Everyone knows planning a wedding is overwhelming due to the series of decisions you need to
make for the upcoming day. You need to decide on your wedding location, wedding outfits, the
final number of wedding guests, and more. Not to mention that you and your soon-to-be spouse
will have a say on the wedding’s overall output, so both of you need to balance your decisions.
One of the crucial factors you need to decide during the early stages of wedding planning is your
wedding’s color theme.

Your wedding’s color theme will be the basis and foundation for the rest of the details of your entire wedding ceremony. Your chosen wedding colors will bring a significant effect on your wedding’s overall style and aesthetic. After deciding on your wedding colors, that’s when the other decorations and designs will fall into place—from wedding invitations, lightings, backdrop, to how you choose your bouquet, your wedding attires, and more.  

Thus, picking your wedding colors isn’t always as easy as it sounds. To make this part of planning easier for you, here’s a quick guide on how to choose your wedding color theme and ensure your final choices are something you won’t regret:

1. Choose A Base Color

Before choosing which wedding colors you’ll use, it’s ideal to choose your base color first. Try to discuss with your partner your favorite colors. Or maybe try to recall how you visualized your dream wedding way back. Perhaps, while daydreaming about your wedding, there’s one prominent color from there that stood out as your wedding’s theme.
Your base color can be anything. It can be a navy blue, soft pink, punchy yellow, or any color describing the type of vibe you want to feel from your wedding theme. After deciding on one base color, you may choose its complementary colors or its ‘accent.’ Generally, you’ll need to select at least two to three accent colors to create contrast or variation from the base color. If you still don’t have any base color in mind, keep reading for more tips in picking your wedding color theme from scratch.

2. Be Inspired By Your Wedding Location

Your chosen wedding location can help you decide on your wedding color theme. So, as you start your search for a perfect wedding venue, you can have a temporary base color in mind.

From there, you can try to visualize the venue and its surroundings and see if the base color matches. Whether you intend to get married in an open area or a close ballroom, the existing and non-existing details of the wedding location will influence your choice of wedding colors.

Wedding locations that are considered an ‘empty canvas’ or ‘blank slate’ may include barns, outdoor gardens, beaches, tented receptions, and other outdoor wedding areas. These venues are easier to work with when choosing a wedding color since you need not worry about clashing colors.

Meanwhile, closed wedding venues like restaurants, libraries, museums, hotels, and country clubs are often more challenging to work with. In determining your wedding palette, you’ll need to consider the existing colors these close areas already have and try to choose colors that’d go along with them.

3. Consider The Season

Another source of inspiration in choosing your wedding colors is the season of your wedding day. After you and your partner have decided your final wedding date, see if that specific day lands in winter, summer, fall, or spring. From there, you can use wedding colors that’d blend well with the current season and weather.

For instance, if you’ve always dreamed of having a spring wedding, then you may use that as an inspiration for your wedding colors such as neutral colors or smooth and charming pastels. If you’re contemplating having a fall wedding, you can incorporate colors like purple, pomegranate, and orange.

For those planning a winter wedding, opt for colors like cool blues, emerald green, and deep reds. You can also go for a winter scene inspiration with the silver color and wintery white.

Lastly, the most popular season for wedding bells is the summer season which often uses bright blue, yellow, and vivid pink.

4. Take Note Of The Holidays

Aside from the season, you can also take note of the holiday on which your wedding day falls. If you’re planning to exchange vows during Valentine’s Day, you may use the shades of red, pink, and white for your wedding colors. If you’re thinking of a Christmas wedding, you can easily use the shades of green, gold, and red.

For a New Year’s wedding, you can use gold and black for your wedding hues. There are still plenty of holidays out there you can use as inspiration for your theme. However, remember that you need not take these colors too seriously or literally. The colors of the holidays shall only serve as your main inspiration. So, for anyone having a Christmas wedding, you don’t always have to use Christmas decorations during your wedding. Let the colors and shades speak for themselves.

5. Get Personal

In case you may forget, the wedding you’re planning is your very own, which means you have the freedom to get personal with all your choices. Don’t hesitate to speak up about your sense of style, personality, and any color that may hold value for you. You don’t always need to follow trends in wedding colors or go for obvious color combos just because they’re the safest choice.

Be creative with your wedding and use your favorite colors as your inspiration. Usually, you can tell which shades you’re most drawn to through your choice of nail polish, clothes, or even the shade of lipstick you often wear. So, get personal, be creative, and let your wedding color theme
stand out among the status quo.

Final Thoughts

It’s easy to feel pressured by the people around you about following a strict wedding color theme. But the truth is, your wedding color doesn’t have to play a massive role in your wedding than most people made it out to be.

While it’s true that your chosen wedding color will influence a lot of your decisions, you must use it as a guideline or basis instead of a ‘strict rule.’ Don’t overthink or overwhelm yourself about having a perfectly color-coded wedding. Go for whatever color you and your partner have chosen for your wedding day. After all, your wedding isn’t about impressing your wedding guests but rather a celebration of a new milestone in your relationship.