Hate the Pin, love the Pinner. Doesn’t it say that in some wedding vendor bible somewhere? Well, I’m here to tell you: When it comes to getting your inspiration from Pinterest, wedding ideas are more or less an afterthought.

Everyday Pinterest vs. Wedding Pinterest

Truth be told, I f*cking love Pinterest. I’ve been on there since it looked like the cork board at your local YMCA. But combine Pinterest with wedding planning, and your average recently engaged human completely loses it. Seeking an otherwise pleasant (if aspirational) curation experience, they naively wander into the k-hole that is wedding Pinterest and cut their tether at the sight of a silk ribbon spool.

That said, Pinterest and event design go together like carats and cake. Yes, there are tons of ads and a complete lack of diversity or representation. But, when used fastidiously, it’s a truly useful tool for communicating who you are to your wedding vendors. Read that again: Who. you. are.

When you reach out to Idyllwild, I ask if you have a Pinterest board. But I’m here to tell you that I’ve already seen every wedding-based image on there. I look at that stuff every day, and there’s nothing new in the land of Pinterest wedding ideas.

Sure, I take a casual glance at your wedding board, which usually has a forgettable name like “Wedding”. It’s useful to see what wedding content piques your (p)interest, and whether the things you’re pinning are something I can provide access to, but the actual wedding-based ideas on Pinterest are less useful than you may think. I’m actually there to thoroughly peruse your furniture board, your recipe board, and your artwork board. I look at your jewelry pins, your travel pins, and the pins you save for work (hi, fellow teachers) …and I piece together a mental sketch of your personal style, how you like to have fun, and what you value.

Wedding Vendors Don’t Expect You to be the Expert

Deep curation is my job, and I know that. I do all that research because most people are not like Emma B, a floral client of ours who’s a hiker and a literature buff, who let me help identify her needs, who came to her first consultation with a perfectly curated Pinterest board of dreams that was also magically within her budget, and who read and signed her contract before it was due. She also gave me about 75 reasons why her partner is the best partner anyone could have.

Oh no, most mere mortals are pinning stuff like this:

To be crystal clear, I’m not throwing shade at the couples themselves. Most have never produced a large event, are not designers, and have no idea what anything costs. They’re certainly not used to translating their whole relationship into an experience for other people to enjoy. And they definitely don’t realize that I have no idea what it was about this image that spoke to them. Why should they?

The marriers are not the issue. I’m bemoaning the pervasive pinning habit of putting an image like this next to an infographic about DIYing your dream wedding for $14. Folks just don’t know where to look or what to look for, and there’s a ton of misinformation out there. I myself have produced some pretty luxurious fake weddings, but that’s because most regular people don’t even know what’s possible until they see it.

The thing is, I’m not interested in recreating anything that’s already been done, nor should you be. That’s why I’d rather hear your story, learn about how the two of you spend time together, what you read, what you like to eat, your politics, your cultural influences, and how you interact with your friends when you’re at your most relaxed.

Pinterest is a Tool, Not a Toy

When you follow Idyllwild on Pinterest -and please do, it’s a young account that could use your support- you’re going to see a whole bunch of themed boards that I’ve created. But the actual inspiration for Idyllwild’s body of work usually has nothing to do with weddings at all. Like most artists, I’m always looking around. I gather inspiration from the observations I make. Let me give you some examples:

When it comes to Pinterest Wedding Inspiration…

Use it, but don’t abuse it. By all means, pin one or two bouquets. Pin a color palette or tablescape too, if it makes you happy and you can say what you love about it. A picture’s worth a thousand words, after all. But know that once you start the planning process, you can let most of that stuff go. Just share images of what’s important to you.

You can also remove images any time! If you find something that represents you better, has better colors, or if your style has changed, just boost the best and boot the rest!

Know when enough is enough

When it comes right down to it, inspiration images are just as much about the “why” as they are about the “what”. People will remember how you made them feel more than anything else, and at your wedding, we want them to feel loved, surprised, and delighted. That’s what matters most.

And if you need a safe space on Pinterest, give @idyllwildevents a follow. We keep it pretty tidy over there. We’ve got luscious boards that appeal to aesthetes of all kinds: armchair botanists, social butterflies, cottagecore enthusiasts, and more. Because just like you, we love to pin all the things. After all, over-the-top Pinterest wedding inspiration is here to stay. But when it’s time to get to work, we stash the thumbtacks and start building real-life fairytales.

As a nod to Pinterest’s 2010 founding, this post features tangentially related .gifs with snarky captions. Why? Because fun, that’s why.