Y’all know I’m a fan of Pinterest.  Did you see the Nutella board I made about a month ago??  Love it!!  I also love all of the amazing recipes that we’ve found and tried… even though some have worked and some haven’t, it’s still a really good resource.  It also saves me from bookmarking every recipe or craft idea that I come across.  And the fact that I can access it from the app on my phone no matter where I am?  Yep, it’s genius.

But where it gets us in trouble is when we (girls) get engaged… we get on Pinterest and look at all things wedding.  Bouquets, dresses, table settings, center pieces, DIY projects, cookie bars, candy bars (both of which I’m a HUGE fan of!), hair styles, hair pieces, programs, invitations… and the list goes on.  So we start pinning and building ideas for everything our wedding can be.  And I did the exact same thing!

Here’s a screen shot of part of my wedding board… and some of it I actually used.  Or turned the idea into my own thing.

I FELL. IN. LOVE. with succulents the summer of 2011 after I found the bouquet in the bottom right corner above.  Little did I know that a bouquet that size would be $200+ dollars.
So, I did my own variation.  I found an etsy shop on Pinterest who sold succulents and a local florist put them together in a bouquet for me. I even used some for my bridals, replanted them and used some again (some didn’t make it…) for the wedding.

The other thing I loved was baby’s breath.  I loved the simplicity of it and kept seeing it pop up in different places.  So, the week of the wedding, I went to Whole Foods and bought them out of their baby’s breath.  And then a friend helped my bridesmaids put their bouquets together the morning of the wedding and then used the rest wherever it would stretch to.

I also used Pinterest to get some hair and hair piece ideas – some worked, some didn’t.  I SO wanted a bird cage veil, but the one I ended up ordering from Etsy was NOT what I’d had in mind.  So, I went with a $16 veil that I bought at Hobby Lobby.  Yes, you read that right.  Craft stores sell veils!  You’re welcome :-)  What I started to notice pretty quickly though was how overwhelmed I began to feel each time I got onto Pinterest.  There was NO way I was going to be able to do everything I found on there.  We were engaged for 4 months and when you have an aversion to wedding planning (which you really don’t find out until you get engaged and start planning), there’s even less time for crafty/DIY things.

So what’s the solution?  Use Pinterest as a resource, not as a way to plan your wedding.  Because the thing is… this is YOUR wedding.  The things you see on Pinterest are from other people’s weddings.  And as much as I love barns with all things rustic, that kind of thing doesn’t fit everyone out there.

I’m going to say this again because I really want y’all to hear me and what I’m saying… Pinterest is a good thing!  Barn weddings with all things rustic are a good thing! :-)  But what makes your wedding so special and amazing is when it reflects YOU and YOUR soon-to-be spouse, not when it’s identical to your Pinterest board.  You can read more about that here, on this post.

Another blessing of Pinterest is for people like me who are generally DIY challenged.  I wanted a wreath for our door last fall because I was in the festive spirit.  Plus, we had SO MUCH burlap still left from the wedding!  So I hopped on Pinterest and found something perfect (and supposedly easy to do).  Well, it ended up being a little more intensive than I though so I didn’t quite complete it according to the tutorial, but it worked and it went on the door.  I won’t go into much more, because this is starting to take away from the post about the spring/summer wreath I just did!  So you’ll have to come back later for that one!  But here’s a little peek…