Wedding Blog

A major decision every bride must make prior to picking and choosing many of the details of her wedding is the color scheme. It might not seem like a very difficult task, but once immersed in the process, I found myself switching out colors left and right. Here’s some tips on picking the colors that best represent you!

Bringing you briefly back to elementary school: everyone remembers the primary colors…

Primaries

… and the secondary colors.

Secondaries

What you might not have learned during those good old days are the tertiaries, which lie between the secondaries and primaries on the color wheel.

Tertiaries

Complete Wheel

This color wheel is an invaluable aid in picking colors, be it for weddings, home decor, you name it. Here’s a few basics on colors and which ones will combine to make a nice color scheme:

¢¢â€š¬¢ For a quiet, tranquil look, choose a monotone (one-color) palette: one color, and then a lighter and darker version of that color as accents.
¢¢â€š¬¢ Try picking one primary or secondary color, and use the surrounding tertiaries as accent colors that are guaranteed to set off the main color to perfection.
¢¢â€š¬¢ Use what are known as complementary, or contrast, colors: pick one primary or secondary, and then use the color directly across the wheel as an accent. These color combinations are guaranteed to “pop” next to each other for lots of visual excitement. For instance, add a splash of citrusy orange to your blue wedding, or give a purple or lavender wedding a boost with accents of brilliant, sunshine yellow. Complementary tertiaries can also be combined nicely.
¢¢â€š¬¢ Try the complementary colors above, then switch out one color with a pastel or darker version. An example of this might be red and green, with the red switched out for pink, or blue and orange with the orange swapped with brown.
¢¢â€š¬¢ Think metallics: if violet and yellow are too bold for your taste, how about changing the yellow to a more subtle and classic gold? Orange complements to a blue theme can easily be switched to copper to accomodate a more sophisticated personality. Golds and coppers will add warmth and richness to a color scheme; silvers and pewters will give your wedding a cool elegance.
¢¢â€š¬¢ White or black can also be added to a scheme. Pick white or ivory if your scheme is light or pastel, black if it is darker or if you like the deep contrast of it.

Even if you don’t go exactly with the shades off the wheel, or if you mix and match a little, these can help point you in the right direction.