Using Pinterest for Wedding Inspiration

In today’s blog post I’m sharing some helpful tips on using Pinterest for your wedding inspiration. I’m a big fan and avid user of Pinterest myself. I use it both personally, to find recipe ideas and interiors inspiration, and professionally to collate wedding references for my clients. I also used it to make sense of all my wedding ideas when I was a bride to be in 2018. It can be such a useful tool, but I’m also aware that falling down a Pinterest ‘rabbit hole’ can result in too many ideas. Leading to overwhelm and confusion. So to help you navigate this wedding planning tool here are my 5 top tips for using Pinterest to find wedding inspiration. 

TIP 1 - DEFINE YOUR KEYWORDS

Whilst often referred to as a social media app, much like Google, Pinterest is first and foremost a search engine. So to find the wedding inspiration that best matches your vision you need to be clear on your search terms and the keywords you use to describe what you’re looking for. Simply typing ‘wedding ideas’ into Pinterest will just bring up a whole mishmash of wedding references. Whilst this will offer you a broad range of visual inspiration it could also consume hours and hours of your time as you scroll through waiting for something to catch your eye.

Instead, I recommend you and your partner sit down and write down some words that describe the look and feel you want to create for your wedding. As well as any words that communicate details or experiences that are important to you. Then turn those into Pinterest search terms. Here’s an example:

Selected keywords: modern, romantic, white, ethereal, elegant, champagne bar, cake alternatives, fun after party 

Turned into these search terms:

Modern ethereal white wedding 

Elegant romantic wedding flowers

Champagne bar wedding decoration 

Fun wedding after-party ideas

TIP 2 - CONSIDER THE CONTEXT 

You’ll also want to include contextual information in your Pinterest searches to generate further ideas that are relevant to your existing wedding plans. So think about those details that will impact your overall vision for your wedding. This includes things like venue (type and style), location, season, time of day, etc. 

Contextual keyword examples: manor house wedding venue, New Year’s Eve wedding, spring wedding, London wedding 

So if we add this to some of the initial keywords we can create more Pinterest search terms:

Elegant manor house wedding

Modern New Year’s Eve wedding 

All-white Spring wedding styling 

London wedding after party

TIP 3 - DON’T JUST PIN WEDDINGS 

One Pinterest top tip I really want to highlight is to try not to limit yourself to finding inspiration just from wedding pins. If you see a wedding on Pinterest then that wedding (or wedding inspiration shoot) has already happened. It’s not a new idea, in fact, it might be something from years ago that has been replicated thousands of times over. Now I’ll admit completely original weddings are hard to achieve and you don’t need to only include new and fresh ideas. Wedding trends come, go and come back around again and some wedding elements stay popular year after year. So it’s totally OK to pin your ‘best of’ ideas from other weddings and inspiration shoots to inspire your own wedding. Your wedding will be unique anyway because it’s personal to you. And your love story and exact celebration style will be different from other people’s.

However, new exciting details and bespoke experiences can be incorporated into your wedding by expanding your inspiration sources. This may require some vision if you struggle to visualise something that doesn’t explicitly apply to the same situation ( i.e. seen in a wedding context). But trying this method of Pinterest research could result in some really fun and unique ideas. For example, if you and your partner love to travel you could look at Pinterest images from your favourite destinations or places that have been meaningful in your relationship to date. This may then spark ideas for how you can incorporate ‘flavours’ of your favourite travel experiences into your wedding celebration. The same might apply by using visual inspiration from your favourite brand, movie, or artist, or even pinning food and drink from your favourite restaurants.

Photo by We are the James’s

TIP 4 - EDIT DOWN TO REFINE

Once you have used all your search terms and gathered all your wedding ideas and inspiration (from a mix of wedding and non-wedding sources) pining these ideas to your wedding Pinterest board. It is then time to refine your wedding vision. On initial glance, your wedding Pinterest board may be a bit of a jumble of style inspiration, and experiential ideas, overloaded with too many wedding details. Don’t worry you’ve not done it wrong. It’s natural to like more than one wedding style and have ideas that perhaps clash a bit. That’s why you now need to edit down because I’m sorry to say, but you can’t have it all! I recommend you do this by prioritising what feels most important and relevant to you and your plans. Listen to your heart and your head and start pinning your favourite pins to a fresh wedding board or new section. Which pins really pull your attention and get you excited about the big day? Pin those. Which ones feel most in keeping with your venue, budget, and priorities list? Pin those too. The result should be a wedding Pinterest board with your ‘best of’ wedding ideas and inspiration. If you struggle with this process you can do multiple rounds of edits, creating a new board each time which gets a more refined set of pins.

TIP 5 - TRY TO PIN MINDFULLY

It’s so easy with wedding planning to get carried away or feel pressure to do things that don’t feel right or natural to you but are ‘expected’ by others. In every aspect of planning your wedding, I encourage you to stay true to your passions and priorities. To first and foremost please yourselves, not worrying about pleasing others unless there are other stakeholders who have a say. And try to plan in the moment so that you can enjoy the entire wedding process and not just hold out for the wedding day itself. The same applies when using wedding tools like Pinterest. It’s not about throwing everything at your Pinterest board and hoping it will make sense. Or pinning your mum’s cake ideas, even though they don’t feel at all like what you had in mind. And finally, don’t let the Pinterest algorithm convince you of something you don’t want or need. 

Reviewing your wedding Pinterest board to get to the heart of your wedding story and so creating a wedding that feels unique and authentic to you as a couple is an integral part of our full plan and design & styling wedding services.