Summer wedding colors are usually light, airy, and vivid shades. According to The Knot Real Weddings Study, almost 97% of couples use a specific color scheme for their celebrations.
If you’re wondering how to make your summer colors look organic yet not boring at your event, here you’ll find lots of tips and tricks from a wedding photographer who experienced more than 400 weddings.
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4 Sources of Inspiration for Your Summer Color Palette
Here are 4 great sources of inspiration to find summer wedding colors for your big day:
- Do you dream of having the most trending summer colors? The best way to be in trend is to follow Pantone’s recommendations for every season/ year.
Pantone, the company that calls itself “the global authority on color”, is the most influential company in the world according to colors. Any designers, trendsetters, creative brands & businesses are guided by their color recommendations. The Pantone company studies color trends throughout the year and by summarizing all-important of them, announces the most favorable color every year, additional colors — every season. Any “Top Wedding Color Trends” you’ll read on the internet are directly influenced by Pantone colors.
The Pantone Colors of the Year for 2021 are Ultimate Gray and Illuminating. Below you’ll find Pantone Color palettes for Spring Summer 2021 that you can easily use as inspiration for your summer wedding.
- If you are rather a traditional person or your wedding theme is an old good classic & elegance, you can easily use time-tested color combinations which are always practical and well recognizable.
It may be a classic black & white color, with some green (foliage color) or orange-pink (flower color) accents in summer. It is always popular and looks astonishing.
But don’t forget that this combination is favored in Western culture. The classic colors of Eastern countries are usually bright vivid hues of red, blue, and yellow/gold. If you have a celebration with a national touch, use traditional colors of your culture as Korean and Chinese couples from the photos below did. National colors look appropriate at any time of the year.
- Get inspired by celebrity wedding ideas. Many celebs marry in the summer season and use beautiful color schemes you can easily repeat.
For example, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds married in 2012 in South Carolina. Their “southern charm” wedding was filled with a soft rose gold coloration. Even the petals in the bridal bouquet were dipped in subtle rose-gold glitter.
Lauren Conrad and William Tell had their rustic wedding in Sunstone Villa in Santa Ynez, California. They used plenty of greenery with pops of bright pinks and oranges to add to the country-like charm of the celebration.
So, be ready to catch ideas every time you hear a celebrity is getting married 🙂
- And lastly, a great way to get inspired is movie weddings.
I think I don’t need to explain what I mean. Just remember an exceptional wedding from The Twilight Saga or wedding details from Bride Wars. Or take the totally fresh Netflix series Bridgerton with its great ball scene at the end. It was a monochromatic event where all the key figures and important details had different hues, tints, and shades of periwinkle: from the flowers to the decor & outfits. You can focus on such style ideas from the movies and steal them for your wedding design.
3 Easy Steps for Choosing Your Summer Wedding Colors
You’ve already collected a lot of color ideas on your mood board on Pinterest and now need to incorporate them into your event. How to choose your summer wedding colors from all th is abundance?
Firstly, define a vision of your event
Which type of wedding do you want? Traditional one with a religious ceremony, formal & elegant, destination wedding, country or vintage event? Your wedding type will determine the overall style and surely a color palette. Some colors are just more suitable for a certain type of wedding.
For example, by thinking about a beach wedding most people imagine coral pink, turquoise, or sky blue coloration as well as any kind of pastel hues. The classic combination of black & white is expected at a religious ceremony in the church, and so on.
The second significant point is where you’ll marry
The design and architecture of your venue will have a unique style so it’s important that this is consistent with your wedding theme and colors. The best way to see how the venue influences the choice of a color palette is to have a look at other weddings on the venue’s Facebook/ Instagram pages. You will find there lots of ideas, clues, good & not so good solutions. By this way, you’ll also make sure that a venue suits your vision.
For example, we organized a wedding photoshoot at the Fig House, a famous L.A. event venue. This place in itself has a very unusual contemporary design with vivid details. One couple decided on a colorful palette with bright orange & pink accents. If they had chosen for example soft pastel colors, they probably would have been lost in the venue interiors. However, the bold colors are not the only solution for this place. Another couple decorated the venue with white flying draperies & accents that looked not less impressive.
The third step is simple yet very important: select your basic color/colors
A dominant color is the main color of your wedding, it will build your personal wedding color palette. It can be any color you love, any color that is significant for your relationship or has a special meaning to you/ your soulmate. You can even choose a color that inspires your home decor. What color clothes and accessories are you drawn to?
