I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in the history of weddings, brides decided that when picking wedding colors, they needed to pick just two. You may not have noticed, but when you ask a bride today, “What are your wedding colors?” she will likely respond with “oh blue and yellow,” or “pink and orange,” basically, “_____ and ______” – fill in the blank with two colors, you get my point.
But there’s a problem with this idea, because 9 times out of 10, the two colors are completely contrasting. This is because they are typically chosen for a specific reason, maybe pink is the bride’s favorite color and orange is the groom’s favorite color – so naturally, they pick pink and orange. Or maybe you pick the colors of your favorite sports teams, etc. And while I love the idea of choosing colors with a meaning behind them, we need to be careful that we aren’t just throwing two random colors together. To avoid this, I like to help my brides develop a “wedding color palette” rather than “wedding colors.” Today, I’m showing you an example of how I develop a wedding color palette, as well as explain how having a color palette instead of two wedding colors will make your wedding design much more cohesive.
I started off by just searching “purple orange wedding.” Here’s what my search returned.
Next, I tried “lavender peach wedding.” Now, look what Pinterest returned.
With this prettier group of search results, I started pulling images that I thought incorporated lavender and peach well. Using those images, I then created this inspiration board in Adobe Illustrator.
When picking out your color palette, I suggest picking one or two main colors (complementary colors, not contrasting colors) and then add 2-3 accent colors. It’s good to have some neutrals that can be used for background items and it’s important to pick one deeper color that can be used for text or signs so it’s easier to read. I recently blogged about an online resource called Violet that provides brides with a free way to create a style guide for their wedding. One of my favorite parts of Violet’s online tool is the ability to play around with color palettes. I created the below color palette for our example using their tool!
Having a complete color palette instead of just two wedding colors really helps define a cohesive design. I find that having a color palette allows you to have much more diversity when you are designing the details of your wedding. You’re not forced to pick either purple or orange when designing a welcome sign, picking out napkins, or selecting invitations. You’re instead picking from a variety of colors that you already know work well together. This ability will allow your design to remain cohesive without being overpowering with just two colors.
I hope this post inspires you to come up with your own wedding color palette! Pinterest and Violet are both great tools to use while you are playing around with colors and I highly recommend using them!