Fact: Pinterest is one of the most valuable sources of wedding inspo for the millennial bride. From stunning dresses and engagement rings to out-of-this-world cakes and décor, pinning your life away has never felt so easy, or satisfying. In fact, new research has found that we love planning so damn much, up to 67% of us have a wedding board going before we’re even engaged. What can we say? We like to be prepared. The same study, conducted by Onbuy.com, found a whopping 900 million wedding-inspired pins are saved annually.
But, it seems, our guilty pleasure is not without its downsides. The research also discovered that using social media platforms such as Pinterest can have a negative effect on our psyche. Of those participants planning a wedding, 42% reported experiencing anxiety after looking at other social media wedding posts. Yikes.
“Pinterest started off as my best friend when I was newly-engaged (so many pretty pictures!) however it ended up being quite the frenemy,” ELLE’s Digital Managing Editor, Alison Izzo explains. “This may be because I had a reasonably long engagement, giving me more time to obsess, but after a while I found my ‘Wedding Inspo’ board was causing me serious stress.” Sound familiar?
“Initially the sheer amount of perfectly-filtered pictures of bridesmaid hair ideas, floral arrangements or packaging ideas for pastel-hued sugared almonds seemed like a blessing, but it can mean an overload of choice, leading to major pre-wedding anxiety.”
Now, that’s not to say you need to permanently delete your carefully curated board entirely (although that might be easier). If you can identify with the stress associated with being overwhelmed with ideas, try time-capping your Pinterest binges or, only using it when you have absolutely zero idea what you want to do for an element of your wedding (e.g. table settings or bouquets). If, however, you still find it takes more than it gives, perhaps it’s time to consider pulling the plug.
“In the end, I went off Pinterest completely, and it was the best thing I did, both for my sanity and for my bank balance,” Izzo adds.
From: ELLE AU
