Wedding Color Theme using Photographs

When planning a wedding, it's easy to have a color scheme or theme to help narrow down the millions of options a bit. While many people choose one or two complementary colors, I found a way to ensure colors match while allowing for more than just the traditional one or two color scheme approach. Having several complementary colors helps to add depth and interest to a wedding. However, if the colors do not match well, the event can seem disorganized and amateur.

If you are not gifted with knowing what colors match, or you are simply not in the mood to spend hours and hours to come up with a palette of complimentary colors, here's a trick I implemented that worked quite nicely. 

Flip through a magazine (fashion, nature, home, doesn't really matter) or go to Google images and look for photographs that are striking to you, and contain colors that you might like at your wedding or other event. I Googled phrases like, "stormy sea" "folk art" and "autumn leaves."Try to pick images that look professionally photographed or designed.

Next, take that image you found and pick spots of color from out of the images you have picked. Try to pick a range of bold colors, pastels, and dark colors. This is not necessary, but is a good way to ensure that your color scheme is not overwhelmingly bright (think circus) or too washed-out looking.

Above is a set of colors I chose from images I found on Google. Notice how in almost all options I have a very dark color, one that is almost white, and one or two brighter colors. I used an eyedropper tool to pick exact shades from the images, and filled rectangles with each color using a free program called Inkscape. You could also use a program like Adobe Illustrator or you can also get out crayons or colored pencils (provided you have a large pack with many colors) to create a palette for future reference and planning.

Good luck!