When you know your basic dominant color, it’s easier to choose accent hues that may be more vivid than the dominant one or otherwise calmer and softer. This color scheme: the basic + accents you’ll use afterward in every element of your wedding design. Dominant red plus gold accents are repeated in every Chinese wedding with a national touch. The dominant color of any Indian wedding ceremony is also gold. And a monochromatic wedding focuses on one dominant color which a couple includes in the event in different tones and shades.
Look at the photos above and see how this color scheme is embodied in every wedding detail creating a harmonious and unique wedding style.
5 Expert Photographer’s Advices on How to Incorporate Your Summer Colors into Your Wedding
I’ve been a Los Angeles wedding photographer for over 9 years now and have worked on over 400 weddings. Believe me, I have seen lots of weddings, with color palettes of all kinds you can only imagine. Below I share some of my thoughts which may be useful when you’ll incorporate your colors into your summer wedding. All tips are based on my experience & my photographs 🙂
Choose between neutral and bright
From my experience, at a traditional American wedding, couples usually choose a soft neutral color palette. It may be any delicate pastel shades of pink, beige, or grey. So, by choosing these hues be sure that this is a good safe decision for your wedding.
If on the contrary, you want to stand out of the crowd choose unusual bold combinations (like these bright blue pictured below). Bold vivid colors are really rare and untypical at an American wedding.
In other cultures as I already mentioned, three basic colors — red, blue, and yellow/ gold — are in favor. Still, unusual color combinations are also possible especially if a couple is mixed.
You don’t need to be too matchy
The most winning and easy solution to use your colors at a wedding is to find a great neutral base to start from, then choose one additional (or two) color to match. With an additional color, I don’t mean only one shade: you can use all hues of one color. That way you don’t have to perfectly color match every detail at your wedding. The idea is that you can find things in these all hues easily. For example, you can plan a great neon pink event, but you might have a hard time finding any flowers to match.
Care about your focal points
At your wedding, you will have some focal points where your color palette will be a decisive factor for your photography as well as for your guests to focus on.
One of such focal points is first and foremost your altar/arch spot. If the colors are chosen well, you will have the most stunning ceremony backdrop you can only imagine. Exactly at the ceremony spot, your colors have to be matched perfectly with your outfit and the overall location.
Your sweetheart table is another focal point to care about. You will be in the spotlight during the entire dinner, all eyes will be on you and your soulmate. People will remember your wedding thanks to this picture, too. Well-matched colors here are also of big importance. I think I don’t need to mention that you will get incredible pictures due to a well-thought color composition of these spots as well.
Define no go colors for your wedding
In different cultures, the same colors may indicate different things. In Western culture, guests often avoid wearing white meaning that this color is the exclusive privilege of the bride. Rarely you will see a bride in a black dress (though I have seen and there is a photo proof below 🙂
In Chinese culture, both white and black represent mourning. These colors symbolizing bad luck nobody wears at weddings. Chinese bridal dress incorporates bright red fabric embroidered in gold. Because of this, Chinese wedding party and guests will not wear very bold tones of red and gold. In general, loud colors in guests’ outfits that draw too much attention are a bit of a faux pas. Keep in mind small nuances of this kind while choosing your color palette including your wedding party outfits.
Still, if you are an out-of-the-box person, maybe it’s time to break the rules? In the photos below, you’ll see bridesmaids in almost white/ecru, a bride is wearing a black dress, and a groom has a quite colorful outfit. Surely, guests will remember such a bold wedding for a long time.
Be ready to answer the questions about your wedding colors
It may seem a bit odd but probably you’ll be asked what color the bridesmaids will be wearing. Some female guests which are not so close to the bride feel uncomfortable wearing the same color as bridesmaids. They just want to plan their outfit and feel free from any inconvenience at your wedding. Also, some people may be interested in your palette because they want to present you with a gift in the colors of your event. So, don’t be surprised about the possible questions.
Here you can read about traditional color palettes which you can see at weddings with a national vibe:
- at Filipino,
- Vietnamese or
- Cambodian weddings.
Compare Korean and Chinese color palettes based on Yin Yang philosophy or admire lavish and vivid Mexican & Armenian wedding festivities.
These articles will help you to plan your own celebration:
- why a microwedding may be as beautiful as a large scale event,
- how you create your guest list without pain and tears,
- how to find a good photographer and what to ask him,
- what is the best strategy to create a perfect wedding timeline,
- why it’s important to do a First Look and in which cases it does not work, and lastly
- how to make your wedding reception unique and unforgettable.
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