Your wedding colour scheme defines the theme of your wedding. Whether you're having soft pastels at your spring wedding or going for rich burgundy in the autumn, there are hundreds of colour combinations for you to choose from. However, while there are some wild colour schemes that actually work well together, there are some colour mistakes you should avoid at all costs.

Ignoring your venue

Loie Photography

One of the major colour scheme mistakes you can make is not thinking about your venue. Whether you like it or not, chances are, your venue is going to have its own colour scheme in the reception area and this needs to be taken into consideration when you are choosing your own wedding colour scheme. This is another reason why you should choose your venue before you make any other key decisions. Have a look around your venue when you think about your colours and inquire about any other décor they have. For example, most venues offer a choice of chair covers. You don’t want your dream colour palette to clash on your wedding day because of your venue.

Too many colours

Onelove Photography

It is possible to choose too many colours for your wedding. A nice mix of colours in bouquets can look lovely, especially for summer, and you can definitely have more than two colours, in fact, we encourage it. But if you choose several colours, you will end up having too much for the eye to focus on and be left with a very loud, garish-looking wedding reception. You don’t want your wedding to look like a crayon box exploded all over it! Stick to four colour shades maximum that complement each other well.

‘Trendy’ wedding colour schemes

Jenn Emerling

There are some fairly bold wedding colour schemes that come and go from the wedding trend list every year. Be careful when you are looking at these. Try not to get too taken in by what is ‘cool’ or ‘in’ while you’re planning your wedding. Sometimes you just can’t force yourself into a particular trend, and even if you convince yourself a particular colour scheme looks amazing while you’re planning your wedding, you might feel differently by the time your wedding actually rolls around. It’s also worth bearing in mind the season you’re looking for inspiration versus the season you’re actually getting married. Dark wines and winterberry colours look lovely, but for a summer wedding, you should be thinking about something brighter.

Not getting the balance right

Jacobo Pachon Photography

There are exceptions to every rule of course, but when you’re choosing bold colours, you have to bear in mind the human eye’s need for a calming contrast to be visually appealing. Even if you’re going for a really bright colour scheme, such as turquoise and orange, they can’t both be as loud as each other. You have to make a decision about which colour will be more prominent. From there you can choose your secondary colour or colours that will offset the more prominent one, instead of vying for just as much attention. You want your wedding colour scheme to complement each other well but you don’t want them to distract your guests.

Forgetting to contrast

Onelove Photography

Many brides fall into the pitfall of only having one colour in mind for the theme of their wedding and using nothing but different shades of that same colour for everything. Even if the only contrast you use from lavender is white, there needs to at least be that much contrast. Otherwise, you’ll be left with the flowers blending in with the bridesmaids and the centrepieces and one fairly boring wedding colour scheme. Think about you’re your wedding as a set of layers that have to contrast to stand out. Proper contrast will make your wedding colour combination pop so make sure you think about what colours go well together.

 

- Jenny