30 November 2009Creating a colourful day!
The colour scheme of any wedding is of great importance as it has an effect throughout the whole wedding from bridesmaids dresses, invitations, room décor and flowers.
Your top five things to consider when deciding on a colour scheme are:
- The location. Consider your venue. If you’re getting married in a hotel, look at the colours of the carpet and curtains as you will have to match your colours to them unless you want to have a clash-attack on your hands. Take into consideration the character of your venue. If you are getting married in a castle or a country house, a modern monochromatic look would feel out of place.
- The theme. Not everyone has a theme for their wedding, but if you have an idea of a certain focus, then the colours will play a big part in creating this theme and sense of occasion. Some ideas include: “under the sea”/ocean Theme, contemporary, Hollywood glamour, medieval, Caribbean, Greek and Roman to name but a few.
- The time of year. What month and season you are getting married in will surely influence your colour choice - as well as the availability of flowers. Spring / summer weddings tend to have a lighter colour palette, while autumn/winter weddings trend towards a darker feel. Valentines weddings will feature red heavily, while burnt oranges and rust colours would be fabulous in the autumn time. A Christmas wedding will have plenty of red and green no doubt, while summer weddings open up all the vibrant tropical colours such as pinks and turquoises.
- The Mood. Consider the mood you’re trying to create. Do you want a low key, romantic affair or an opulent evening? A relaxed garden buffet or a bubbling party? The mood you are trying to create for your guests will be heavily influenced by the colour scheme. Pastels tend to be more relaxed, dark purples and blacks add drama and mystery, and rustic tones tend to create a cozy feel.
- Your favourite! Most people have a favourite colour and it is your big day after all, so you could simply go for that as your colour scheme!
A great place to start is with a colour wheel. These charts are often used by interior designers to help choose colours that coordinate well together. You are usually best off sticking with two or three colours maximum. One main key colour and one or two accent colours works best.
A fab tool that I found on the web was the Colour Palette Generator Tool which allows you to upload any picture and it will generate the colour palette for you. A handy tool for anyone who doesn’t know their teal from their green or fuchsia from their pink! The pros do it all the time, so why not do it yourself – create an inspiration board, by cutting out pictures from magazines, swatches of material, photos from the net. That will help you weed out things you think you like down to the 2/3 key colours for your scheme.
Ciara Crossan is the founder of weddingdates.ie, a unique website that allows engaged couples to select their chosen wedding date and the county in Ireland where they want to get married, and get back an interactive listing of wedding venues with civil ceremony or reception availability on that date. You can also follow Ciara on Twitter at twitter.com/weddingdat
