my non-Pinterest-ing wedding

My husband and I will be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary this Saturday (woo hoo!), and it got me to thinking...

Oh, the horror!

It seems as though everyone is on Pinterest these days.  And I’m just as guilty as the next person.  I’ve spent many a night after my girls have gone to bed pinning delicious recipes, fun activities to do with the kids and of course my fair share of DIY project ideas.  And with our fifth wedding anniversary approaching I can’t help but feel a little curious - had Pinterest been around in 2007 when I planned my wedding it most likely would have been so much more beautiful and amazing, right?

Wrong.

Every time I go on Pinterest it’s hard to ignore the zillions of wedding related pins.  The table settings, favors, centerpieces, floral arrangements, invitations, bridesmaid dresses, wedding gowns, etc.  And they’re all beautiful, but is it worth it?  I’m not going to lie, as soon as I got engaged I went out and bought every wedding magazine in print and ripped out pictures, created a wedding binder and filled it with everything I wanted in my dream wedding.  Each time I found something I loved I’d add it to the coordinating {labeled and color-coded} section.

But this was only something I kept for my own sake, it wasn’t something I advertised and showed to every single person I know.  I wanted my guests to be surprised when they walked into the reception hall for the first time, for them to be as excited as I was to see it all come together.  The last thing I’d want were people to walk into the venue and say Oh, that’s nice - I saw that on her ‘Here Comes The Bride’ wedding board or Yeah, she pinned ten different versions of those online.  Isn’t there anything left to be desired anymore?  If it’s all there in your 943 pins doesn’t it spoil the fun a bit?  And what if your attempts at recreating your virtual wedding falls short, won’t you be disappointed?

I’m not bashing Pinterest in any way... have you seen my boards and dozens of pins?  I’m kind of obsessed.  I think it’s a great reference tool and should be used as such.  Not a I-just-got-engaged-so-my-sole-mission-in-life-is-to-pin-all-things-wedding kind of thing.

Five years later I can honestly say I am so happy with how our ‘ordinary’ wedding turned out.  It was just what I wanted, and then some.  As for my dream wedding binder, it’s packed away with all my other wedding memorabilia and there are a dozen things in there that never came to be - and no one will ever know the difference.  After all, the most important thing isn’t the wedding, it’s the marriage.