7 Tips On How to Choose a Color Scheme for Your Wedding

Choosing your wedding colors might seem daunting, especially if you don’t consider yourself being creative. But if you stick to the following 7 tips, finding a color scheme for your wedding is pretty straightforward. 

First things first, why do you even need a color scheme, aka color palette, for your wedding? 

Wedding colors set the mood and paint a cohesive picture of your day. Even if you are having an intimate, casual wedding or an elopement just for the two of you, a wedding color scheme is key to creating a cohesive wedding aesthetic. 

Another advantage is that it makes wedding planning much easier. Once you have decided on your colors, everything else falls into place naturally. Just think wedding bouquet, table linen, candles, or invitation suite.  

So without further ado, let’s have a look at how to find your wedding colors:

1. Basics

Choose three or five colors. One simple trick to create a cohesive, exciting look is to choose groupings of odd numbers. This works for any interior design. For example, three taper candles on the dinner table look better than four, and five flowers in a vase look better than six. 

The same is true for your wedding colors. An odd number creates more visual interest, and the overall look feels more memorable and appealing.

Ideal are three or five colors. Because if you pick too many, your wedding can look disjointed, and if you only pick one or two, your wedding may look dull. However, this does not apply if you opt for a monochromatic or an ombre look, which means that you only use different shades of one particular color, such as blue.

Also, please don’t choose colors only because they are trendy. Trends come and go, and they change almost every season. But your wedding should be timeless. So pick colors you genuinely love! 

2. Venue

Choose your colors before or shortly after you found your wedding venue, depending on your priorities. What is more important to you, a specific type of venue like a castle, or mansion, or a particular color scheme?

Because for example, if your venue is a historic mansion with delicate yet colorful painted wallpapers, thick red curtains, and prominent golden chandeliers, this will narrow down your color options. Always work with the colors already at the venue instead of hiding or changing elements you don’t like. 

If you choose a so-called “blank slate” venue, such as a tent, an old industrial warehouse, or a loft, you don’t have to worry about color clashes, and hence, there are no limits or restrictions when it comes to choosing your colors.

3. Season

While it’s not carved in stone that your wedding colors have to match your wedding season, there are colors that work very well for a specific time of year:

Here are some seasonal examples:

• Spring: soft colors, like ivory, blush, rosy pink, peach, lilac and sage
• Summer: bright colors, like yellow, green, orange, coral, pink, and teal
• Fall: jewel tones and warm earth tones like emerald green, ruby red, purpel, mustard yellow, terracota, and taupe
• Winter: cool colors like dusty blue, silver, and gray. Also a black and gold combination looks amazing 

4. Wedding Theme

Equally important is your wedding theme and wedding style. If you are not sure how to choose them, this blog post is a great starting point: How to Choose Your Wedding Theme.

If you have narrowed down your theme and style, it might be easier for you to choose a color palette as some work particularly well with certain themes. Here are a few examples: 

• Classic: elegant, neutral colors like gray, black, white, ivory, or beige. Add drama by incorporating ruby red or navy blue colors for a fall and winter wedding or peach and coral for a spring and summer wedding.
• Vintage: think colors like brown and rose gold combo. Also, turquoise, dusty rose, cantaloupe, and honeydew are great choices.
• Urban Industrial: the beauty of an industrial theme is that any color palette works from neutrals to darker colors to vibrant ones. It truly depends on what effect you want to create, but you can never go wrong with gold and copper tones.
• Tropical: vivid, warm colors like warm yellow, bright coral, and peach. And also teal, purple, green, and orange look gorgeous for a tropical wedding.
• Bohemian Chic: warm earthy colors and jewel tones such as mustard yellow, terracotta, sage, violet, ruby red, and emerald green. 
• Nautical: for a boathouse or yacht club wedding, you can never go wrong with coral, fuchsia, and navy blue. 
• Romantic Old World Charm: classic white, cream, champagne, gold, and faded blush tones work well for this theme. 

Tip: if you are planning a garden wedding, find out what flowers bloom on your wedding day in this particular garden and incorporate those colors into your palette.

Wedding colors also set the mood for a wedding. If you want to create some drama, opt for darker colors or jewel tones and add metallics. On the other hand, if you are going for a light, fresh, or fairly tale look opt for pastel or blush colors.

5. Color Wheel

Once you have chosen one or two colors that you would love to have in your wedding color palette, have a look at the color wheel to see which colors complement each other.

Rule of thumb: colors opposite each other such as yellow and purple or green and pink, work very well together. The same is true for neighboring colors such as shades of violet or yellow and green. 

6. Look For Inspiration 

If you are still not sure which colors you like, look at your home decor or your clothes. Which colors show up repeatedly? It’s safe to assume that these are your favorite colors, and they can be a great start to create your unique wedding color palette. Search “wedding color scheme” on Pinterest and also look for inspiration outside the wedding industry such as home decor or garden blogs and magazines, and have a look at Pantone’s website.

7. Flowers

When you have narrowed down your wedding color choices, consult with your florist to ensure that flowers that match your color scheme, theme, and style, are available at the time of your wedding. Doing this early on allows you to make subtle color changes easily if necessary.

[Related: What Is a Wedding Flat Lay and 20 Ideas What to Include]

To sum up

If you choose your colors early on in the planning process, everything else will naturally fall into place and will make wedding planning an easy and joyful experience. The most important thing to remember is that you should never pick a color scheme just because it’s trendy. After all, your wedding should always be all about you. And your colors reflect who you are and what you love!  

I hope you found this article interesting and helpful! If you have any more questions, feel free to email me directly at michaela@lovelyandplanned.com. Or get in touch with me right here. 

Love, Michaela

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