Brides today live in the age of the Do It Yourself wedding and the wonderful world of Pinterest and Etsy. Gone are the days of just picking your cake and bridesmaid dresses, and leaving the rest of the decisions to the venue. Now you’re given the option to personalize every element of your wedding day— which isn’t always a comfort. The process that is supposed to be fun and exciting can quickly become overwhelming and discouraging.
As someone who was planning my own wedding (and is admittedly a control freak), I knew that I wanted to have a hand in every decision regarding our big day. I had a fine-tuned wedding board on Pinterest that I had been working on before I even met my fiancé, and created a second one when we got engaged.
I spent hours pouring over all of the ideas I had gathered over the previous months, and found myself completely overwhelmed with all that was in front of me. All of the hand printed signs, homemade decorations, and adorable bridesmaid gift ideas that I had spent months gathering— I would have had to move into Hobby Lobby in order to get everything done that I wanted to!
So, I had to accept something that no bride likes to admit— I couldn’t have it all. All of these beautiful ideas and fairytale weddings that I had gathered weren’t real, or practical, for the time, money, and energy that I was going to be able to put forth. And at the end of the day, it was just too much.
I began cultivating my favorited Etsy items and Pinterest boards like a garden, removing the things that were unnecessary or too expensive to make worthwhile, and retaining the things that I truly wanted to create.
As the first few months of our engagement went by, our wedding ideas began to take shape. We moved forward with a few original ideas, and adopted some new ones along the way that I hadn’t yet considered.
The wedding that we created, while still heavily influenced by both Pinterest and Etsy, it was far from perfect. Our centerpieces will probably never end up in an award- winning magazine and if we did people would probably think we have ADD, because we ended up with elements of about 6 different themed weddings— but that’s ok.
I always tell my brides that no matter what goes wrong, at the end of the day you will be married. Fifty years from now it won’t matter how expensive your wedding cake was or whether your bridesmaids had the trendiest dresses of the year. What matters is the person you committed your life to that day fifty years before.
So take a deep breath, step back, and enjoy the imperfect process. Allow sites like Pinterest and Etsy enhance your wedding, not overpower it. And when you do go to Hobby Lobby— don’t forget your 40% off coupon!