How long have you been planning your wedding on Pinterest?

That’s what I thought. Now you have 486 pins of wedding bouquets and another 347 of clever appetizer ideas and at this point you are afraid to even look at your centerpiece board!

You are not alone. Pinterest is one of the best tools ever created to give brides an idea of all the options available when planning something as big as a wedding. The problem is that it is oh so easy to end up in planning overload. Seach. Click. Pin. Repeat. Before you know it you have so many ideas that you can’t see the forest for the trees.

What you need is some help decoding it all. With a few simple steps you can narrow that tangled web down to just what it really is that speaks to you.

First off, start with the most important category to you. Every bride is different so it really comes down to what you personally find yourself thinking about most. It could be the food or the venue or the bouquets or the gown. Whatever it is, do that selection first and then build the rest of the wedding around it. One trick is to see which one of your Pinterest boards has the most pins.

Now look through the entire board and remove anything you wouldn’t Pin again. Don’t get hung up on color, look more for form or style.

Go through it again and try to find some commonality. Are most of the cakes tall and skinny? Do they all have lots of flowers or none at all? Pay attention. Look closely at the ones that don’t fit the subset. What is it about each one that made you include it in the first place. I will bet they all have something in common.

Another thing you want to do with your favorites is click through to the source. If it is a blog post, which most are, look to see if it is a style shoot or a real wedding. The reason for this is that the things you see in styled shoots may not always translate to the reality of a wedding for 120. You should still make note of what you love about it but be ready if your vendor tells you it isn’t going to work or that it blows up your budget exponentially.

At this point you should have a reasonably good idea of what it is that really attracted you. Now pick the 3 or 4 best examples and start a new board called something like Wedding Final.

Move on to the next board that is most closely related to the first. Continuing with our example of cakes as the first board, your next board would probably have to do with reception decor, since even though the cake is food, it is also the centerpiece of the wedding reception.

Go through the same steps and add your favorites to the Wedding Final board. Look over this board and see if the new additions harmonize with those already there. If not, why not? What is out of whack? Are the cakes all modern and the decor vintage? Be critical. One of the things that set the really beautiful weddings apart is that every element works together like a symphony.

Keep going through your boards in the same way and by the 4th or 5th board you are going to have a pretty good handle on exactly what your wedding style is. It gets a lot easier after that.

Once you have sorted all your boards it’s time to start talking to wedding vendors. Show them the final board. Any good designer, planner or chef will be delighted to see your vision for the entire wedding from start to finish. Then they can offer suggestions and guidance to make sure that their piece of the puzzle works to create the wedding of your dreams.

Pinterest is absolutely the place to daydream your perfect wedding as long as you remember to take the time to narrow down your focus before you make any decisions.

One more important tip: once you have made your decisions, stop looking!