why pinterest will be your best friend

Magical, magical Pinterest.

I love making lists. I love crossing things off my list, but sometimes I like just making lists to stare at the items I've listed. Example: not only do I keep lists on my phone of restaurants I want to try, but also of my favorite restaurants, restaurants with the best bites and restaurants whose menus I like nearly everything on. It is weirdly comforting to illustrate my world with these groupings. And I've probably just alienated about half my readership with this over-share.

So, unsurprisingly, I have a lot of lists for my wedding planning. Truth be told, I may or may not have started these before I actually got engaged. But, without naming names, I know I'm not the only girl who has done this. And Mike, if you didn't know of their existence before, well -- who am I kidding? He obviously knew. And we're still getting married!

I actually started compiling my wish list of everything from hair jewels to hosiery before the Pinterest wave fully crash-landed on the internet shores. I was command-shift-4ing the shit out of stylemepretty.com; so many dusty rose and grey combinations ... so little time! Then I organized everything into neat little folders on my desktop: looking for the perfectly-mussed updo? Why, that's right here under Hairstyles. Beaded belts for my gown? Why of course I have a folder for Waist Accessories. While this was somewhat efficient, you obviously couldn't click on saved images to visit the website and get more info on the vendor, price, whatever. There was still a lot of offline organizing that had to take place.

But then.

Pinterest.

Shout out here to the lovely Kara F, who sent me an invitation back when it was still in beta. Seriously, for someone like me who LOVES making lists, this website is triple-X porn. If you haven't already seen my page, please click here. It really is a work of art, she says humbly.

As you can see, I keep a lot of boards on there and not everything is related to wedding planning. If you need a good macaroni and cheese recipe, I am your girl. Ditto for finding the perfect x-bench.

But Pinterest really shines when it comes to wedding planning. There will most likely never be another event in your life that forces you to juggle as many deadlines, preferences and cake flavors than preparing for your nuptials. And being able to synthesize all of that information in one place (and make it pretty) is such an amazing invention. You can pin anything from articles about choosing a photographer to sample shots of photographers you like. And if you don't have time to fully research everything right at that moment? Pin it and then review everything at your leisure. It's just awesome. I wish they were paying me to say this, but alas, not yet.

But what if you're not quite as list-savvy as I am? Here are a few of my board suggestions to get you started.

Wedding dresses. I mean, duh.

Engagement shoot ideas. This is really helpful for your photographer to have so he or she can see what your preferences are on everything from location to vibe to dress code.

Wedding flowers. Again, providing your florist with your favorite flowers, arrangements and colors will save both of you a lot of hassle.

Wedding updos. Finding that perfect upswept look can be difficult. Describing it without a photo to your hairdresser is impossible.

For all of that PLUS my favorite Restoration Hardware objets, you can obviously scour the rest of my boards.