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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Pinterest

I'm sure we are all aware of a little site called Pinterest, which allows us to create a "bulletin board" of pictures to include anything from home décor to the “perfect” guy we’d like to marry!  Pinterest primarily serves as a "book mark" to save the style and ideas of what we love if we were ever to buy a house, plan a wedding, purchase a new wardrobe, start a family or have the money for a complete makeover.  I'm not sure that I understand why pinterest is important to most people, but I know that it is important to my brides so that they have a place to keep all of their design ideas and "favorite looks" as it pertains to their wedding. I think for that purpose, it is useful; but overall, Pinterest is the disappointment of every fantasizing bride and the demise of every planner/ vendor involved in the bride’s wedding. Why do I feel this way? Well, there are a few reasons.
Have you ever seen a Wendy's commercial and the burger looks so big and juicy that it forces you to rush over and order the very same burger that you just saw on television; however, when you get it, it's flat and dry and looks like it shrank in comparison? Well, that's because pictures of food are traditionally fake or staged for the commercials/ ads in which they are featured. This same theory can be true of the seven-tier, strawberry-filled cake that you saw on Pinterest.
When my girls show up to the bakery with a picture of a cake that is 7 feet tall and has to be filled with fresh strawberries because they saw it on Pinterest, they do not understand why the bakery crushed their dreams by telling them that a cake that size will slide if filled with fresh strawberries.  It's the realism that Pinterest takes away from my brides that causes so much disappointment.
Then there is the bride who asks her photographer to take a picture of her, and she wants it to look exactly like a picture she saw on Pinterest so much so that she went out and bought the very outfit that the girl in the picture is wearing.  This is not only frustrating because certain things cannot be duplicated, but it also creates a total lack of originality.  The frantic desire to replicate something to be so exact is a definite set up for a major disappointment (especially when the picture you saw was taken during the day, with windows lining the back wall, with the New York city skyline as its background, and you are asking for the picture to be taken at night in your childhood bedroom with no windows.)
As I am writing this, I realize that I should not blame Pinterest, I should blame the girls that misuse it and take it to the extreme (just like Facebook, but that’s for a different day).  Just like anything else, Pinterest is a great resource for most girls; but I guess when you are living in a fantasy world, you will live in that world with or without Pinterest. It is particularly hard for this planner to see the same design ideas surfacing time and time again and even harder to see my vendors pressured and limited because of Pinterest. Let's get original, ladies. And please for the love of it all, keep things to a minimum.
Just because you saw it on Pinterest doesn't mean it all looks good together and should be used in the same space. I had a bride a few months ago who had her reception looking like a real life Pinterest bulletin board. Guests actually walked in and said "Oh my God, Pinterest threw up in here."  That's not good, girls!!!
So, let's use these resources for good and not for evil. Be your own person. Learn that others’ ideas should be used as inspiration; take what you like and add a twist to it!