you can give access to your pinterest boards. They can pin neat images that they find. You can all add comments on certain images. You can get your trusted loved one’s opinions on your design ideas. It’s nice and helpful to bounce ideas off of one another. You do not need to bear the burden of designing your entire wedding yourself.
Photo by Amber Gress Photography
Step 4: Search Wisely
Here is my favorite way to search for images on pinterest: let’s say we are looking for colorful centerpieces. Search “colorful centerpiece”. A lot of the images that come up will be garbage mixed with sponsored pins and ads. Sift through all of that until you find an image you love. Click on that image so it gets bigger. Now scroll down. You’ll see a bunch of much more relevant images where you can find more inspiration that’s along the lines of the type of colorful arrangement you are looking for.
Photo by Amber Gress Photography
Step 5: Take a break
The most important tip is this one: TAKE A BREAK. Walk away from pinterest for days, even weeks. Come back with fresh eyes to edit your board. There are millions and millions of wedding inspirations online. You don’t need to see all of it. A lot of it is repetitive. Once you have your 30 pins on your second design board, you are done. Stop pinning. No more blog reading. No more searching for another image of a black and white bouquet when you already have five. This is the board you will use to design your wedding. Whenever you need to make a design decision, come back to this board and it will tell you what to do. This is how you design a cohesive event. The board makes the decisions for you. For example, do you use white or black envelopes for your invitations? Look at your design pinterest board. On the images of invitation suites, what color are the envelopes? Use that color. I hope these 5 Tips for using Pinterest to Design Your Wedding are helpful to you! You can follow more of my event design company on instagram @MEdgemontDesign and check out my pinterest page for lots of fun, colorful inspiration.
Show Cover Image by Amber Gress Photography
