Dinner Dates: Finding Your Style

This topic has been on my heart a lot recently, so I apologize if this is just a Kat-rambling post:)

As a wedding planner/designer, we’re in the Age of Pinterest which, depending on who you ask, is a good or bad thing. There are so many ideas at the finger tips of every bride. I mean, let’s face it, you don’t even have to BE a bride to see all the ideas circling around out there!! Almost every single one of my friends – single, engaged or married – has a wedding themed Pinterest board. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing… I was one, too!! Before I was engaged I had THEMES for all of my wedding boards!! It was a little intense:)

I think It’s great to see so many ideas in one location. I use Pinterest to assist brides in developing wedding day inspiration, and I use it to spark my creativity for styled shoots, home décor, DIY projects and my branding/packaging. I think it is a GREAT resource, so I do not want this post to make it seem like I hate it:) I LOVE it, and will admit that I have spent countless hours looking aimless through boards!!

But the world of the wedding planner has changed… and I think Pinterest and the popularity of Wedding Blogs has had a huge effect on it. We don’t just handle logistics and timeline… we handle décor, design & details. A LOT of wedding planners now offer some sort of “design” package… Reception Design, Partial Planning & Design, whatever the title, “design” is now a part of the experience that brides want. And I believe Pinterest has boosted that! Brides see SO MUCH on Pinterest that it’s easy for them to get overwhelmed and need help sorting through the realistic possibilities. They want someone to help them break down the details, make them relatable and then execute it on the day-of. I LOVE THAT!! Design & décor are some of my favorite parts of the planning process and I believe no detail is too small.

But when so many ideas & designs are at your fingertips, it hard to distinguish yourself and develop ideas that are truly your own.

I talked about this with a few other amazing creatives and it keeps coming up in my thought process: If we see SO MUCH inspiration on a day-to-day basis, how do you let your own creativity blossom? Between Pinterst & Blogs & even social media, how do you make sure that your idea is truly your own, and not something you saw from so-and-so’s post or so-and-so’s Instagram? How do you establish your design-style?   

Obviously my “niche” is weddings. Just like photographers specialize in various forms of photography (newborn, family, wedding, etc.), I specialize in planning & executing weddings. I also specialize in planning & styling shoots… but it all stems back to weddings. Everything I do & the events I plan, I want to point toward my niche as a wedding planner.

But, if I’m being honest with you, developing my own style in the design area of weddings is where I’m getting thrown off. I want it to be authentic, creative & completely genuine to DSE. I attended Katelyn’s Small Business Social last week (recap coming to the blog tomorrow!), and one of the questions I asked her was: how can a wedding planner develop a design-style… much like photographers develop a photography style. It was great to talk with her about what that looks like and to be reminded that my “style” isn’t going to appear overnight. I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and see “Dear Sweetheart Events Style”. It’s something that will evolve & grow as I continue to take creative liberty with my styled shoots and my brides.

But what does that look like practically? What can I do now to point myself in a creative direction vs. accidentally duplicating another stylist work?

Here are a few things I’m trying to do, and if you’re struggling with this too, then hopefully they’ll help…

– Be confident in who I am and what I’m doing. Sounds silly, right? But confidence is key. I could sit here and overanalyze this topic for days (it’s a gift, really:). But it wouldn’t get me anywhere. There are SO MANY planners/stylist out there and I KNOW every shoot idea I have done is not 100% original. Someone else did it somewhere else. And that’s okay!! My goal is to allow myself to be authentically creative with the idea… to brainstorm & craft & put a “DSE” spin on it.

– Stop looking at what’s around me. AKA stop comparing:) So you have a really great shoot idea? Stop looking at Pinterest. Find inspiration elsewhere!! Or better yet, look at the blog you’re hoping to be featured on, search for shoots with the same theme as yours, and break the mold!! Do something they’ve never seen before! Don’t put yourself & your creativity in a box… allow yourself to do what YOU find inspiring vs. looking at what others are doing. Comparing yourself won’t get you anywhere but frustrated and sad. Been there:)

– Create a Checks & Balances system. I want to encourage other planners/stylist, and I want to be able to connect with them since we’re all in this together!! But I also have to have a checks & balances system with how many things I look at (in terms of blogs & social media). For instance, when I was brainstorming the idea for this shoot, I remembered that Hey Gorg had created this shoot (because I LOVED it when she debuted it!). Since I KNEW she had created this shoot that would share commonalities with mine (Valentine’s Day themed, lifestyle inspired), it would have been really silly of me to pull inspiration from her shoot. Why? Because I would set myself up to unintentionally duplicate her details or design. As creatives, our goals should NEVER be to copy or recreate what another stylist has done. I created my own Checks & Balances system so that I could protect my own ideas, allow my creativity to flourish & design a shoot that was completely me. It’s not a physical spreadsheet, it’s a mental checklist. I ask myself things like: “have I seen this before? where? when? how can I do it different? what do I picture? what’s my take on it?”.

I think It’s hard for stylist because we don’t make a “product” – you can’t find my shop on Etsy because my product isn’t tangible. I don’t sell you an item, I sell you an EXPERIENCE. But even though it’s not a tangible product, it’s still a piece of me & something I want to protect; so I developed this system to protect my creativity AND to protect the ideas others have created.

It’s so easy to see an image, fall in love & recreate it. But that’s NOT creativity. Being creative isn’t looking at an idea and duplicating it. Being creative is looking at an idea and uniquely making it your own. And it looks different for everyone, which it SHOULD! It’s yours. It should look like yours.

I know this post was a bunch of rambles:) But it’s been on my heart & mind so much recently, I just had to share. It’s such a tough topic & made all the more complicated with the world wide web. But I think it will be really, really cool to look back on this post in 1 year or 3 years and see how my “design niche” has evolved and established itself.

Other creatives – how do you protect your design niche? How did you find it? Any tips or tricks you use to keep a handle on Pinterest, social media images & blog ideas?

xo! kat

(( images by Katie Nesbitt Photography ))