We all have at least one friend we follow on Pinterest who is guilty of obsessively over-pinning wedding stuff. The non-stop hoarding of the typical wedding/spam pins have made me realize a couple of things:
- Unfollow that shiznit, pronto, before you burst into an epic feminist-esque rage.
- Excessive pinning to a non-secret board can be annoying.
Enlightenment #2 made a light bulb go off in my head. Secret boards are great for this situation. But they’re also kind of lonely.
My solution…
I created a whole separate account, solely dedicated to wedding planning. None of our friends have to know about it OR be forced to follow the boards, unless they are the ones who have been helping us with planning.
A second benefit: I promised myself to only follow wedding-related boards on the account I’m pinning wedding-related stuff to. That way, I can easily switch from “Everyday Me” to “Wedding Me.” There’s going to be a day when I’m going to need to keep myself away from all things wedding — be it prevent “bridal-blog-overload,” or because I’m starting to compare our decisions to what others are doing. In short, it’s my sanity safe lock.
Can people find “Wedding Me” on Pinterest? Yeah, but only if they actively seek me out or stumble upon my stuff — and I’m cool with that. Just as long as I’m not throwing out all these details into a space where it can be considered overshare, I can feel at peace.
41 responses to “How this bride entered wedding stealth mode on Pinterest”
I tip my hat to your mad Pinterest organization skills.
I’m a tad (understatement) anal-retentive too and I organized my pins exactly the same way, complete with a secret account. It really did help keep my sanity and prevented my friends and even complete strangers (btw who leaves a comment telling someone their pin about having an unplugged ceremony is a thoughtless idea?! sheesh) from seeing every idea I found interesting. I’ve always been big on surprises too and knowing that only a handful of close fam and friends know the details of our wedding makes it that much more exciting for us:-)
Thanks for the great tips!
Thanks!
And – wait – total strangers are dissing ideas of people they don’t even know?
Friends who I have known for 20+ years don’t even comment on my pins [on my normal, everyday account]. 🙂
wish i could turn my current board to secret for the same reasons!
THIS IS GENIUS. I wish this had been an option before I had all my separate boards up. It’s something that crosses my mind from time to time – I really don’t want to annoy the heck out of people or have them think I’m wedding obsessed when in reality, this shin dig is getting planned in fits and starts. Most excellent though : ]
I did this too! I have a whole alter ego with like 10 wedding boards so I can go crazy without my friends a) thinking I’m a wedding-obsessed pathetic nutcase and b) seeing all my plans before the big reveal 🙂
I really wanted a secret board when I was planning – I didn’t realise for a while that it was posting everything to my Facebook by default, and while I wasn’t worried about a ‘big reveal’ or anything, I just sort of felt like it was nobody’s business but my own, you know?
Mine is cut off from posting to Facebook. No secret boards, but I don’t like telling everyone on fb when I’m on Pinterest, they’d be following me their if they wanted to see that.
I did the exact same thing. Not only did I not want to spam everyone with 8 billion wedding posts, I also didn’t want everyone and their mother seeing MY wedding “plans”. So my wedding Pinterest account was born…and only my MOH knows about it!
Ha! I joined Pinterest at first to do a wedding contest (at least in part), but then I realized that people were starting to follow me, and I hadn’t told anyone outside the family about the wedding. In fact, I can’t even remember if I’d told my family at that point. So now I have three secret boards (wedding theme, bridesmaids, dresses) and have been harrassing my family and 3 close friends to join so they can pin! LOL Now my mom has 2 secret boards, so we all can pin and comment away in peace.
I went mad stealth mode a few weeks ago and keep my main account for wedding contests and whatnot. I ended up style-biting a few of the more OCD or… amazingly organized tribe members and it’s helped tons. No more side comments from overinvolved parties, no more feeling like a dick for going nuts with that dastardly pinit button… i want everything to be a surprise! 2nd account is best way to go for sure
I made my wedding pinterest board private – I want the details to be a surprise on the day. Also, I’ve got links to organisational stuff to, e.g. how to not invite people, etc, which I wouldn’t want people to necessarily see.
i actually did this with just my regular pinterest account.. i signed up for it separately from facebook, and i havent linked it anywhere, or told anyone, or anything, so i dont think anyone i know can see what i pin. people have randomly followed me, which is kind of odd, but pinterest makes you follow people (LAME), so i just assume thats why.
i just dont see the point of pinterest as a “social media” type of thing. i just want my pins and my boards and thats it. i dont need or want likes or comments or whatever. i dont need anyone else to see what i pin.
“before you burst into an epic feminist-esque rage.”
I’m a feminist and I love Pinterest. Including wedding pins. If people are counting how many pins I’m posting, its bothers them and yet doesn’t violate Pinterest rules in any way, I don’t think I or your bride friend are anything wrong *kanye shrug*
*ETA: My pinterest board isn’t connected to my FB or other accounts + my pinterest name is a screen name instead of my legal name
I thought this was a great idea when I first read about it. So I -pretty much- immediately created another pinterest persona! Thanks for the great advice!
