How to Pick Wedding Colors

Where do I learn how to pick wedding colors? How does royal blue look with teal? Could anyone possibly pull off an orange-colored wedding? I asked all of these questions. I remember when I tried to find mine, I scoured the internet and used color wheels, different colored paper, colored pencils… but somehow, no color scheme fit! Even the cute “pink and brown” scheme didn’t look appealing.

Here was my old method of using basic colors put together, demonstrated using the wedding colors pink and brown.

Then, my brilliant sister showed me how to pick wedding colors in a way that works: use ribbon. Two magic words fixed my wedding color dilemma. When she told me her method, I was skeptical—how could ribbons possibly help? We took a field trip to the craft store where she showed me what I’m going to show you now.

Now let’s try it using swatches from ribbons:

If you don’t feel like getting out of your seat to play with ribbons, then the two websites below are great for helping you pick wedding colors by just copying and pasting their image on a basic “paint” program. You should get similar results to the collage above. These will help you on how to pick wedding colors.

These ribbons can be found at Pebblesinc.com So if you’ve decided on a color, I’d check out this site to get the ribbons for wedding favors or handmade wedding invitations.

Beau-Coup.com also has a wide selection of beautiful organza ribbons, which can be used for all types of things from wedding centerpieces to floral arrangements.

In fact, the Beau-Coup.com proves how wedding colors you never imaged would look good together can be stunning: sea foam green, purple, orange, and olive sounds awful, right? But this picture illustrates with ribbons how great it can look! This illustrates a good point—be fearless with wedding colors. Go for off-the-wall combinations when making your own ribbon collage. You’d be surprised at the effect!

When it comes to bridesmaid dresses in pink and brown, here’s a tip: do NOT put some in brown dresses while others in pink. The result is like that icky color palate above, unless you use soft pinks and browns. That might work. I’d stick with brown, and then make the bouquets match the other colors.

These bridesmaid knee-length dresses are from Amsale Bridesmaids. Cute, right?

Cupcakes Take the Cake makes the adorable cupcakes. I’m so glad cupcake wedding cake trends are rising—I think that’s awesome! Like, I’d just go to this site just to cheer me up. Who the heck doesn’t like cupcakes?

The wedding cake is from cakesvictoria.com: her other designs are quite lovely, too.

The lanterns are from lunabazaar.com, which has an extensive selection of paper lanterns should you want them at your wedding reception. Best yet, the chocolate brown lanterns are just $6.50 apiece, which is great when I see others running for $30 on up. The paper fans and little pink lanterns are from here, too. I sorta fell in love with this site when I saw the wide array of reasonably-priced products from here.

The chocolate covered pink strawberries are from Proflowers.com: while you can buy them, making them the night before (make your maid of honor earn her title!) shouldn’t be too hard with some white dipping chocolate mixed with red food dye for stripes, as well as milk chocolate for dipping. This is a great for summer wedding ideas, when strawberries are in season.

Think about chocolate pearl jewelry like this one from Diamond.com: this accessory shows how to pick wedding colors by certain items: it looks so classy, and with a light pink flower bouquet, it’s unbeatable.

I know I’m a little feather hairpiece crazy, but Jenny Pickle’s Etsy shop makes some gorgeous ones.

And lastly, the shoes are fromSteve Madden—who knew they made stylish wedding shoes?

Hopefully this provided some insight on how to pick wedding colors. Good luck, soon-to-be brides!