Choosing your wedding color scheme is the very beginning of your wedding planning process. Colors often set the mood and tone of the entire event, and choosing the exact shades that represent your love is such an exciting moment! Once you’ve selected your wedding colors, all of the other details begin to fall in place, including venues, themes, style, and more.
If you feel a little lost with where to begin, here’s what you need to know to find the wedding color scheme that best suits your upcoming celebration.
What is a wedding color palette?
A wedding color palette, or wedding color scheme, is a collection of carefully chosen colors that ties together your wedding celebration. You’ll use them in every facet of your event, including wedding stationery, attire, floral arrangements, table decorations, and more.
What are wedding colors used for?
Carefully selected wedding colors help create a consistent theme for your special day and give your event a feel that is unmistakably you — whether that’s neon playful, forest ethereal, or jewel-tone royal.
Your wedding color palette will help you curate a feel or mood that your guests will experience throughout the event. Your wedding colors should reflect your vibe as a couple, as well as the experience you want to create to celebrate your love.
How many wedding colors should I choose?
Typically, we recommend choosing 1-3 primary colors, 2 secondary colors, and tying it all together with a metallic. Five or so colors will give your wedding a cohesive vibe, without limiting your options.
When in doubt, choose a color family (like soft purples or forest greens) and let your wedding planner, stationer, or other vendors help you select specific shades.
How do I pick a wedding color palette?
Choosing a wedding color palette is often one of the first steps in a wedding planning process! This family of colors will help guide your decision making throughout the planning process and give all your vendors concrete elements to work with.
But how do you choose your wedding colors? While choosing colors you love is important, there are a few other things you’ll want to consider, like color compatibility, season, mood, and more. Here are a few of our top tips to help you start selecting your perfect shades.
Choose your wedding colors early!
It might feel soon, but we recommend thinking about your wedding colors right after you get engaged. Even if you aren’t able to pinpoint exact hues, having a general idea of your wedding color palette will help guide your decisions when it comes to venues, stationers, and even a wedding date.
For example, if you’re really set on a dark romance wedding featuring deep burgundies and blacks, you might opt for a moody winter wedding set in a chapel. If your dream wedding features an airy, romantic feel with lemon yellows and greens, you might choose an outdoor venue!
Start with a brainstorming session.
You only need to know one or two desires to start the wedding color selection. Do you have a favorite flower? A theme or a location? Social media like Pinterest and Instagram are excellent resources during your planning journey.
Find stationers or wedding planners you love and start to create a moodboard! Your wedding colors will appear before you know it.
Choose you, not trends.
We love trends (especially when it comes to color), but trends come and go! Color combinations like rust and sage and shades like olive green are having a big moment in 2024, but if they don’t reflect your deepest wedding desires, ignore them.
Start with you and your partner! What mood do you feel you represent as a couple? Is there something you love doing together that might influence a theme? When you picture your special day, what colors are present?
Consider all the elements of your wedding day.
In the case that you’ve already selected other elements of your wedding, whether that’s your dress, a theme, or the venue, include those elements as you consider your color selection. If you know that you want to get married outside or at a museum gallery, that might affect your color selection. If you know your bridesmaids are wearing lilac, take that into account!
Seasons can also inspire how you choose your wedding colors. Fall wedding colors are very different from spring ones. Or, a summer wedding might convince you to have a wildflower wedding theme — which gives you a unique color scheme immediately.
Get advice from people who work with color.
If you’re not sure where to begin, reach out to people know know color! Your invitation designer, your wedding planner, a photographer — even your friend who is a graphic designer. They can all give you suggestions and guide you to the exact shades that will create just the right experience.
Choosing your wedding color scheme can be so exciting — it’s the very beginning of your wedding planning process! Use this as a chance to discover how you and your partner want to represent your love. Whether you choose fall wedding colors or monochrome pink, it’s sure to be gorgeous.