Trends vs. Super Awesome Ideas

Guest post by Katy

I recently got this email from a reader named Katy:

n757540202_4407188_8508Recently, I was looking through the offbeat photo pool and came across picture after picture of weddings with ideas I had been throwing around for a while. This cake picture especially caught my eye. Months and months ago I had found a picture of a cake almost exactly like that, the chocolate dripping down, and honestly I fell IN LOVE with it. On another site, I found that exact cake topper. Yep, exact. In my little wedding obsessed mind I had put them together and…VOILA! dream wedding cake! And here it was, at another wedding, another bride's dream wedding cake.

Now at first, I was a little disappointed, I'll admit. It's like my unique, Offbeat Bride bubble had burst. “But…but…how is my wedding supposed to be unique? I'd wanted that cake! I'd wanted to rent a photo booth! I'd wanted converse shoes! I'd wanted a black dress! Boo!”

But then I thought about it, and I smiled…

Why do we have to use the word trend? It seems that most people, especially Offbeat Brides, wrinkle their nose at that word. But maybe we could just call them super awesome ideas.

Really! How many wedding websites has an Offbeat Bride looked at searching for ideas, searching for that dream wedding in picture form so they can see it RIGHTNOWPLEASE? I know I have. I know that's what the more traditional sites are there for. The Knot, The Wedding Channel, etc. Pictures and pictures and more pictures of every cake, bouquet, dress, centerpiece, ring, etc imaginable. And brides search these sites, collecting images of everything that they dream of someday having.

Offbeat Bride is there for the rest of us. No I can't picture my dream wedding on The Knot, but Offbeat Bride has got me covered.

So thank you to all of the brides on here, and thank you to Ariel…for giving me the chance to get the best possible idea of what my wedding could look like, and also inspiring me to think outside of the box EVEN MORE.


You are so welcome, Katy! I agree that when it comes to offbeat folks, we can all-too-often decry trends as somehow WRONG … that we should avoid doing something just because other people are also doing it.

A friend recently referred to it as “negative dependency” — ie, “I don't do this because everyone else does.” When you define yourself that way, you're giving up just as much of your power to make your own choices.

Moral of the story: work to make authentic personal decisions, in your wedding and in your life.

xo,
Ariel

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