Why it's important to pick the right wedding colors

Many brides find it difficult to choose colors for the wedding. If you are not visually oriented, and your partner is not, this can seem a particularly daunting task. However, there are a few tips that can make choosing colors more enjoyable, and less stressful.

The wedding and reception should be a beautiful expression of oneself. A good place to start when choosing colors is to think of a color you like, or a flower you like. Flowers come in a variety of colors, and this is an excellent place to start when choosing wedding colors. The flower can serve as an inspiration for your colors. If you like orchids, purple is a good color. Daffodils, tiger lilies and delphinium are all lovely flowers that have distinctive colors. Additionally, think about the colors you like to wear, and what decorates your home. These are colors you are comfortable with, and that can add a personal and unifying touch to your day.

Another way to choose colors is to think of the season of your wedding. Winter weddings suggest deep colors: burgundy, dark blues and greens, silver. Spring is a bright season, full of fresh blooming colors and summer calls to mind pastels. Autumn harvest colors include rust, orange, yellow and brown. When you match your colors to the season, you are in an especially appropriate setting, as many people choose to marry during a time of year they particularly enjoy.

One color and one or two accent colors are most common for weddings. First choose the primary color for your wedding, and then think of the accent colors. If you have a shade that you especially like, but are unsure of the accents, a color wheel can be a good aid. Most wedding planners have a color wheel, and they can be bought at any art supply store.

One idea is to use monochromatic tones, which means different shades of one color. Using your color wheel, however, you can determine related colors and complementary colors. Related colors are next to each other on the color wheel, and complementary colors are across from each other. This will help you create a visually pleasing wedding and reception, while still highlighting your preferred color.
Bridesmaid  dresses, flowers and decorations should all incorporate the chosen colors. With a little thought and planning, you can present a comfortable and attractive look for your wedding and reception.

Here are a few of my favorite color combinations 

Yellow & Gray 

 Blush Pink & Antique Gold

 

  Eggplant Purple and Silver

Eggplant Purple & Gold

Online tools to help decide on the perfect colors :

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

http://www.nearlyweds.com/wedding-colors/color-chooser

Who to invite ?

Undecided on who you should invite to your wedding? Use this flow chart to help you decide.

Wedding Budget

Congratulations on your engagement ! Will you marry me? So now the big questions start, then stress levels are rising, and you need to start tying down some details, you may want to do everything at once, the time to fly by and the wedding day to arrive, however by ensuring everything is organised, or at least planned, you will save yourself a lot of wedding related stress. JL event Design have prepared some starting pointers for you to ensure you make the best start with your wedding planning.

BudgetSet a wedding budget. Very important before you start to set yourself some limits. It is very easy to let a wedding budget run out of control. Spiraling costs are all to common a tale. You need to decide if you will be funding the wedding yourself, if the finance is coming from the bride’s family, the groom’s family, or a combination of sources. It may be a good idea to set yourself up a spreadsheet to keep track of your planned costs. You could have a column with your estimated cost-of-item per person (make sure you research these, don’t just guess!). Then add a column for number of people/number of that item. Remember you may want to split adults and children numbers up on your spreadsheet if the costs differ. The final column is your total cost for that item, you just need to multiply the cost-per-item by the number of that item. You can add up the total to see if you meet your budget, or if you need to change the numbers etc. Editor’s Tip: Add a 10% slush fund to your budget to absorb any overspend

GuestsLook at the wedding guest list. Always a flash point for any Bride and Groom to be, and their families. It’s a good idea to only finalise the list of guests you will be inviting just before you actually send out the invitations, about 3 months before the big day. What you do need to do at this early stage is work out a rough guest list, only so you know rough numbers – this may then affect your choice of wedding ceremony venue, or wedding reception venue. Remember, this is only a rough list, it is not final, therefore it is not worth getting into any arguments about it!

Date
Maybe you’ve already set a date for your wedding day? Maybe there’s a special date you have in mind which means a lot to you both – an anniversary, a relation’s birthday, a bank holiday weekend? Some couples simply pick a day randomly – there’s nothing wrong with that! One Bride to be I know is hoping to secure the 12th of December 2012 – 12.12.12, now that is an anniversary your future husband/wife cannot forget. It’s a good idea to look at a sporting calendar to ensure there are no major clashes with your perfect day, you don’t want to find gentlemen rushing their wedding breakfast just to check the football score with the nearest waiter, or find a Tv. screen in the hotel somewhere.

Enjoy it
Remember to enjoy every moment, and that includes the wedding planning process – the next few months will fly by very fast.This is by no means a complete to-do list for organising a wedding, however it is meant to give you a good structure to work from.

Below are various wedding planning websites and tools,which will help you create a budget, guest list,website and more.

Wedding Wire

The Knot

Project Wedding

Free Wedding Planner Binder

Wedding Planning Worksheets 1

Wedding Planning Worksheets 2