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How Do I Choose A Wedding Theme? – Ask The Wedding Expert

August 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Question from Jocelyn:

I am getting married in May 15 or 20 in 2010. And I like the colour of navy blue, light blue and white but I don’t know what kind of flowers to go with my wedding or what theme to go with and I don’t know if I should have it outdoor or in a church.  What should I do?

Answer from Wedding Expert Angela:

Hi Jocelyn, and congratulations on your upcoming wedding.  You colour choice sounds lovely.  As for flowers, there are many colours that go with blue.  Some of them are greens, purples, yellow, and melon.  As you can see from this photo, blue and melon go well together, and are considered complementary colours (they are opposite each other on the colour wheel).  This video I made on choosing wedding colours will give you more ideas on colour choices.

I think you are stressing yourself out over the flowers when you don’t need to.  What you really need to do is make a list of all the flowers that you need—bride’s bouquet, # of bridesmaid’s bouquets, boutonnieres, # of parent’s corsages, table centrepieces, etc.  I made a video that outlines what you need to consider when making your wedding flower list.  Once you have your list, go to your florist (with your budget clear in your mind), and ask them what they suggest.  THEY are the flower experts.  Bring a picture of the bridesmaid’s dress, or a fabric sample so they know your wedding colours.

When it comes to choosing a wedding theme, you have thousands of choices.  You can keep it simple with a colour theme (blue).  You can choose something that represents you and your fiance, like a hobby or something you both love to do.  To get some ideas, visit the popular wedding favour site—they have thousands of wedding favours to choose from.

When it comes to choosing an outdoor wedding, or a church wedding, the choice is really yours.  If you are outdoors, you will have to arrange things like chairs, sound system, at least one table, and then you will want to make it festive and decorative.  Usually that means arches, or lattice as a backdrop where the alter would be.  Those things can all be rented, or purchased, but they will need to be setup and taken down after the wedding.

If you were in a church, you could just decorate the church, have your wedding, and then arrange for someone to remove the decorations.  If it rains, the church would probably be your backup location anyway.  Those are the main things to consider.  This article on wedding ceremony sites might be helpful.

Good luck, and if you have further questions, feel free to ask.

Angela Fiebelkorn, Ask The Expert

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Wedding Colour Choices Made Easy by Angela Fiebelkorn

February 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Wedding Colour Choices Made Easy by Angela Fiebelkorn.  This 10 page document explains the basic principles of using a colour wheel to figure out what colours go together.

Explore Tonal Colour Schemes, Complementary Colour Schemes, Harmonious Colour Schemes, and Triadic Colour Schemes, as well as the use of neutrals and texture in design.  Filled with pictures to explain each concept as they are presented, this handy document is a great primer to design and decor planning.  Using these principles will give you the knowledge and confidence to make choosing your wedding colours an easy task.

Remember, we are always available on the blog to answer your personal wedding planning questions. 

If you would like to receive this .pdf file, sign up for our SmartBrideTM Newsletter.  When you sign up, we give three bonus wedding planning tools which includes: 

  • Wedding Colour Choices Made Easy (a .pdf document),
  • The Hidden Meaning of Wedding Flowers  (a 3 part video series) and
  • The Secret of Dressing Your Body Type (another .pdf document). 

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How To Use The Colour Wheel To Choose Your Wedding Colours

December 25, 2008 By Leave a Comment
colour-wheel

Choosing your wedding colours can be a daunting task.  Will the bridesmaids look good in that colour?  What decorations can I find to match the colour scheme?  Will the reception site have matching napkins, table runners or table skirting?  These are all factors in deciding your wedding colours, but mostly, will it be something you will love on your wedding day?

Using a colour wheel will help you decide what colours go together, and may give you ideas for wedding colours that you had not yet thought of.  In this colour wheel, you will see there are a variety of shades to each colour.  In truth, there can be many colour wheels—wheels with pastel colours, wheels with bright colours, wheels with muted grey undertones, the possibilities are endless.  In addition to the colour wheel, there are also the neutral colours of white, black and brown.  Neutral colours go with any other colour choice, and give the eye a rest from constant colour.  The more neutral colours, the more soothing a colour scheme.

Tonal colours, sometimes called monochromatic colours, are various shades of one particular colour.  This is a beautiful colour scheme, and easy to incorporate into a wedding.  Bridesmaids can have various shades of colour for their dresses, for example.  If you are using a tonal colour scheme, if the reception room does not have a perfect match to your wedding colour, as long as it is in the same colour family, it will work.

