I get that it’s difficult to be unique in this world. It’s easier to copy others, rather than having to conjure up something totally original. In fact, it’s almost encouraged. We see unoriginality from some of the most revered of sources; one moment Robin Thicke has released the biggest song of 2013, the next he’s being served a copyright lawsuit by Marvin Gaye’s family and ends up grinding against Miley Cyrus onstage at the MTV VMAs. Of course, I wouldn’t wish such ill will against anyone (nobody I know deserves that kind of association with Miley Cyrus). However, I do discourage being unoriginal. If not for your own sake, then for mine.
Working as a photographer on dozens of weddings a year, I see a lot of the same old stuff. Some things have been around since the dawn of time. For example, did you know that Roman brides and grooms would break a piece of bread together, and this transformed into today’s cake cutting ceremony? Or that separating the bride and groom before the wedding actually stems from arranged marriages, where the two were separated so that they couldn’t back out upon seeing their spouse-to-be’s ugly mug and realising they’d made a terrible mistake? (A lot of you thought that that second one was about bad luck, didn’t you?)
Then, there are the more modern trends: posing within a giant photo frame during your creatives, cringeworthy wedding hashtags, or - gulp - flash mobs. You might think it looks cool at the time, but it doesn’t feel so cool when you’re a guest at five weddings the following spring, and the wedding party are busting out synchronised moves to Gangnam Style in front of guests who look more awkward than a T-Rex trying to take a selfie.
When it comes to me, well, I’ll just roll my eyes and smile, because not only have I seen all of these ‘trends’ at the last five weddings I shot, I’ll have seen them at five weddings a year, for the last five years. You might think that you’ve wowed me with your bridal party’s rustic-looking flower crowns, but I’ve been to enough festivals this year to decide that flower crowns only belong at weddings if there’s a bin where you can dump them when you arrive.
From the title of this blog post, I guess I don’t need to tell you where all of these trends come from. That’s right: Pinterest. The app that most brides and grooms turn to these days in order to get inspiration for their upcoming wedding. After all, there’s nothing that puts you in the mood for a wedding quite like spending a romantic night-in wearing musty jogging bottoms and scrolling through Pinterest while your other half figures out how to make a candy buffet more hygienic so that you don’t get the flu during your honeymoon in Thailand.
You’ve probably spent so many hours tapping on photos on Pinterest, that you’re now going about your daily life absentmindedly tapping on people’s shoes or jewellery, trying to figure out if you can save them to your board entitled ‘Fantasy Wedding 2020’. Until someone punches you in the face, I guess you can get away with your unhealthy Pinterest obsession.
But let me tell you this. Once it’s on Pinterest, it’s been done. Your wedding is not going to be original if you get all your ideas from pins that a million other brides or grooms-to-be also have access to. They say that every time a pin is saved to a bride or groom’s board, a wedding photographer dies a little inside.
So, how do you have an original wedding? It’s simple. Be yourself. If you don’t know who that is, well, then you need to work on finding that out, rather than working on a wedding. Don’t concern yourself with the suspiciously model-like bride on Pinterest, with the long hair and the perfectly fitting gown. She probably has no friends because she spends all of her time on Pinterest.
My advice is to consider what you do for a living, your hobbies, where you like to travel. Take an idea and run with it, no matter if the trends go against you, or none of your friends are doing it at their weddings. It’s okay to be different. In fact, it’s more than okay to be different. Because you’ll be happier that you can be yourself, I’ll be happier that I don’t have to edit photos of the same old crap for the fifth time this year, and we’ll all be happier that the flower crown industry will die a death and the damn things will cease to exist. It’s a win-win-win.