5 Ways to choose your Wedding Colours

Welcome to our video series of the top 20 questions brides ask when planning their wedding.  Our topic today will be Wedding Colours.  There are five basic choices.

Choice One is Neutral colours.  Neutral colours are: black, brown, and white.  Black means deepest black to pale grey.  Brown means deep, rich brown to palest beige.  White means stark white to soft creamy whites.  So, your neutrals are black, brown and white.

Neutral colours go with any other colour, and of course, go with each other.  Think black and white.  Very elegant.  If you want a calm, sophistocated feel to your décor, go with neutrals and the occasional splash of colour.  If you want the décor to be lively and fun, go with a stronger use of bold colours.

Let’s start with the colour wheel to make things simple. There are many different colour wheels with different types of colours—one might be a pastel colour wheel, another colour wheel might have bright colours, and another might have colours that are muted with a grey undertone.

There is no right or wrong.  Any colour wheel that you like will work.  I suggest that you google “images” and type in colour wheel to see the many choices you have available to you.

So, how do you choose your wedding colours?  Well.  Pick a starting colour—any one.  You can always change your mind and try again until you like the result.

For this video, let’s pick blue to start with, as many grooms choose this colour, which drives most brides crazy!!  So, let’s look at the dark blue options on this colour wheel.  This leads us to wedding colour choice # 2.

The rule here is different shades of the same colour go together.

So if you have one shade of blue for the bridesmaid dresses, and the reception site has a different shade of blue for the napkins, don’t panic.  All shades of the same colour work together.

Choice three has this rule:  colours next to each other on the colour wheel go together.

In our example, that means turquoise blue and/ or purple—depending how many colours you want in your colour scheme.  In fact, you could choose blue and turquoise blue as your two main colours, and add purple into the flowers for added pop.  Play around.  The rule is that ‘colours next to each other on the colour wheel go together’.

Choice Four is “colours opposite each other on the colour wheel go together”.

In our example of blue, that means a melon orange.  Your sweetheart wants blue and you want something bright and cheerful?  No problem.  Choose melon with blue accents and he gets blue and you get a nice bold colour to make a great statement.  To expand on the colour scheme, you can add more shades of melon or more shades of  blue following the rule that ‘shades of the same colour work together’.  You can add colours that are next to blue or melon, like a true orange, or a more yellow-orange colour, using the rule ‘colours next to each other on the colour wheel go together’.  Play around and have fun with the colours.

Choice Five is a little complicated to understand, but it’s easy if you pay close attention.

So, Choice Five is “three colours an equal distance apart on the colour wheel”.

Three colours away from blue going clockwise would mean pink, and three colours away from blue going counter-clockwise would be lime green. So.  Lime-green – Blue -Pink.  Classic colours that go well together.

Let’s do another example.  Let’s start at the colour yellow.   Three colours to right from yellow  is  orange.  Three colours to the left of yellow is turquoise.  Those are your three colours that go together.

Choose any starting colour, and apply any of these rules and you will have the perfect colour combination.  When choosing your wedding colours, these five choices should serve you well and help you decorate with confidence.  Good luck, and congratulations on your upcoming wedding.

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Source: This article was submitted by TheWeddingExpert.ca, a Canadian wedding blog owned by Angela Fiebelkorn where she posts wedding planning how to videos and gives free advice to brides and grooms. Angela Fiebelkorn is a certified wedding planner and co-owner of TheBridalCoach.ca. This article is based on a video she made on How to Choose Wedding Colours and is part of her free Wedding Planning series.