Harmonious colours are those colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel.  Usually two or three colours are chosen that are next to each other on the wheel, and this creates a harmonious look to your wedding decor.  Blues and purples, or yellow-orange-reds are two examples.  A harmonious colour scheme will work with any neutral, and also work if you had some tonal shades included.  The possibilities are quite endless, and really depends upon your personal sense of style.

A complementary colour scheme is two colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel.  Purple-yellow, red-green, or blue-orange are some examples.  If you wanted more than two colours, you could add small accents of harmonious or tonal colours to the complementary colour scheme, but it is important to let the two colours hold centre stage in your decorating scheme.  An alternative to adding harmonious or tonal colours would be using a neutral colour like white, black or brown.

A triadic colour scheme is using three colours that are the same distance apart on the colour wheel.  For example, two colours over from purple on one side is blue, and two colours on the other side of purple is red.  Or you can go three or even 4 colours on each side of your starting colour.  The triadic colour scheme is quite bold, and usually for a wedding is used in conjunction with a strong neutral colour like white.  An example would be a decor with various shades of white (tonal) with splashes of your triadic colours.  If you wanted a bolder statement, you would just add more splashes of colour in your decor.

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Wedding Colours – How To Put A Complementary Colour Scheme Together

December 24, 2008 By Leave a Comment
complementary-colour-scheme

One of the first things a bride does when she starts planning her wedding is to choose her wedding colours.  This sets the tone for the entire wedding and will dictate what colours the bridesmaid dresses are, what the flowers choices are, the decorations, the wedding favours, and more.  The wedding colour choices are endless, but fall into these basic categories:  tonal, harmonious, complementary, triadic, and neutral.  If you have trouble visualizing how colours go together, using a colour wheel will help you visually see how the colours work together.

A tonal colour scheme is various tones or shades of a single colour.  A harmonious colour scheme is one in which the colours sit next to each other on the colour wheel.  Triadic colours are equal distances apart on the colour wheel, and a neutral wedding colour scheme has various shades of white, black and/or brown.  The complementary colour scheme is found by choosing two colours that are across from each other on the colour wheel. 

Some examples of a complementary colour scheme are:  red and green, blue and orange, and purple and yellow to name the basic colour combinations.  Of course, there are thousands of shades and tones of colour in each category, and it is important to keep the colour tones the same.  For example, if you are using blue and orange, either use a soft blue and a soft orange colour, or a combination of bold blues and oranges.  Mixed in with any colour scheme can be your neutral colours of black, white and brown.  These neutrals can be of a different tonal quality that your complementary colours, and depending upon the tone of your neutrals, it will make a different type of decor statement. 

Choosing complementary colours is a great way to add a splash of colour to your wedding theme, and a great way to express your personality and personal style.

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Wedding Colours – The Harmonious Colour Scheme

December 23, 2008 By Leave a Comment
harmonious-colour-scheme

When choosing your wedding colours, you have a number of options:  the harmonious colour scheme, the tonal colour scheme, the complementary colour scheme and the triadic colour scheme.  To understand how to use colours properly, you must consider not just colours, but your neutrals as well.  The neutral colours are white, black, and brown, in all their various shades. 

The harmonious colour scheme refers to choosing colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel.  One example would be yellow, orange, and red, which is often seen in a fall wedding theme.  Blue, green and purple are also harmonious colours in nature.  Sometimes with a harmonious colour scheme, there are various “shades” of blue and purple, with accents of green.  Think of a bridal bouquet with various blue and purple flowers, and the accent of the greenery to get an idea of what it would look like. 

You can also have combinations like purple-red-orange, or yellow-green-blue, in a variety of shades to create a harmonious colour scheme.  Also, it is not necessary to use all three colours, it works just as well to use two colours next to each other on the colour wheel. 

When creating a harmonious wedding colour scheme, it is important to keep the colour tones the same.  For example, if you are using soft colours, keep them all soft.  If you are using bold colours, keep them all bold.  Although you can go with various shades of one or two colours, you want to keep the overall tone within a small range of colour.  A pale pastel yellow next to bright orange would not work as well as matching bold yellow and bold orange—as show in this bouquet of orange roses and yellow calla lilies. 

Alway remember that your harmonious colours can be paired with any of the neutral colours.  Harmonious colours work gently together to give you an overall beauty to your wedding decor–whether you choose a bold colour tone, or a soft colour tone.

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