Your wedding day is undoubtedly one of the biggest days of your life and one of the most important. You want every detail to be spot on but there is so much to do, it can sometimes be overwhelming to know where to start.
Some of the most important decisions relate to the outfits of your whole bridal party as well as the way you decorate your wedding reception venue. Picking the right colours can be tricky – there are so many factors to consider and how your whole party looks, as well as the venue itself, will having a long-lasting impact as your wedding day photography will capture all of this in full HD colour.
Choosing a wedding theme
Every wedding has a theme. Some are more deliberate than others, but even the most simple weddings reflect the style of the bride and groom. Whether it’s something small that perfectly captures the essence of the happy couple or something more grandiose, it’s important to consider the theme of your wedding before you get too far down the planning road.
Whatever you decide on for the overall theme of your wedding, it is likely that much of it will be driven by the style of your dress, the colours of the venue and the whole ambience you are aiming for, including the guests that are invited, both to the ceremony and to the evening reception.
The wedding dress
For most people, the colour of your wedding dress is a given. For the majority of weddings, the bride will typically wear a white dress and this can help to create the base for the overall theme of the wedding. White is the perfect colour to match with almost any other colour so it can really help to form the foundations of your wedding theme.
You don’t have to look far to find some great examples of how white works well to bring other colours to life. The online world is a great place to find wonderful examples of how whitespace can drive your wedding theme. Many big brands use whitespace to complement their own brand colours and make everything else ‘pop’ and that can be a good place to start your research when you are thinking about some of the colours you want to introduce alongside your white wedding dress.
The bridesmaids’ dresses
Your bridesmaids are central to the overall wedding and also central to the overall theme. It’s when choosing the bridesmaids’ dresses when you can really start to think about the colours you want to introduce into your wedding theme.
It’s important that your bridesmaids’ dresses match the overall style of your own wedding dress. If you have gone for a vintage style, it’s important that the bridesmaids’ dresses also carry through the same style and the same goes if you have opted for a more contemporary style of wedding dress.
It’s important to get the colours right as well. Your bridesmaids need to stand out more than the other wedding guests, but without overshadowing the bride herself.
Wedding themes that include colours, such as spring pastels or autumn russets are pretty much easy picks. On the other hand, if your wedding is inspired by bright colours, bridesmaid dresses should be of a shade that will flatter your own gown or complement the flower choices.
The Groom’s party
The groom has very few roles typically in planning a wedding and is usually quite happy to sit back and let the bride plan her big day (this is not always the case but is more common than not). One task that usually falls on the groom is to pick out his own suit and those of his party (best man, father of the bride and groomsmen).
This is an important role as it is important that the style and colours of the suits and accompaniments match the bride’s party.
Many men opt for darker coloured suits such as black, navy blue or grey and then introduce colour through the accessories including a pocket square, tie or bow tie. Again, the digital environment can be a great place to take inspiration. Many big brands are using dark colours in order to make their bright brand colours pop. Brands like Netflix, Betway, and Amazon are all using dark colours to enhance their bright colours through the use of call to action buttons and navigation items. They all also use whitespace to introduce clean lines.
In the same way, you can really introduce some bright colours through the groom’s accessories and these need to tie in with the colours in the bridesmaids’ dresses.
The wedding venue
The wedding venue is where you can pull everything together. You can reflect the overall theme of your wedding throughout all the little touches at the wedding venue: the decor, the table settings, the flowers and more.
The wedding venue is often a blank canvas but make sure you consider how you want the venue to look on the day when you are going through the process of selecting the venue at the start of your wedding planning. Picking a venue with neutral colours can help you to bring in your own theme more easily – if the venue already has a theme of its own, you may need to consider whether the colours and overall style of your wedding is going to match – if not, you may need to reconsider or compromise.
Planning a wedding is no small thing and there are many things that need to be considered. Make sure you take inspiration from the world around you – website designers have a great understanding of how colours and styles can work together so when you are browsing the internet, make sure you bookmark any sites that really stand out.