I think this girls great, good one her!
I love it. I so badly wanted to get some pins organized for the desserts I now have boards called Lemon, Orange, Peanut Butter, and Berries & Cherries!
I totally get the surprise factor, my for me, I kind of feel like… fuck it! It’s easy enough to unfollow me, and I actively hate the double standard that our weddings are supposed to be sooo important, and yet Pinning all the time is *crazy*. I super-Pin with pride, and anyone who has a major problem with it would never be invited to my lovefest anyway.
That being said, I, too, don’t talk about wedding stuff anywhere else on my social networks. Facebook and Twitter feel more like office spaces to me these days.
I pin thousands of things absolutely shamelessly. My strategy is to pin ALL THE THINGS, then when it’s decision time, narrow it down to the one I like best by deleting one by one. If it was Facebook, I’d feel super guilty for doing this, but I’m not on Pinterest to make friends. I made sure Facebook and Twitter were divorced from Pinterest, and though some people have managed to find me (no idea how….) if they want to stop following me, I will definitely not be offended in the least. I expect everyone to accept that I post all this, because that’s what it’s there for, but I certainly don’t expect anyone else to CARE about it.
This is definitely a great idea for organization and if you have friends that you really don’t think would be super into seeing all the wedding pins. Personally, I have a few different friends planning weddings right now and I love seeing their wedding-related pins on Pinterest. ‘Cause I love weddings! The whole point of Pinterest is to pin, pin, pin, so I can’t imagine getting annoyed at someone for pinning a lot of things. But to each their own!
I really wish I’d had Pinterest for wedding planning. I’m so jealous of brides that have it! Hahah. It became super popular shortly after my wedding and I was like, “Whaaaaa-? This is amazing, I needed this!”
“We all have at least one friend we follow on Pinterest who is guilty of obsessively over-pinning wedding stuff. ”
Sorry, that was me. *hides the 75 wedding-related pins from this morning behind her big floofy cupcake skirt*
Damn! I wish I had thought of this when I first got engaged! I’m sure I’ve been flooding people with wedding pins, but I have so many…it’d be such a pain to start a new account now! I always figured if someone was getting annoyed by my wedding pinnery they could just unfollow those boards – I won’t be offended!
I also use the private boards to pin wedding stuff. So far I’m doing OK with the 3, dress, decor, favors – but I totally understand where a separate account would prove effective here. I used the secret board from the get-go because I did not need input from people that I happen to be FB friends with, or who spend too much time on the internet. I accidently posted a comment about how unhelpful a particular article was on wedding planning on FB and got all sorts of advice on how to do my wedding inexpensively, which included some super looney crazy (not fun crazy) ideas that were totally unsolicited. Secret boards, for me and my bridesmaids, as well as a FB group for just them – helps keep the unhelpful helpers out of my hair, and me sane. 🙂
Thank you so this totally awesome and simple idea – I kick myself for not thinking of this sooner. I have been meticulous in not pinning anything wedding-related – instead going “low-tech” haha with bookmarks and screenshots. My engagement is not something that has been announced on social media so if I started pinning I would be bombarded with comments and questions and congrats from people we have not told = awkward and annoying. When and if I decide to share any details on social media it will likely be minimal and close to the actual wedding date, so this is such a great way to keep the planning private or within the small circle of people we have told. Off to create my secret account!
I’m so happy to read I’m not the only one who did this! I had a secret board going for a long time on my “regular” account that it had over 500 pins and I was overwhelmed. That was when I decided to do the extra “wedding” account and get organized (which I set up before I was engaged). After I was engaged, I made the secret board public and just repinned to the wedding account (if I still liked the pin). I also created another board if I see something I like on my regular account that I want to pin onto my wedding account so I don’t have to dig around.
Some of my bridesmaids follow my wedding account and I created a “share you ideas” board for friends who love weddings (and they only follow that board so they don’t get a whole bunch of additional wedding pins). I use my secret boards on the wedding account for “finalizing ideas” and “gifts for the wedding party” in case anyone does really look at the account or if anyone stumbles on it who will be invited to the wedding.
All that repinning to your new “wedding account” had to take a lot of time…but I’m sure it really cut down on the clutter. PINTEREST PURGE!!!!
It did take awhile, but it really did help cut down on the clutter!!! Plus there are at least 3 or 4 different themes on my “normal” account, so I think that will help throw any guests who follow me off!
I find the part about your friends being annoyed by overpinning wedding stuff confusing. It’s so easy to unfollow boards that don’t interest you! Love your advice on organizing though.
