Debbie Laughlin Photography
Color palettes. They can be one of the more difficult things to nail down for your wedding, and creating a color palette can really determine the entire theme/style of your celebration! There are so many different options with color; you can use muted shades, bold shades, many shades, one shade… dark shades, light shades, neutral shades… the possibilities are truly endless! In my time spent as a floral/wedding designer, I am always helping my brides narrow down and really focus in on a color palette, and I wanted to share a few of my tips (and the free color board program I use!!) with you today!
1. Choose 1-2 “focal” colors for your wedding, that you really would love to see incorporated. My advice is for these colors to be more on the neutral side. For example, if you keep gravitating to blush, make that your focal color. You can have your bridesmaids wear blush (or get your own wedding dress in blush), you can have blush flowers, blush linens, blush chair ties, blush ties for the groomsmen… the list goes on. However, be cautious with this focal color- choose a shade that is neutral enough that it can “play well with others”, and don’t overdo it! You want to be able to mix and match a bit with your accent color and metal 🙂
Sarah Street Photography
2. Choose 2-3 “accent colors”, that pair nicely with your focal colors. So if your main color is blush, you have a lot of variety in your accent colors, since blush is basically a neutral shade! You can use your accent colors in small pops, or as a big statement in several places throughout the wedding! For example, if you are using blush as your bridesmaid dresses, why not use one of your accent colors for linens to mix it up, paired with blush flowers on the table to tie it together? Or you could use accent colors in other areas, like your favors, guest book table/cake table decor, small details that the bridesmaids and groomsmen are wearing, and more! This is the really fun part, and how weddings quickly become one-of-a-kind; the sky is the limit!
To see how your accent and focal colors pair together, you can use a free color board creation program called the Color Boutique on Magnet Street website! Magnet Street allows you to create a custom color palette and then save it to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, ect! If a bride is undecided about a color palette, I always like to save the color board to her wedding Pinterest board, so she can see color options paired with the other details she has already chosen! So, I suggest you hop on Magnet Street (and Pinterest) and play around with some color options that appeal to you!! Select a few pairings and show them to your wedding planner/designer and/or floral designer if you need help narrowing it down! 🙂
Luke and Ashley Photography
3. Choose a dominant metal that pulls your color palette together. Using metals in weddings is all the rage right now, and I don’t think it’s a trend that is ending anytime soon! Gold is a popular choice, but also bronze, rose gold, mercury glass and silver are all options that could pair really well with your color palette! These metals can be incorporated by using metallic ribbon for your bouquets, metallic centerpiece vessels, signage, decor, and could even be pulled out by having your MOH or bridesmaids in metallic! So many fun choices! 🙂
Here is an example color palette I created on Magnet Street, to give you some ideas! I chose blush as my focal color, burgundy and sea-foam green as my accent colors and gold as my metal. And now I am obsessed with this color palette, hahaha! Someone please choose these colors; they are so pretty together!!
Magnet Street is a wonderful (free) resource that can help you envision color palette options, but I know that there are probably some awesome other options out there too!! So, for those of you that are engaged, how did you chose a wedding color palette?
Mai Williams in her floral design lesson with me! The bouquet we made is a gorgeous example of pairing colors together! She did such a phenomenonal job! 🙂