Etsy. We all love Etsy, don’t we? I know I, for one, can spend hours browsing Etsy every day. I did that before getting engaged, and now we have a wedding to plan, browsing Etsy might as well be my second job. It’s so easy to be pulled in to looking at gorgeous things you didn’t know you needed, that it can easily paralyze an indecisive bride. And, it can make the decisive ones start to wibble about decisions.
I can definitely be indecisive, I’m the first to admit it. It doesn’t matter when I’m just browsing willy-nilly, but now that I’m actually trying to buy things for the wedding it makes things very hard. I came up with a strategy that is super-simple, but helps me stay on track and not get distracted by the pretties. It’s not just for Etsy either—it really helps with narrowing down choices, if not making the final decision.
All you have to do is grab a Post-It, a piece of paper from the recycling bin, or open up a blank Word document. Write down what you’re deciding on. Now write down things that it needs to be—things you will not budge on. Now, when you get 20,000 items found for “wedding photographer [your city],” you can start going through and eliminating ones that don’t match your list. Our photographer list was:
- 2 shooters
- all-day coverage
- we get ALL digital images
- under $3000
So, when I found a photographer’s website that I loved, but found out that she prefers not to work with a second shooter, or packages start at $4600, I moved on.
Let’s put this same principle into action on my wedding-day headgear. I want a birdcage veil, with some sort of fascinator. I may or may not make the veil part myself, so let’s go looking for things to go on my head. Here are some gorgeous things I’ve found:
Top to bottom, left to right: 1. Pin Up Something Blue, 2. Lianna, 3. Gold Etheral, 4. Deco Dream (Flo & Percy), 5. Sparkle As One, 6. Peacock Feather Fascinator, 7. The Angela, 8. Victorian Inspired, 9. Shape of Clouds
Oh my goodness, headpiece prettiness overload.
#5 is gorgeous and would go with my dress, but I love the sparkly fun of the giant leaves in #4 from Flo & Percy (my only non-Etsy contender), #9 is ethereal and goddessy…POP. BRAIN ESSPLODE.
It was scenes like this (only with, oh, 40+ pretties) that made me write the list of what I wanted from a wedding headpiece.
A. No headbands. I have a big head, and wear glasses. Any headband I’ve ever worn has given me a headache, and interfered behind my ears with the arms of my glasses.
B. I think tiaras and crowns + glasses + veil are just too many lines around my face.
C. It needs to be flowery, to go with my flowery dress.
Even just these 3 simple things weed a lot out of the 9 headpieces above. Point A gets rid of 1,3, & 4. Point B gets rid of 9 (sob!). Point C gets rid of 6 & 8.
That leaves me with 2, 5, & 7 which are oh-so-similar, but all what I want in their different ways. You can see that my method is not fool-proof. I’m still stalled on these 3 headpieces, but a choice between 3 is way less paralyzing than a choice between 9, 40, 200, or however many you’ve found.
It was when I was patting myself on the head for narrowing down my choices to 3, that I realised I hadn’t included anything from House of Telsa! Cue another head explosion, and months more indecision.
Then, I got it in my head that I could make my own, as my favourites are $55 and up. But which style do I make?! SPLAT.
Okay, so it isn’t foolproof. It helped way, way more with finding a photographer than it has so far with finding a headpiece. I still think it is important to have those must-haves written down, because that at least gives a square one to start from. Hang on to that list like a life raft!
Do you have any methods or tricks to help you narrow down the vast array of wedding choices you’re given?
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