Whoa that’s crazily organised! I WISH I’d thought of having a secondary account! Not many of my friends have Pinterest accounts (I know, WTF!) and unfortunately the only people who seem to follow our wedding board are people who don’t like us and used it to try and form some kind of competition. Stupid thing is we were unaware of what they were doing ’til a mutual friend brought it up! I’ve had nothing but grief from this person the entire time I’ve been with my partner, and their insistence on trying to ruin what is the happiest moment of our relationship so far, was crossing the line. So I created a secret board, which had all the stuff that is less traditional, or personal to us (which would cause nasty comments and jibes) the advantage to this is some elements of our day will be a surprise to those who have seen our ‘public’ board, and only us and our wedding photographer have access to the board! I LOVE secret pinterest boards, they have saved us SO much hassle! The only criticism I have is that I wish you could have more than 3 😛
I fully agree! I have a general “Wedding Time” board and then and private “Our Wedding” board that I add people in the wedding to, mother of the groom and bridesmaids so they can see all my personal wedding choice.
I hadn’t even thought of how annoying it must be to people that follow me to have sooooo much wedding crap pinned…although one of my fiances brothers girlfriends did comment to his brother that she knew we were getting engaged because I was pinning so much wedding stuff! I also just don’t want the general population to have access to all of our personal wedding, pre-wedding options and choices.
Great advice!!!
The secret boards are handy, but I don’t find excessive pinning annoying. Given the flexible options to follow or unfollow individual boards there’s no reason to be annoyed. I follow just one or two of several strangers’ boards, and follow my real life friends but unfollow the individual boards that I find uninteresting.
Yeah…I used to have a habit of hitting that “Follow All” button on my friends’ profiles and profiles of blogs I like. Unfortunately that meant having to unfollow multiple pretend-wedding boards one-by-one later on. Annoying to do over time, but totally my fault from not nixing it from the beginning.
Hi girls! Not sure if you all know, but as of very recently (Valentine’s Day 2014, I think), you can have AS MANY SECRET BOARDS AS YOU WANT! So go ahead and knock yourselves out without bombarding your followers with 25 different wedding uses for Mason jars in one afternoon! Thank you, Pinterest!
POST UPDATED! 🙂
THANK YOU!! I never would have thought of just making a new pinterest i’m going to go do that now! Pinterest and Facebook got my feelings all hurt so quickly after the engagement. One post that said “we’re thinking about a barn wedding anyone know of any good rustic barns” apparently a barn wedding is both trashy and hilarious at the same time to members of my family. I made one more post about the wedding and I never will again, in fact one of the only things i’m requesting of the wedding party is no FB posts about the wedding, it is officially a secret. Then I start pinning, not a crazy amount (at first) but I forgot it was linked to my FB and the ruby slippers (that I will be wearing as I walk down the yellow brick road) got some real attention that I was not ok with. I managed to make it so FB no longer posts what I pin but most of my friends still follow my pinterest. I get a little annoyed when my friends repin my wedding stuff (I don’t know why I just don’t like it). Now that our trip over the rainbow is a secret it bothers me even more. Thank you so freaking much for this!
We almost did a barn wedding! There are two places in our area that actually market their space for weddings – and TRUST ME from pictures we’ve seen, 100% were definitely not what anyone would consider trashy (or, at least anyone I know).
OH…and that over the rainbow idea is awesome!
Just a small update – Pinterest now allows unlimited secret boards. So now you can make everything secret! Secret wedding! Secret baby! Secret house! Secret spaghetti monster shrine! Or, you know, not secret. Whichever.
Yup – this was originally written before the unlimited awesomeness. Thank the lords that changed. However, creating a wedding free zone is still awesome. My mind recently burned out after being forced to think about wedding things that are non-essential and that I really don’t care about (ribbon widths, bridal party shoes, flowers, baskets god knows what). It felt good to log onto my “everyday” account and shift my mind off of wedding-related stuff and onto finding new recipes and organizing garden ideas.
Side note: I really hope no one makes their spaghetti monster shrines secret. I need ideas too, ya’ll.
Haha, glad I’m not alone! I had a “someday-wedding” board for about a year before we were actually engaged, pinned with everything that may have possibly seemed cool. Once the “fiance” title was official, I made a new account, with an alter ego name and a separate email address, “friended” my reg account, and repinned only the legitimately useful ideas onto the new account, into their own respective boards (eg. “Floral”, “bridesmaids”, “photography”, rather than just “omgeverythingwedding”
Also, I suddenly realized that rather than cute wedding pictures, I was now pinning actual potential wedding ideas , which I didn’t want all my friends to see!
Time consuming, yes. SO much easier to navigate when searching for a certain pin? BIG yes!
The organizing feels SO GOOD too! There is an option where you can search just your own pins, but I tend to remember the visual and not the written description…so the boards do help.
I realize this is an older post, but when I made a wedding board, I shared it with my mom-in-law and bffs/bridesmaids so only they could see what I was scheming.
this is an awesome idea!! i have a bunch of secret boards. but it would be nice to have separate accounts to get away from wedding stuff during or after the wedding.